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Interview: Aaron Dessner of The National

Two sets of brothers and their foul-mouthed poet pal move from Cincinnati to the arty climbs of Brooklyn, release a couple albums, play a few shows—it's a story we've all heard before. But something strange happened after the early 2005 release of the National's third studio album, Alligator. Month by month, the record's list of devotees grew. Gradually winning over fans well into the new year, it became one of indie rock's biggest (and slowest-burning) success stories. But why such a leisurely pace? Easy—the album's charm was hidden on the third or fourth listen, so it took patience and time to realize what a complete, self-assured masterpiece Alligator truly was.

Now the National find themselves in the unenviable position of following up their monumental success with a new album, Boxer, due out May 22nd via Beggars Banquet. Just as grand as Alligator, but softened around the edges, Boxer shows us a band that has found its footing in the limelight. Last week ARTISTdirect caught up with guitarist/bassist Aaron Dessner, groggy but excited after a late-night practice in preparation for the band's upcoming tour with the Arcade Fire.

Boxer is one of the most highly anticipated indie records of this year—even in your wildest dreams, did you ever see that coming?

No, I don't think we did. We knew that Alligator sort of crept out there and gained a lot of really passionate fans. But I don't think we ever imagined how much people would be expecting and talking about our next record. It's surprising, flattering.

Definitely. So are you pleased with the way it turned out?

Yeah, we're really excited about it. Every record we make is really difficult for us. You know, people ask me when our albums are finished, but they're never really finished. You just run out of time. I think this record is our best. We feel the most strongly about it, that we've achieved something in terms of songwriting, arrangement. Honestly, I'm not even sure how we did it, how we found the right tone, and the right feeling in every song, so it feels really magical to us.

When you say every record is really difficult for you guys, what do you mean?

I think we're a bit of an odd band, because it's a true democracy and a true collaborative group. We're all really obsessive music listeners, and I think it's hard for us to write songs that we all believe in, and we can feel excited about. Also, it takes us a long time to discover the songs. You know, I write a lot of music and I give it to Matt. My brother writes a lot of music and he gives it to Matt, and he develops lyrical ideas. But it takes a long time, even once there are lyrical ideas, to put a song together with an arrangement and drums and the orchestral elements. We throw away a lot more than we finish. There were probably 50 songs we were trying to write for Boxer—12 that we could agree on.

So you never put a song on a record that all of you can't 100 percent get behind?

Well, people have their lines in the sand. It's funny what happens when you're finishing a record—people take their different corners and we fight it out. Cause there were some really good songs that we left off this album that we couldn't agree on.

So where are they, the rest of the songs? What happens to the 38 you scrap?

Well, a lot of them never got past just being music—there weren't lyrics. So we kind of hold on to those, and eventually I think Matt might start working on some of them. We definitely have material that'll go toward the next album. There are two songs that are b-sides right now—one that's called "Santa Clara," one that's called "Blank Slate," and there's another one that's called "You've Done It Again, Virginia." We recorded that last one a few years ago in Paris, a really stripped-down version. We did a new version of that that was maybe going to go on the album. But then we decided to use it for this charity compilation that my brother and I are putting together for the Red Hot organization, an AIDS charity.

Who else is going to be involved in the compilation?

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