Two solo albums, 10 albums with his band The National, duets with pop royalty and collaborations with the coolest musicians around. Oh, and four meetings with Obama. Matt Berninger must know how good he is by now, but it doesn’t stop him being humble about it. His new outing Get Sunk is a terrific collection and not just for sad dads.

SEASON 11, EP 7: quiet legend matt berninger on life, lyrics, longevity and…baseballs

Light, fire, water, fruit, and worms; “just the basics”, are Matt Berninger’s recurring themes, and these emerge again on his second solo album Get Sunk. One of life’s sponges, Berninger is constantly observing and recording the world around him - on paper scraps, whiteboards, garageband files, notes-to-self via text messages and even on baseballs. The sketches of songs ideas, lyrics and poems are transcribed from his brain to his fingertips, ready to go when the songwriting process gets underway. Once you understand this, it’s easier to see just how the man has become prolific. Having written lyrics for not one but two albums with his band The National in 2023, his catalogue of solo works is fast developing, first album Serpentine Prison arrived in 2021 (a substantial achievement given that Berninger had some debilitating bouts of depression around the COVID period). 

After the exercise in traditional, classic song making that was Serpentine Prison, new album Get Sunk is much more an indie pop record not a million miles from The National. It even contains a surefire hit (in the parallel universe where good songs become hits), in the form of drivetime indie single Bonnet Of Pins, destined to become a firm fan favourite. Coming in at 10 tracks, Get Sunk is a lean, mean machine of well-crafted, mid-paced indie and easy on the ear ballads. It’s a consistently engaging listen, but some songs, Frozen Oranges, Little By Little, Nowhere Special really showcase Berninger’s powers. If this was the 80s, Matt Berninger would have a solo hit record on his hands and a parallel successful career as rock band frontman and solo artist. But, given this is the 21st century streaming era, he’ll have to make do with a modestly successful outlet for his prolific creativity - some half-million listeners on his Spotify profile as validation. It’s a worthwhile endeavour. Besides, having extra-curricular projects is critical to longevity - very much one of our underlying themes. 

Berninger’s core project, The National, are a rare exception to the rule of a band’s career as the proverbial rollercoaster ride. No stratospheric rise as such, more a steady climb. No ‘disintegration’ or crash to the bottom for this band, who continue to go from strength to strength it seems. They’ve never been dropped, now having made 10 albums over 25 years - all of them on the ultra-cool indie label 4AD. The band now is the original line up since the beginning and since The National is Berninger plus two sets of twins, any alternative seems unthinkable. If every band wants the career of Radiohead, then the career of The National can’t be too far behind in the dreams of young friends forming indie bands in every small corner of the world. Still, it took a minute. As Berninger quips “longevity takes a long time”...before elaborating on the early days:

“We were ignored for the first couple of records, nobody paid attention to us until Alligator and Boxer. Those records were hard fought, but by then, we had four records and so you couldn’t pin us down. Then Annie Clark (St. Vincent) and Sufjan Stephens started helping us and we grew this community in Brooklyn that became a really healthy thing for all of us”. 

Creating a body of work of some four albums before registering on the radar is the way to go, if you can get away with it. By the time High Violet came around in 2010 (and its highly successful successors Trouble Will Find Me, Sleep Well Beast), The National were a bona fide transatlantic success. More than that, however, they represent (probably along with Arctic Monkeys) how a band of the 21st century can achieve a kind of success that is, in essence, a throwback to the old world. Ask a music aficionado of a certain age which modern band gives them faith that new music can be great and there is a 50:50 chance they will throw The National at you as evidence. Despite this and maybe because of it, Berninger and his bandmates do not take their current status for granted:

“Confidence that it will continue working is still an elusive thing for all of us. We’re always on the brink of thinking “we’re done” and it’s not gonna work any more”. 

It won’t surprise Berninger fans that deep insecurity is what drives him on, but every one of them might reassure him that The National’s fan base isn’t going anywhere. With precious few lasting rock bands to love and follow, all The National has to do is carry on regardless. Surely Matt Berninger has that written on a baseball somewhere. 

Matt Berninger’s advice to aspiring bands and musicians:

“Take your time, make it delightful, meet your best friends, do shows...you have to earn your stripes in one way or another. If you are anxious you are not being discovered early enough, change your compass. Be anxious instead about enjoying yourself more”. 

Get Sunk is available on Bandcamp

the meta verse (afterword)

When Matt Berninger arrives at the studios to record this episode, it is a beautiful, bright spring day - one that couldn’t be further from the rainy London in The National song of that name. He is a big guy, Berninger, and with his uncombed hair, beard, specs and oversized wooly cardigan, has the aura of the singer-songwriter as academic - the frontman as visiting professor. Very much as you might expect him but more cheerful. He has a (BBC 6 Music) Q&A scheduled for sometime later and so the studio is ‘dressed’ with artwork from his new record Get Sunk. I take him over to a mounted wall print of the album cover and compliment him on the choice of beautiful artwork. When I ask him what species of tree the leaf is from, Matt is momentarily caught on the hop for not knowing and I catch him a few moments later Googling it, keen to fill in this little gap in his knowledge. This little act of vulnerability makes us both relax, me mostly - it’s sometimes a little nerve wracking when I get to meet my musical heroes through the humble vehicle of this podcast. I get the feeling Matt Berninger is one of life’s endlessly curious people.

We fans are the beneficiaries.