STACK #192 Oct 2020

MUSIC FEATURE

visit stack.com.au

across the album is astonishing; what did you learn about his approach to the instrument, and producing? The Hammond organ is kind of his signature, but he plays everything. Literally. He started off on trombone, and played on Mahalia Jackson's album when he was a teenager. He didn't have to learn – he went to university to study music after he wrote Green Onions . He knows Egyptian music, classical music. He said every single [organ] is different – it's like meeting a new person every time. He has to get to know it a little bit; there’s 600 little altered connections within [the instrument]. And, then the Leslie speaker that goes with it is a really important component, and those two things were designed separately by guys that famously hated each other. So, the way he can take an emotional thing and make [change with] the slightest tone, [it] gives you a pang of something. He talked to me a lot about lyrics; when we were playing songs he had the lyrics in front of him, and he'd look at me a lot in the booth; he would stare at me as if to say, 'Listen, I’m looking, I'm paying attention.' He was the shepherd and everybody would follow. He's a band leader, and that’s where the special magic is. The video for beautiful single Distant Axis – created by your brotherTom Berninger, and Chris Sgroi – is brilliant and hilarious; I love that there are no starscapes or wizards green-screened in; you’re just writhing around on the very obvious floor.Tell us about how it was made. My idea was that I’d be floating through the cosmos, with detritus and just stuff floating

INTERVIEW

MATT BERNINGER On his first ever solo album Serpentine Prison , the venerated voice of Grammy-winning groupThe National conjures a beauty both warm and disarmingly bittersweet, with the help of unparallelled icon Booker T. Jones. Words Zoë Radas

around, and [it ended up] looking like the worst Tim & Eric thing imaginable – and Tim & Eric is supposed to look bad, and we knew this wasn’t going to look good , but it didn’t look bad enough to look good. So we made the most of whatever we shot, and Tom edited it. At one point someone drops a billiard ball onto your face. It looks painful. I did get some minor injuries.

A song like Dolly Parton’s I Will Always Love You , it has a spoken-word confessional, right in the middle of it! That was a huge number one hit. How many songs now have that kind of spoken-word moment?

You initially intended to create an album of covers (but in the end, none of the cover material made it in). How does covering others’ songs help you understand making music? I love doing covers, but it’s often hard. It’s hard to figure out how someone captured the magic in the song. And you’re like, 'I’ve heard it a thousand times, so I should be able to play it.' So that’s what’s really interesting – it’s hard to do a cover well. Then there’s things you don’t realise. Or at least, some things that I didn’t realise. I can only learn by – I have to pull apart a motorcycle to learn how to ride one. Let me just say, I do not know how to take apart a motorcycle, or how to ride one. Never plan to. However, it’s sort of that.

Serpentine Prison by Matt Berninger is out Oct 16 via Book Records/ Caroline.

I love that part in Dolly’s version – she’s so gentle.

[Playing a cover is like] pulling apart a

It’s so real. I mean, [it’s] a genuine break- up song about a real relationship. It’s a genuine letter to an

motorcycle to learn how to ride one. Let me just say, I do not know how to take apart a motorcycle, or how to ride one

What do you dig about working with your brother? He’s lived with me for hundreds of years. He and I have never stopped working – the best time I ever have with Tom is filming some dumb, goofy thing. Tom did all my videos for EL VY, and Tom and my wife and I are making a clip in a TV show. It’s nice to have your whole team like, literally in your house sometimes...

actual person she cares about deeply, and that's why when you listen to her sing you believe her – because it

wasn't a product.

Continue to read the full interview online at stack.com.au

The emotion that (co-producer) BookerT. Jones manages to coax out of the organ

74 OCTOBER 2020

jbhifi.com.au