About Matt Berninger: Matthew Donald Berninger is a Cincinnati native, Brooklyn based singer/songwriter, primarily known as the frontman of indie rock band The National.
Leonard Cohen and Nick Cave know best. Although I wear a lot of jeans, I've been told that Nick Cave doesn't own a pair and wouldn't be caught dead in denim.
The same song can have drastically different feels and personalities just by changing some minor things. A different drumbeat or some vocal overdub could completely transform the song.
A lot of my lyrics are approximate meaning without me knowing why they sound right.
I don't play an instrument. I pretend. I try to.
A person with grace is somebody who's socially graceful or is a classy person, but sometimes you just feel the opposite of that, and you just feel like a jerk and a loser and a weirdo.
Sometimes you have to wear what you want.
I'm a stubborn guy that loses his temper, sometimes driving the station wagon in the wrong direction for hours and hours and never admitting that he's gone the wrong way.
I watched R.E.M. connect with the back row of a 50,000-seat venue.
Once you do have a child, you want to talk about every detail of it. And it is really boring to all your friends, and it should be. I was really worried about even going there at all.
Usually, writing lyrics for me is like bleeding drop by drop from the forehead.
'Alligator' was the first record that anyone paid attention to, and it seemed like it was the screamy songs that got us that attention.
I do a lot of editing and switching around and putting little pieces together to get the right mood and personality, and it takes me forever to get a song finished.
The truth is, I'm pretty lighthearted.
Getting on stage and performing and standing under lights is such an unsettling experience - in a good and bad way - but it's the only place I can go to feel comfortable.
At first, when 'Boxer' came out, people were a little let down, and we worried that it might be the end for us. But then it began to grow on people. 'Boxer' bought us our creative freedom.
My favourite store? Seize Sur Vingt in New York. They make most of my suits, and they are really cool people.
A lot of the lyrics I write involve images that just swing the song in a way that feels really good to me and there isn't a literal explanation. They're not riddles for the listener to solve.
When it comes to lyrics, I just write down a lot of things, and only a very tiny fraction of it, I think, is any good.
Lyrics need to be good, but they don't need to be obvious right away.
A suit is a sign of respect.
