David Furst: This is All Of It on WNYC. I'm David Furst filling in for Alison Stewart. Today is the release day for Matt Berninger's second solo album, Get Sunk. Let's hear a little bit. This is a bit of the song Bonnet Of Pins.

[MUSIC - Matt Berninger: Bonnet Of Pins]

David Furst: Get Sunk comes five years after Berninger's debut solo album, and of course, after many, many releases with his band, The National, including two full length LPs in 2023. Matt Berninger is on his first solo tour. He's going to be at Webster Hall tonight and Rough Trade Below tomorrow night. Right here, he is here with us in the studio for an All Of It listening party. Matt, welcome to All Of It.

Matt Berninger: Thanks, thanks. Thanks, David.

David Furst: Get Sunk, it's out today. This is your second solo album. Your first was Serpentine Prison in 2020. Was this always the plan? Did you know there was going to be a second one?

Matt Berninger: No, not right away. I actually didn't even know there was going to be a first one. Serpentine Prison started out as I wanted to make a covers record. I'd collected all these songs I wanted to cover. Then I reached out to Booker T. Jones, who produced Stardust, the Willie Nelson's covers.

David Furst: The Booker T. Jones?

Matt Berninger: Yes. I had met him because he had me sing on one of his records a long time ago here in New York, and I met him there. Anyway, Serpentine Prison, started out as a covers record in the vibe of Stardust, but then working with Booker and Sean O'Brien, and I had also been writing all these songs with friends from other bands and old friends. That record, we just switched to originals while we were cooking it. Booker really thought we should just focus on the originals, and he was right, so Serpentine Prison was that kind of a thing.

I was really excited to tour that record. I put together a whole touring band, including Sean O'Brien and everybody who I've been working with ever since to tour Serpentine Prison, but on came the lockdown and everything, and so I couldn't tour Serpentine Prison. This band I put together to do it, we would get together in the studio and with masks on and all that. Even in the middle when they had the separation police and everything like that, and we just started cooking some songs, almost right after Serpentine Prison came out.

That started a first batch of things that I eventually abandoned sort of, and then went back and worked on National stuff. Then wrote a whole bunch of new stuff in the past two years and then went back to that old stuff. Together, all that has become Get Sunk.

David Furst: You've talked about dealing with depression during the pandemic. In 2023, you spoke with David Letterman about depression and said, "There's nothing wrong with water until you're under it." Can you talk about that idea and how perhaps it connects to Get Sunk?

Matt Berninger: I've probably used water metaphors a 1,000 times in songs, and I'll probably come up with a few more during this interview. Water, it's almost like fire, earth or wind or air or sky or something that it's so elemental that it can apply to so many things. I don't know why. I stare at water a lot. I used to live by the ocean in Venice for 10 years. I've always just been one of those people that just stares into puddles and loves the rain and all that kind of stuff. Oddly, I wrote the song that includes the get sunk phrase and all that stuff.

David Furst: This is Times of Difficulty.

Matt Berninger: Times of Difficulty, which is the last song on the record. I started that song four or five years ago before my depression ever kicked in. I've always been writing about anxiety and depression and all that kind of stuff from the beginning, but I'd never actually experienced the level of depression I did in 2023, and that was where I really connected with David Letterman. He's become a fan from a long time ago. We met and he came up to me. He came to a show, and the first thing he wanted to talk about was depression because he'd read some things I'd said about it.

He came to my house and we talked about it for a whole bunch. I've been talking about that experience now for a couple of years, and I've got no problem talking about it. It was really enlightening. Also, when you get other people's perspective on how it was for them. This Get Sunk record, it represents like two sides of the thinking, like the before brain, and then the after brain of my perspective, I think, of having been where I was, then lost all my confidence and was just consumed by fear and anxiety and overwhelmed by everything, ad then climbing out of it.

The climbing out of it was what the last two national records were. That tour, that was all the process of me coming out of that weird place. Get Sunk, though, it has perspective on all of that.

David Furst: The whole arc?

Matt Berninger: Yes, I took some time to go back and try to really think, how did I get to that spot where I fell apart? Then now what do I know about myself? I was writing a lot about way back, but a lot through the perspective of having recently lost all my confidence, lost all my talent, lost all my capability of doing anything. It was weird. When it all goes away, you think it'll never come back. That was what was really interesting with David too, and talking to him. He said to the doctor, he was like, "It typically lasts about a year."

Just having somebody say, "It's normal. Like a bad flu, depression can just linger, but it will go away." He said that was the one thing I held onto and it just took time, and I agree with that. Sometimes the medications don't do a whole lot. They did a little bit for me. They raised the floor, but it was just a slow process of just re-acclimating yourself to yourself and what you're supposed to be in the world.

David Furst: Let's hear a little bit of that song. This is the piece that finishes the album. It's called Times of Difficulty.

[MUSIC - Matt Berninger: Times of Difficulty]

David Furst: Great song, Times of Difficulty. What about that phrase, "In times of tears get sunk," where does that come from?

Matt Berninger: The times of thing is I saw, it was the Kansas state motto is Ad Astra per Aspera, which is Latin for in times of difficulty, look to the stars. It goes way back, too. The British Air Force has the same phrase, per ardua ad astra. Different versions of Latin of when things are terrible, look to the stars. I'm a stargazer. When you contemplate your place, our place, the Earth's place in the universe, like what am I? The time we have that we're all just stardust, we're all just matter, and trees, our things are all just the same components as our bodies and our--

When I hear that phrase in times of difficulty, look at the stars, it's like, remember, you're just one little, tiny, tiny, but very significant piece of a continuum, but then back when Kansas was called it, that they were choosing to go with the south or the north. They chose to go the union, the stars. They wanted to be one of the stars on the flag. It has a double entendre even back then, and I really loved that.

David Furst: We can all get our own ideas from something that we hear.

Matt Berninger: Kansas had to make a choice. Slave states are free states. They decided to be a free state, and they made it their state motto. I find that inspiring. The song, Times of Difficulty, is about now, but it's a much more a global human thing of trying to understand our place in the universe and why we're here.

David Furst: I also think of in times of tears get sunk as not avoiding feelings. It almost sounds like you're letting them overwhelm you but not avoiding them.

Matt Berninger: Yes, times of shame, forget all the things. Sometimes, you're not going to be able to solve your problems. Sometimes you have to just be there with them, and just stay around through it. The clouds, it'll change.

David Furst: Sometimes talking about music and lyrics can be or could be an exercise in removing the mystery of music to say, "Oh, this song is about one specific thing. This is exactly what I was thinking about, as opposed to perhaps it's a jumble of ideas and feelings and images." When you--

Matt Berninger: In Latin. That's the only Latin influence on the whole album, I promise.

David Furst: When you emerge from a process like this of creating art and you suddenly have to talk about the process, is that a weird moment?

Matt Berninger: I like it. When I think a song is finished, it's not resolved. It's perfectly unresolved. It's just blurry enough that it gives you a good sense of truth, whatever that is, but it doesn't connect all the dots. It doesn't fill in every color and that allows you to become-- The song becomes you. All my favorite songs, like R.E.M. songs or just the slipperiness of words, I think are really important. Me talking about these songs, it's still an abstract thing for me a little bit. There isn't an answer. None of the songs are about a thing. I would say all the songs are all about the same thing.

David Furst: I got to hear another song.

Matt Berninger: Yes, go ahead. [crosstalk]

David Furst: We are playing music from Matt Berninger. Berninger's new album, Get Sunk. I have to play this one. I love the song, No Love. Let's just listen to a clip.

[MUSIC - Matt Berninger: No Love]

David Furst: No Love, I get chills listening to this song. This is just a great piece. Who's the woman singing with you here?

Matt Berninger: Julia Laws, also known as Ronboy, sings on eight of the songs on this record. Julia plays keyboards, plays bass, and has been a part of the band for five years. The four people that are my band or five, including Kyle Resnick from The National on Brass, but it's Julia Laws, Sean O'Brien, Garrett Lang on bass, and Sterling Laws on drums. The five of us have been working on these songs for five years. This is the first time we get to play them live. It's been great.

David Furst: You're maintaining these collaborations for the tour?

Matt Berninger: Yes, yes, yes. Everybody, all four of those guys. Kyle Resnick is not with us right now, but hopefully soon. Julia Romboy is featured on a song called Silver Jeep. Julia's most of the vocals, other than me. There's a little bit of Kyle Resnick singing. Then Hand Habits of Meg Duffy is on a song too, called Breaking Into Acting. They play guitar all over the record too. It was a collaborative thing but a pretty small group this time.

David Furst: A collaborative thing, but a pretty small group. I got to ask you about this, too. You're closing some shows with cover songs.

Matt Berninger: Yes.

David Furst: Radiohead's Kid A, Nirvana's All Apologies. These are some iconic selections.

Matt Berninger: We just did Blue Monday on Wednesday. We called it Blue Wednesday. It was good. It was good.

David Furst: Does it feel good to include cover songs in this album?

Matt Berninger: Yes, I'm trying to cover songs that I shouldn't cover. That there's no way you're going to be able to-- Is it thankless? You're going to just be humiliated. Kid A was really funny. In fact, Kid A, I sent it to the band as a joke. I had all these songs I wanted to cover, but I sent them 20 songs, and we still had to learn two albums worth of our own songs to do.

David Furst: You got to take care of your own songs.

Matt Berninger: Then I come in the next day for rehearsals before a show, and all of a sudden I hear Kid A coming. Then I have to learn how to do it because they took my challenge. Same thing with Nirvana. We've been doing Tom Petty. We did Tom Waits, (Looking for) The Heart of Saturday Night.

David Furst: Oh, my gosh.

Matt Berninger: Which is maybe my favorite song of all time. I'm like, "Let's do my favorite song." That was really scary, but it was so fun. Even Blue Monday. I've danced drunk to that song a 1,000 times. Then I'm sitting there reading the lyrics, and I didn't know what 75% of the words were.

David Furst: This is the way it is with a lot of music, right?

Matt Berninger: Oh, really? Yes. I'm literally learning the words to All Apologies. There's a great line he says about his nest of salt. I was like, "Did I steal the whole I should live in salt from that song? His nest of salt, what the hell does it mean?

David Furst: You can feel all of your influences.

Matt Berninger: I think he was just trying to rhyme something with fault, but it's so great. Kurt Cobain, man, his lyrics, I don't even-- He's such a great songwriter. What a songwriter? Everything else is just his songs, his lyrics alone. What an incredible writer?

David Furst: It's so great to get to talk to you today. Are you looking forward to these live shows? You're playing tonight at Webster hall tonight.

Matt Berninger: Tonight, yes, I can't wait. I love Webster Hall so much. No, and I love New York. I live close to New York again, so I get to take the train down. I get to go home tonight. Actually, I don't get to go home tonight. Family's coming here. Yes, I'm having so much fun. Thanks.

David Furst: We're going to go out on one more song. We're going to hear a little bit of Inland Ocean, the opening track. Matt Berninger playing two shows in Manhattan tonight and tomorrow. You're at Webster Hall tonight, Rough Trade Below tomorrow night. The new album is Get Sunk. Thank you so much for joining us today.

Matt Berninger: Thanks, David.

[MUSIC - Matt Berninger: Inland Ocean]