National frontman takes a busman’s holiday with El Vy
Matt Berninger side project was an antidote for pressures of non-stop touring lifestyle
Clearly, Matt Berninger has different ideas of relaxation than most.
When the National frontman finally staggered away from 18 months of relentless touring behind that beloved Cincinnati indie-rock outfit’s 2013 album Trouble Will Find Melast November, he immediately kicked off his holiday by starting a new band and making a new record.
Well, not that new. Berninger and longtime friend Brent Knopf (of Ramona Falls and Menomena notoriety) have been covertly working for five years on many idiosyncratic pop tunes, gathered on their debut album as El Vy, Back to the Moon. They didn’t know exactly what they were working on, but this time last year they decided that it was too good not to finish.
“There was no pressure attached to it or schedule attached to it, and that’s why it kind of stayed a joy the whole time,” says Berninger from Los Angeles. “Even though we were kind of working on it on the back burner, I’d be on tour with the National and I just kept going back and tinkering, and I’d really fallen in love with these songs, even though half the songs from that point didn’t even make the final record.”
Those songs are considerably more whimsical, loose-limbed and funky — albeit in a nerdy, almost anti-funky manner — than National fans are used to, although Berninger’s dark wit is intact in the lyrics. He might be the “name” in the band, but he’s completely deferred to producer/multiinstrumentalist Knopf’s quirks on the instrumental side.
Both audibly appear to be enjoying the process on Return to the Moon; the album splatters the wall with ev- erything from disco to Krautrock to doleful piano balladry during its 11 tracks.
There’s even a half-serious “accidental concept” linking the tunes — some of it inspired by Berninger’s youth in Cincinnati, some of it by the friendship between Mike Watt and D. Boon of the Minutemen — but even the author urges you not to probe too deeply.
El Vy basically just did everything at once for the hell of it.
“I’ve been learning to enjoy making records much more than I used to,” says Berninger. “It used to be hard. It was a struggle. I loved it, but I was filled with anxiety. It’s still hard and it’s still a struggle, but the anxiety is gone . . . I’ve learned how to just throw away stuff that I’m not interested in, and not be precious about it or anything.”
Berninger and Knopf are taking El Vy on the road for a short tour that includes a sold-out stop at Toronto’s Opera House on Tuesday and then it’s right back to work on the next National record for Berninger.
Apparently, it’s sufficiently under way that the band is already making plans to debut the songs live next spring or summer to road-test them before recording.
Berninger stresses that El Vy should not be misconstrued as an “escape” from his day job. He’s still very happy at work.
“I’m so satisfied by the National on a creative level and actually we all are getting along very well now,” he says. “What it was an escape from was the lifestyle that surrounds the National: after-show parties and bars and clubs, and just parties, parties, parties, parties.
“And not only that, this helped me stay kind of emotionally connected to the world in a different way. Touring for months at a time, you start to lose your grip and you start to drift into some bizarro mental place that ain’t good. So this thing kind of kept me connected to myself, I guess.”