When most reach a plateau of success in the rock and roll world, they rest. For Bryce Dessner, part of the popular indie rock group The National, he couldn’t be more energized. Dessner recently completed the tenth version of his own MusicNOW Festival in Cincinnati, a festival that brought together like-minded musicians for a one-of-a-kind weekend of collaborations. The National performed with the Cincinnati Symphony and Dessner himself collaborated with the likes of Arcade Fire’s Richard Reed Parry, the Kronos Quartet, Nico Muhly and more. I caught up with Dessner to reflect on ten years and finally get some answers about that mysterious Grateful Dead tribute album. On May 9 and 10, Dessner will curate Mountains and Waves a weekend of music in London.
The National has been active on Instagram over the last couple of weeks sharing updates from the studio as you guys record the long-awaited Grateful Dead tribute album. How is that coming along?
Yeah, we’re pretty deep into it. Tracks are coming together, and we did some sessions up at this amazing—it’s called Dreamland Studio in upstate New York. So we’re looking to wrap that up in May, I think. There’s a bunch of exciting tracks that are happening, and we’re just now getting singers done and some of the mixing happening. So yeah, it’s going well.
From a musician’s viewpoint, what has it been like to dig into that catalog of music?
I mean, it’s impressive what the Grateful Dead did musically. In general, the compilation is really focusing on the great songs, you know, the songwriting element. The legacy of the Dead is so vast, and their influence is so important. What we’ve been trying to do is really focus on some of the more surprising types of people that you maybe wouldn’t necessarily think would be Dead fans, but very much are. And so we’ve been inviting really different types of bands and different types of songwriters, guitarists, whatnot.
Once you kind of skim the surface of the Dead catalogue, the bar is pretty high as far as getting inside the music, because they were an incredible live band. So we’ve spent time really trying to be faithful to certain things about some of the arrangements and live arrangements—but it’s not a cover band, so we’re not doing it in a direct, kind of tribute way. We’re trying to kind of incorporate elements of what made them so great, but also to make new versions of songs.
A couple years ago, my brother, Aaron, Bryan [Devendorf], Scott [Devendorf] and some other of our collaborators—a guy named Josh Kaufman, who’s also involved in the Dead record—went out and did a big set at the TRI Studios with Bob Weir, and since then we’ve had Bob Weir join The National at Outside Lands—actually, the day we opened for Paul McCartney—and then again at Berkeley’s Greek Theatre. So we’ve worked directly with Bob a bit. And, like I said, it’s not a purist approach, but basically the musicians involved all really know the songs—not just the songs, but the ins and outs of some of the more elaborate musical sections that they would do. So we’re trying to do it in a way that feels fresh and that is faithful but also kind of makes a departure and goes somewhere new. You know, obviously it sounds more like us than it does them.
Did I read this right—your sister Jessica was nominated for a Grammy for the Grateful Dead’s Spring 1990 (The Other One) box set? [Jessica Dessner was nominated for her artwork]
That is right. She didn’t win. Jack White won. But she should have won. [Laughs]
MusicNOW at ten years. Festivals don’t usually make it to ten years these days—is that a point of pride for you?
When I started it, I really felt that I wanted to kind of stick with it. You gotta stick with something to grow it into something and people start to understand it, or it to have some kind of identity. It’s easy in the music world to start a band for a year or two, especially in the contemporary music world, to start a kind of ensemble or something, but it’s a lot harder to stick around. So, myself and the people that have worked on it in Cincinnati, we all felt like we wanted to make it something substantial. And I think that we also really love it. It’s a great kind of communion of a moment where we all come together, and it’s a bit of a celebration of music and feels like a great punctuation to the year to go home to Cincinnati and do the festival. So ten years, it’s interesting to make it ten years of the festival—I think The National’s probably been around for fifteen years, a bit more maybe. So it’s interesting, as you start to get a bit older, of course we reflect on that.
I liked your quote about the festival where you said it’s a “creative refuge for artists.” How important is the collaborative aspect for you?
Because MusicNOW exists in a smaller, regional city, and it’s out of the mainstream media spotlight—and also its size, it’s an intimate festival that we only do—probably over the whole weekend we’ll sell five-six-thousand tickets, something like that, and it used to be much smaller—it allows for artists to come in and collaborate and to try—we always have a couple new commissions, which are usually in the kind of contemporary classical range, there’s very often works in progress, artists who’ve never played together working on a new set of songs or whatever it is.
Basically, people feel comfortable taking risks. I think that’s a combination of the size of the festival and the fact that it’s not New York, London or LA. And then on top of that, the fact that it’s very much artist-run—I’m there kind of facilitating the whole time—helps people feel comfortable. And that’s what makes it unique as a festival. You know, when we started, it might’ve been a fairly progressive kind of festival. Now there’s lots of opportunities like it, but what remains special is its size and the kind of artist-friendly feeling that MusicNOW has.
Does it help that this is an artist-curated festival?
I think so. I think the music industry is a business, so when you’re playing even in the most friendly way, sometimes if it’s a bigger festival, it’s very much a kind of—you know, those artists really live off the finances involved in big festivals, it’s how a lot of artists survive, right? So MusicNOW exists outside of that framework. It’s less about your big summer play and more about your creative development of “what do you want to do?” Not necessarily what fans want to hear, what songs off your record that your label wants you to promote—it’s definitely not that.
So we often get artists who are off-tour, who don’t have a new release, who are coming in because they want to, and they have an idea they want to try. Like when Bon Iver—he’s been a few times—when he first came, I said, “You know, you don’t even need to sing. You can come and do an electronic set or whatever you want to do.” And I think that sort of openness about it is part of what helps people feel like it’s a good environment to take risks.
I wanted to ask you about a couple people there, the first being Richard Reed Parry. His latest project, Music for Heart and Breath, is a really innovative way to approach classical music. What did you think of that?
Richard is an artist. He’s a good example of somebody that’s benefitted, I think, from having MusicNOW in his life. I think all but one of those pieces were commissioned for the festival, or premiered at the festival. And it was at a time, obviously, when Arcade Fire was at the height of busyness and getting much bigger as a band. And so for someone like Richard, who has a very diverse artistic life—he’s one of the most interesting people I know and extremely talented. Not only is he writing pretty interesting contemporary music, but he’s also a fantastic songwriter himself, which we’ve presented at the festival as well.
What’s interesting about Music for Heart and Breath is it’s a deeply natural and kind of organic approach to music that actually hasn’t been done before, which is really surprising, if you think about it. It’s so fundamental, the heartbeat and breath, so to base rhythms around that is really special. What I would say about Richard’s music is that while it’s conceptually very interesting, it’s also both harmonically and melodically really stunning. Most of the melodies you can sing. And I think when he’s writing, he does sing them. There’s a certain accessibility about it that is surprising in contemporary music—that it’s both quite rigorous in how when writes it, but then it has this kind of effervescence about it, musically, that is what makes it so appealing.
Is there a central connection between rock guitarists drifting over to the world of classical music and composition? Yourself, Richard Reed Parry and Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood have all been involved with the genre over the years.
I mean, I’m classically trained—I’m actually at Yale teaching for three days—which is where I went to school, at the Yale School of Music. So I have that background, as does Jonny—Jonny grew up playing classical viola; I grew up playing flute and then playing classical guitar. And that all predated being in a band. It’s not that I decided to start kind of repping classical music. You know, Richard is educated more in kind of conceptual art and electronic music and that type of stuff, and I think for him it’s a more diverse kind of approach. He a really kind of versatile musician, he’s all over the place doing interesting things. The appeal is—I feel like that world is quite open to ambitious music, and when you’re in—think of it like this: for me, the rock band is my family, it’s the closest thing to me, and obviously the power of those songs is something that, you know, it would be rare for a piece of contemporary music to match that. People are really moved by songwriting, and that’s essential to music and to everything I’m doing.
The contemporary world is a different place. It has good and bad things about it. The good things are that the musicians are incredible, so you get to work with really interesting string players or brass players or orchestras or conductors. For instance, the orchestra conductor that we’re working with, Louis Langrée, is amazing—one of the best conductors in the world. So he’s just a super interesting musician to work with. And it’s very ambitious. Even some of the big pieces in the canon of classical music, at the time, they were totally lightning rod moments, so really pushing the dial forward, musically.
I think the appeal is the kind of risk taking at the vanguard of that culture. Obviously, there’s elitist things about the classical world that are a bit more of a turn off. You know, certain things about it can be fairly closed, by comparison. But I think it’s also decidedly non-commercial, which, if you’re playing in a band and you’re kind of exposed to all the heavy types of marketing and all the things you have to do to make a living, it’s a refreshing kind of refuge to be in—an artistic or more poetic space.
When I spoke with Richard, he used the word “vital” to describe his involvement in classical music. As if it balances out the hectic world of rock and roll. Do you feel that too?
Yeah, I mean I think it’s a little bit different for Richard and I. I used that word, “poetic.” For me, it’s a very personal music that I write. I’m in a collaborative rock band that’s a beautiful alchemy of five individuals, but sometimes you need that space of really getting your idea really clear on the page, you know? So for me, that’s what it is. For you, as a journalist, you write more investigative pieces, but then maybe you write fiction or something—you have a different outlet. And that’s what it is, just a different outlet.
The other group I wanted to ask you about is The Lone Bellow. Aaron produced their new record and you had some involvement in that. They also played at MusicNOW and several others in the National family. What do you like about them?
My brother produced that record and did a really great job for it. I did the arrangements, the orchestrations on the first five songs, I think. “Then Came The Morning” was the big one, which I really had fun with, kind of referencing, like, Astral Weeks, Van Morrison. I think they’re just the real deal, you know? They have that kind of southern roots sound, and it’s actually—you get a lot of bands, sort of revivalist bands that are doing that, you know, English bands that might be sounding American or whatever—and I think, actually, Lone Bellow, they come from that part of the world. So they grew up singing that way, and they just blow the roof off when they perform. I think they’ve really got it, you know, as far as performers and songwriters. I think the record is really good, and I think that Aaron did a great job with it. We’ve never had anything quite like that at MusicNOW—the music is usually kind of geared further off-course—so I think it’s gonna be really exciting to have a kind of full-hearted, full-throated song at the festival.
You’re busy right now, but what’s next for you? Anything you want to do that you haven’t done yet?
I mean, I’m obviously busy, so I think I wouldn’t mind dialing that back a bit. We started to write new songs with The National again, so we’ve been in the studio a little bit, and I think that’s really important to all of us—that we push forward and find a new sound for the band. I think it’s gonna be exciting, so I’m looking forward to that. And then, I mean, I’m gonna keep writing. I’ve got a lot of music in me, so the classical stuff is just kind of pouring out, and I have enough opportunities to do that. Really it’s just about managing my time and finding some down time to actually think.
With The National, is it refreshing to reconvene after all having been involved in your respective side projects?
I think that depends on the band, you know, like The National’s really a collaborative band where we each contribute. And even in a band like Arcade Fire or Radiohead, with Thom Yorke and Win Butler, those guys collaborate with the others, but they also write on their own, they’re writing a lot of the ideas with an instrument or whatever. In The National, where we are the sum of the parts, something about being a collaborative band, it helps to collaborate outside of the band. That’s sort of been the approach. It helps to open the windows a bit and get fresh air, especially with a successful, a moderately successful band. Egos start to inflate easily, I think. And we’re very self-deprecating, so we try to avoid that, but I think when bands become successful and they start to have a career and whatnot, that’s when there’s the danger of repeating oneself or things becoming stale.
It’s been helpful to make music with other people, to do it in a much smaller setting. Maybe it’s not popular music, or people aren’t necessarily coming out in droves to hear it. I think, for me anyway, that’s also been my kind of role in the band, like bringing in new collaborators and sort of new ideas and whatnot. And we all do that in our own way, Bryan and Scott as well. So I think it is a good thing. You have to be a little careful that the side projects don’t overwhelm—you know, we still prioritize the band. When the band needs to work or needs to be in the studio, that’s priority number one.
