Switched on Pop - From Taylor Swift to Bon Iver, Aaron Dessner Finds Meaning in Musical Community

Episode Date: September 7, 2021

On August 27th Big Red Machine, the joint musical project of Justin Vernon and Aaron Dessner - artists known for their work as Bon Iver and in the rock band The National, respectively - returned with new music. You’ve most definitely heard Dessner’s production work elsewhere, like on Taylor Swift’s pandemic albums evermore and folklore. The Big Red Machine album, titled How Long Do You Think it's Going to Last, celebrates the fruits of creative partnership and the importance of family and community. At least, that’s what we took from our conversation with Dessner. “A lot of my favorite music - usually there's something elusive about it, in that whatever is elusive is coming from this weird cocktail of different people's input. There's just this weird, swampy alchemy, and you can't easily put your finger on why it's so moving.”  Dessner told us he draws much of his creative inspiration from the kinetic energy generated by multiple musical brains working in tandem, which makes sense given the list of features on this album - everyone from Swift to Sharon van Etten to Anaïs Mitchell to The Fleet Foxes’ Robin Pecknold. “I'm such a born collaborator. I'm definitely interested in this exchange where you make something and you send it out into the ether and then it comes back slightly changed or radically changed. Then you work on it and send it again. I like this handoff, this communal approach to music making.” The musical collective fostered by Vernon and Dessner on How Long Do You Think It's Going to Last is a testament to the power of musical communities in a year of intense isolation. We’re so pleased to bring you Nate’s conversation with Aaron Dessner in this week’s episode. Songs Discussed Big Red Machine - Birch, feat. Taylor Swift Big Red Machine - Phoenix, feat. Fleet Foxes & Anaïs Mitchell Big Red Machine - Magnolia Big Red Machine - Renegade, feat. Taylor Swift Big Red Machine - Mimi, feat. Ilsey Big Red Machine - The Ghost of Cincinnati Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If you're tired of endless scrolling to figure out where to eat, same. I'm Stephanie Wu, editor-in-chief of Eater. We've just launched the new-ish and way better Eater app. It has all the restaurants we love, gives you personalized picks wherever you are, and serves up smarter search results just for you. You can find my list of the best places for martinis and fries in New York City. And save your favorite spots, share lists, follow editors, and book right in the app. the Eater app at Eaterapp.com. It's free for iOS users. A couple weeks ago on August 27th, which

also happens to be my colleague Charlie Harding's birthday, many happy returns to you, my friend. On that Friday, the music world got not one, but two long-awaited albums from artists who have dramatically shaped the sound of the pop canon over the last decade. One from churches. We'll be discussing next week on our show. The other is from the group known as Big, Red Machine, the joint effort from Bonnevere's Justin Vernon and the Nationals Aaron Desner. Both of these albums tackle twin poles of human existence. Churches, screen violence, is all about isolation, separation, and disassociation, while the Big Red Machine album, titled How Long Do You Think It's Going to Last, seems to celebrate the fruits of creative partnership

and the importance of family and community. This week I'm thrilled to be speaking with Big Red machines, Aaron Dessner, about their new album and about the musical pathways that present themselves when you open yourself up to collaboration. How long do you think it's going to last is a testament to the power of musical communities in a year of intense isolation. It features everyone from Taylor Swift to Sharon Van Etton, Anaeus Mitchell, and the Fleet Fox's Robin Pecknell. I'm so excited to break down some of the music on this record and learn the stories behind how it came to be. Aaron Dessner, welcome to the show.

Thanks so much. Thanks for having me. Aaron, I'm looking forward to digging into some of the music on the new album from Big Red Machine. And I'd love to start with a song called Birch. If you cannot tell, if I stay a spell, if I cannot stay, I am less at ease. This song features, see the forest trees, call what's these what's these. This song features one of our favorite musicians, the pop Grand Dame Taylor Swift. Tell me about this track and how it came together. So the way it works with a lot of the Big Red Machine songs, or all of them actually,

I make the music first, and then I sent Justin the instrumental track, and he wrote the vocal melody. and the words. He's also the co-writer and co-producer of Taylor Swift's albums, folklore, and Evermore. And I don't even know what that interval is. The first note he sings, is it a sixth or a flat sixth? You know, something, it's really a beautiful,

kind of like unusual choice, but it's just, it becomes, it's just the perfect rub. I wrote the music when I wasn't doing so well. It was, I think, the fall of, 2019 or maybe 18, but I think 2019. And I don't know, I was like having a seasonal low. And we've become, we're very good friends. And I think he could feel that.

I should say, like the song started actually with Brian Devendorf, the drummer of the national. And then the song just went through different iterations. Like my brother orchestrated it at some point. And Taylor Swift heard it and loved it so much. And she added her vocals towards the end of when We were making folklore. And, yeah, it just kind of really is what a special song.

I feel like the process you're describing speaks to the deeply collaborative nature of this project. Why is collaboration so important to you? I mean, to be honest, I'm such a born collaborator. Like, I feel like I'm almost always bouncing off people or kind of sharing ideas. I'm definitely interested in this sort of, I don't know, exchange of where you make something and you send it out into the ether and then it comes back slightly changed or radically changed. Then you work on it and send it again. And, you know, I like this kind of handoff and this communal sort of approach to music making. A lot of my favorite

music, usually there's something elusive about it in that whatever is elusive is coming from this weird cocktail of like different people's input. Whether it's like, you know, time out of mind the Dylan album and you can hear like two different people soloing in either ear and they're like don't doesn't seem to be coordinator but there's just this weird like swampy alchemy or like I mean all the music of the Grateful Dead that I love you can't easily put your finger on like what why it's so moving or why it's so viscerally like brings to mine I can smell what it was like when I first heard a certain bootleg or something but it does that for me what you're describing seems to result in music that often surprises me as I listen. And I think this track, Birch,

is a great example. It's almost a mash-up of different styles. There's a drumbeat that I would describe as kind of skittering and propulsive. And then there's a very placid piano line. And then somewhere in between a kind of guttural vocal from Justin. I'm curious, is there an element of surprise from collaboration that keeps you coming back to this method? Yeah, I think it's a way to grow. Something like Brian's skittering beat, it's just I wouldn't have made that beat, but like it caused me to kind of play in the way that I did against it. And I'm sort of playing this slightly odd rhythm on the right hand of the piano.

And there's also these bass lines and guitar melodies that I play. that kind of sliced through it all. And eventually we took all of it and fed it through this almost AI software, this artificial intelligence patch that someone, our friend Ryan Olson, is developing. It samples audio and then you can, it like randomly re-sequences it for you into these randomized patterns. And then you can go into that and find your favorite loops and kind of weave that into the tracks. So you hear that like this sort of, you know,

hear it at different points, like the wheel is falling off or something. To me, I don't know what rabbit hole I've gotten down, but it feels new or something. It feels like, at least I'm making music that to me feels like it's pushing somewhere beyond what maybe I have done before. But not to say, I'm like breaking new ground generally, but for me, you know, it's a fun process. Hearing some of your insights into the creative process helps me understand some of the emotional valances of this record which are a really interesting mix kind of taking either end of the emotional spectrum

I think and putting them together in the same song I think that's true of another song like Phoenix which features Robin Pecknold Anaeus Mitchell and the Westerly's Brass Quartet I'm curious when you're putting these songs together what kind of emotional reaction are you hoping a listener will get from this material? I'm always writing for an emotional place, and sometimes the emotions are sort of cryptic or elusive,

and other times it's sort of, I'm literally trying to soothe myself or express anger or express happiness or whatever it is. But I would say Phoenix, maybe it's happiness, or it's like the joy you feel of playing music with your friends. When I wrote the music to that song, I was literally thinking about going to visit, my friend, Justin, because I wrote it a day before flying to Wisconsin in the middle of the pandemic. I think I was just thinking of what it feels like when we're like sitting around a

bonfire having some beers. So that's the sound it's supposed to conjure. What you hear Robin singing about is actually the only conversation he's ever had with Justin in person. So like was on a loading bayline. a doc and a venue in Phoenix, Arizona, backstage when Bonnevere and Fleet Foxes played a show together 10 years ago. And so it was just this kind of cool thing. They still haven't, you know, seen each other in person since then, I don't think. I love Robin's voice and I love Fleet Foxes. And the idea of having them together on a song was really special or exciting.

It felt like, I don't know, our version of. the last waltz or something or like, you know, what if, what if we don't make any more songs? Let's get a big crew together and make a big warm sendoff. That was kind of what I was thinking about. And then Anais Mitchell rewrote the chorus words at some point to sort of like respond more to what Robin was singing about. I was trying to find my way. I was thinking my mind was me, but you were making more change I can hear that idea of sparking a conversation because there's almost an element of dialogue in a lot of these songs, or an imagined dialogue. There's a questioning in a lot of these songs.

In Phoenix, we have, how do you reckon your own power? On Hutch, we ask, how did you lose your way? What can you tell me now? On New Auburn, who are you to listen? Who are you to care? There's this theme of questioning. and maybe being okay with having them be open questions. Is that something that was intentional,

or is that maybe a theme that emerged organically through this? It's a good question. I feel like a lot of the early songs did have these sort of rhetorical questions in them that were often improvised almost. Like Reese, I wrote the music, but then Justin improvised to it. And one of the first things he said was, what's your middle name? because Reese is my sister's middle name and my daughter Mimi's written middle name.

So he talked about that. And I think it just got stuck in his head and he said, what's your middle name? Are you often blamed? Do you care about the cost? Magnolia is a song that I wrote towards the end of the process and I was thinking about

like people close to me who get hit by a truck figuratively. Like when someone good and pure, like something terrible happens to them that they don't deserve and this feeling of like, was it far when you felt? Oh, was it hard? Can you tell me?

Was it far when you fell? Was it hard? Magnolia. Or like, did you grieve yet? Did you heal yet? And I think it's something I've been thinking about. Like, as you become an adult, you kind of, or get to my age when I have kids and I'm realizing, you know, there's a lot of uncertainty, anxiety, obviously in the world, but also in your internal family life,

whether it's your nuclear family or your extended family, there's trauma. You know, people get sick, people die. You know, relationships disintegrate, marriages, disintegrate sometimes. So it's dark, but I think it's like, for me, music's a way to kind of like ask questions and feel better ultimately just by giving voice to it or mental health. But yeah, it's true, there are a lot of questions that kind of run through the whole album, which I think are the threads that bind it together, even though there's so many different singers. Well, there's a feeling of recognition when you hear someone posing a question that,

that you recognize and that you have too. And even if it's not, you know, the music doesn't give you the answer or the solution, there's a feeling of comfort in recognizing that someone else has the same questions. Listening to how these songs came together, a word that comes to my mind is trust, because it seems like with each of these songs, there's like a leap of faith at some point where you create something, create some music, and then hand it off to someone else who creates another element. And you have to trust that what this person is going to create is going to be something

that you are happy with and moved by and works with the song. So I guess how do you trust that your collaborators are going to deliver in a sense or perform the role that the song asked for? Well, I think of it almost like a family, almost everyone. on this record are people I've made records with or collaborated in some way. But I also think that's what, you know, anytime you collaborate, you have to be vulnerable. You have to open yourself up and have that moment where you, like, jump off the cliff and give yourself over to fate, you know.

It doesn't always work. And sometimes you fall in your face or sometimes you lose the thread of what was working about something. but you'll never know until you try. Another collaboration on this album that I've really enjoyed is the song Renegade featuring Taylor Swift. And I'd love to just zero in on one musical moment from the song, which really stands out and maybe stands out in the record as a whole.

It's when Taylor sings, Is it insensitive for me to say, Get Your Shit Together? It's such a direct and sort of bracing sentiment. And I really feel like the music at that moment and the production at that moment coalesced to push that line out to just burst it through the speakers. If that's the case, why did you want to highlight that line? Yeah, I mean, I think that song, I think she was expressing this feeling of how often fear and anxiety get in the world. a way of being loved or loving someone.

And it's kind of like the song is hoping that this person will allow themselves to be vulnerable and be loved and sort of figure out a way to leave baggage behind. But I think as far as the mix, Taylor has this beautiful lower range and lower frequencies in her voice that maybe you haven't heard as much in some of her records. I think a lot of mixes sometimes are brightened or there's a smiley face drawn to kind of like make it really pop on the radio, which is amazing and great. But like I think for what we were doing, like a song like Renegate or a song like Cardigan or, you know, some of these songs, like it wouldn't be as emotionally affecting if you carve those frequencies away. Maybe it's just me the way I listen to music. If you take those frequencies out, then I like miss some sort of like heart in it. So we left them in. And I think that really helps it.

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happening. Improvisation in the actual writing of the songs where you're tossing these ideas back and forth and it's happening fast and spontaneously. And there's even improvisation in the recording of the songs. So I feel like there's this element of chance or randomness that is an inevitable product of this process. Yeah, I think that's definitely like the weird thing we're chasing is this feeling of the paint is wet. You know, like there, you're just, It's like a little bit like the song might melt into the ether or something. It's a little bit like, I mean, a lot of the early Big Red Machine shows were literally friends taking acid and just improvising. Or not necessarily taking acid, but you know what I mean.

And I think that's still the thing that feels the best is when it's just kind of loose. But then this time, I wanted there to be real songs with a capital S in the middle of that, like kind of. of energy. So I'm thankful that we got there. But it took a while to find that. How do you make something that's both structured and unstructured? Another song that might be an example of that is Mimi. To tell the truth, darling, I have to lead a platitudes right past the dotted news. He wrote it with Justin and Ilsey Juber, but I think if I read these tweets correctly, you each wrote lyrics in isolation and then created the final product by weaving these three independent set of lyrics together.

Yeah, that's right. There was a bunch of songs that were coming together because the day that the Nationals' record, easy to find, came out in 2019. Justin called me and invited me to open the next big Bonne Verre tour, which is going to be this arena tour of Europe. And I thought, well, sure, but how? Like, what do you mean? And he was like, well, by yourself. And I've never played solo shows before. The first show is going to be at Wemley Arena in London. All of a sudden, I was like, I'm going to have to stand up by myself in front of 20,000 people and entertain them, which is a outlandish and scary idea. But it sort of set

some things in motion of me, like pushing a lot of this music further and imagining playing it by myself. I think things like Mimi or Brycey or some of these songs, I was literally like trying to figure out what I was going to do. And that song, Mimi, it's in 5-4. And it's like, it's a very simple chord progression. It's in an odd meter. And there's something about it that's like a little tricky and but hypnotic. And I had written a whole song to it. And Justin heard it. And he was like, can I play around? And he muted parts of what I had done. And he sang his part. and then kept part of mine. And then he's like, can we send this to Ilsey?

And I was like, yeah, that'd be amazing. Let's send it to Ilsey. And Elsie wrote her chorus. It's like a weird postmodern Tom Petty song with three lead singers or something, you know. And we're kind of like it feels like it's somewhat related what we're singing about, but it's also not, you know. But I think that's part of like this big rim machine feeling. I'm singing about my son.

And like, and then Justin, when he says, I say, thank you. I feel like he feels grateful for his life and for being a musician. But somehow those ideas of longing and gratitude, because he also is singing about longing, but those ideas kind of interweave and it connects to the rest of the album in an interesting way, I think. Hearing you talk about performing solo opening for Boni Vair makes me think of some of the songs in this album

that feature you as a singer. and in the case of one track, Ghosts of Cincinnati, are really almost like a solo showcase for your guitar and vocals. What made you feel like this on 12th and vine? What made you feel like this side of your musicality? Well, first of all, I had a lot of interest. encouragement from Justin and from other people. I didn't write it as a Big Red Machine song.

It was written with a filmmaker Nicole Riegel who has a screenplay called Dandelion that she approached my brother and I about working on. And there's an image in the screenplay of someone, like a ghost wandering around their hometown and looking at people from their past and those people can't see them. Or maybe they're still alive, but they're so overextended and they feel empty like a ghost. And I could really just relate to that feeling. So I just wrote that song with some help from Nicole. And then when we were in L.A. for the Grammys, I played Ghost of Cincinnati for Taylor and for Jack Antonoff, who was there.

And just kind of to get their feedback. And they both were like, this is a big red machine song. It's really beautiful. You should put it on. So it was really helpful to have that feedback and just the affirmation of your friends being like, go ahead, sing. I've been in a band for 22 years. or whatever it is with four other guys who I'm very close to. And one of them, Matt Berninger,

has such a charismatic, beautiful, powerful voice. And so it's been very natural to sort of be more in the shadows slash this weird musical engine of the band. I'm fully happy with that. But it is true that when I write music, I hear things. I've always heard melodies and I've always sung under my breath. And I think it was just time to like give voice to those feelings in my head. feelings in my head. Yeah, it provides a sort of anchor, I think, in the album where earlier we were

talking about, you know, Renegade is sort of almost coming apart at the seams. This is like this moment that feels very centered and earthy. I love that the album has both of those poles. It makes it a very holistic experience, I think, to listen to. Thank you. Yeah. Aaron, thank you so much for joining us. Thanks so much. Appreciate it. Switchdown Pop is produced by Megan Lubin, Charlie Harding, and me, Nate Sloan. We're edited by Jolie Myers, engineered by Brandon McFarland, illustrations by Iris Gottlieb, social media by Abby Barr, and our executive producers are Nashat Kurwa and Hana Rosen. We're a member of the Vox Media Podcast Network and a production of Vulture.

Big Red Machine's new album, How Long Do You Think It's Going to Last? It's out now, so go have a listen. Big thanks to Aaron Destner for joining us this week and sharing his approach to music making. You can find more episodes of Switched On Pop anywhere you get podcasts in Spotify and Apple, and always on our website Switchedonpop.com. We'll be back next week with an amazing interview with the band Churches, who also has some deeply dope new music out. So don't miss it. And until then, thanks for listening. new elixires perfume intense. Solar, magnetic, bolt. Puls in the banner, do you know, discover your fragrance euphoria.