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The National formed in Brooklyn, NY in 1999, when five
friends who relocated from Cincinnati, Ohio for work
began making demo recordings to blow off steam on weekends.
They are brothers Aaron Dessner (guitars, bass, piano)
and Bryce Dessner (guitar, piano), brothers Scott Devendorf
(guitar; bass) and Bryan Devendorf (drums) and Matt Berninger
(vocals).
Those early demos eventually formed a self-titled debut
album that was released in 2001 on Brassland Records
(a label launched by Aaron and Bryce along with their
friend Alec Bemis) and that was followed in 2003 with
both the second album, Sad Songs For Dirty Lovers, and
the standalone Cherry Tree EP in 2004
During these years, the band received critical praise
and they put the foundations in place to enable themselves
to quit their respective jobs and make the band a full-time
concern. They signed a worldwide deal with Beggars Banquet
and it was with 2005’s Alligator, their label debut
and third album, that a wider audience finally (and fervently)
discovered them. Coming as a bolt to most, they were
soon winning hearts and minds; landing in the higher
echelons of scores of year-end critics’ lists,
selling out large venues across Europe and the US and
appearing on Later With Jools Holland in the UK. All
the hard work prior to Alligator was starting to pay
off and thankfully for us, one of America’s finest
new bands had started to really spread their wings.
The National has recently built a recording studio and
is in the early stages of working on the follow-up to
Boxer.
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