Matt Berninger #4

Summary

You Made It Weird with Pete Holmes

Episode Summary: Matt Berninger #4 (May 28, 2025)

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Overview

In this candid, sprawling conversation, Pete Holmes welcomes back his dear friend and musical hero Matt Berninger (The National, El Vy) for a fourth appearance. With the release of Matt's new solo record Get Sunk as a backdrop, the episode plunges into topics of creativity, mental health, artistic process, spirituality, personal struggles, and the ever-present weirdness that defines both the show and its guests.

Berninger opens up in depth about his recent depression, the personal and professional "ships" he set afloat (including a now-award-winning house he built and sold without ever living in), and how insomnia and overwork forced him into an unexpected—and profoundly transformative—period of surrender. The episode also covers the contrasting creative vibes of his past and present, songcraft philosophy, the role of place and environment in creativity, the addictive undercurrents of touring and performance, the challenge and joy of setlists, the impact of Instagram and technology, and his distinctive approach to lyric writing.

Holmes provides effusive fan energy (and highlights just how much Berninger’s audience projects their own meaning onto The National’s lyrics), while both delve into spirituality, religion, AI, mushrooms, UFOs, and the big and little moments that make life (and art) weird and wonderful.

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Episode Structure and Key Insights

1. Introduction and Friendship Vibes

• Pete introduces Matt as his favorite musician and dear friend.
• Quick praise for Get Sunk, Berninger’s new solo album, and a “completionist” recap (El Vy, Serpentine Prison, The National).

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2. The Making of Serpentine Prison vs. Get Sunk

• Intentions & Home Life: Serpentine Prison was crafted as a "soothing record," inspired by Willie Nelson's Stardust and made for Matt's daughter.
• Light in Darkness: Though filled with dark themes, Berninger sees children respond deeply to darkness, citing his daughter’s love of “scary” parts in The Princess Bride.
• Songwriting Origins: The title track came from a real-life structure in Venice, CA; made playful, rhymey, "Dr. Seuss-y," even if built around dark ideas.
• Collaboration: Serpentine Prison was highly collaborative (involving Booker T. Jones and friends), while Get Sunk started mostly with Sean O’Brien and a small circle.

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3. Coping with the Pandemic, Burnout, and Depression

• Project Overload: Before lockdown, Berninger was juggling an ambitious house build, TV project pursuits, multiple musical projects (including several for The National and friends), becoming creatively and financially overextended ("out over my skis", "Sword of Damocles" feeling).
• Pandemic as a Forced Pause: The lockdown came as both relief and crash—projects died suddenly, leading to a dark, depressive episode.
• Loss and Identity: The sale of his personally designed Venice house—his "greatest art project"—heightened his sense of loss. “It’s almost like making a record and never being able to listen to it yourself.” (16:04)

“I had to just unplug everything…I had to just burn down to rebuild, including the National, me, my ego, my projects, everything.” — Matt Berninger (22:33)

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4. Depression, Insomnia, and Recovery

• Insomnia: More than depression itself, insomnia was the real agony—described as being "at the bottom of a well", seeing the light but being unable to climb out.
• Medication/Sleep: Medication (Xanax, Trazodone) plus sleep was the only effective start to recovery. Matt acknowledges the futility of well-meaning “sleep tips” from others.
• Letting Go of Control: Continues to process how his “captain of the ship” mentality leads to burnout and eventual resentment.
• Recalibrating: Once he stepped away, he realized others weren’t upset at his “sunk ships”—a deep lesson about self-imposed pressure and acceptance.

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5. Creativity & Spirituality

• Religious Roots: Matt discusses his Catholic upbringing, current disbelief in a personal God, but deep connection to the philosophy of Jesus and Catholic ideals of kindness and bravery.
• Order, Disorder, Reorder: Holmes notes how both Berninger’s career and spiritual stories reflect the recurring pattern of construction, collapse, and rebirth.
• Existential Metaphors: Lively riff on superheroes, stories, and organized religion as responses to the fundamental mystery of existence.
• Divinity as Bravery and Connection: “God is bravery. God is your—make the brave choice. And that’s God talking.” — Matt Berninger (49:57)

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6. Artistic Process, Performance, and Set Lists

• Live Performance as Communion: Both agree that shows are about creating a communal frequency, with the frontman channeling and reflecting the emotional energy of the audience.
• Setlist Logic: The National’s setlists are made primarily by Aaron and Scott (“I stay out of it”—Matt, 85:59), and reflect the band’s unique catalog, where every album has its fan base.
• Sustaining Creative Joy: Revisiting older songs brings fresh excitement, and the group avoids over-planning to preserve spontaneity. Even after thousands of performances, “every single I Need My Girl or Fake Empire, when they come up… I feel great about it.” (103:45)

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7. Lyric Writing and Song Philosophy

• Collaborative/Fragmented vs. Crafted: Draws inspiration from Michael Stipe’s “blurry” lyrics (71:12), balancing abstract expression with crafted narrative (sometimes writing “Jackson Pollock” style, sometimes like a country song chandelier).
• Literal Writing on Baseballs: Matt writes lyrics on baseballs to slow down and break his phone habit (121:43)—combining tactile comfort and focus.
• Subconscious Process: Emphasizes letting lines flow, trusting “slush” and Freudian slips as a path to meaning.
• Blurry Resonance: “Our brains are so blurry, our hearts are so blurry,”—the resonance in unpolished, ambiguous lines. (71:55)

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8. Place, Roots, and Creative Change

• Geographic Influence: Moves from Cincinnati → Brooklyn → LA → Connecticut have each deeply altered what and how Matt writes.
• Pastoral & Environmental Inspiration: Get Sunk draws upon childhood memories in Indiana and farm landscapes—from a distance, these roots come alive (“the world you’re in” fuels what you create).

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9. Technological Disruption: AI, Social Media, and Art

• AI & Authenticity: Both agree: as AI-generated content rises, people will crave and cherish the unmistakably “human-made” in art and music.

“I always connect most to music that’s messy and filled with flaws.” — Matt Berninger (92:02)

• Instagram Addiction: Both discuss personal battles with social media dopamine cycles. Matt quit Instagram for two years to heal, but acknowledges its nuanced value for connection and learning (especially for younger generations).

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10. Miscellaneous Weirdness, Spirituality & Imagination

• UFOs and Mushrooms: Brief musings on aliens, UFOs, and the theory that mushrooms are an alien intelligence already present on earth (“the closest metaphor to being visited by a higher intelligence.” — 135:59)
• Artistic Disruption: Berninger muses that “the best art is about to be made”—true artists will incorporate and react against technological trends, just as the camera didn’t kill painting.

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11. Memorable Quotes & Moments

• Pete’s effusive, meta fan commentary on the ambiguity of Matt’s lyrics and National songs, e.g.,
  • “It takes an ocean not to break— I know what that means to me, but I don’t think it means the same thing to three guys down or the lady next to him.” (70:38)
• On depression:
  • “It was a giving up to see what happens.” — Matt Berninger (23:38)
• On insomnia:
  • “Sometimes the anxiety when you can’t sleep and you’re tossing and turning, you can’t solve these problems because there aren’t any solutions.” (25:07)
• On artistic imperfection:
  • “Great singers have a hard thing to overcome when they’re so technically good. You trust the flaws.” (93:23)
• On songwriting process:
  • “The record versions of anybody’s music are like high school photographs…of what that song will turn into.” (102:42)
• On social media’s double-edge:
  • “I was never shutting off. When I think Instagram is a problem…you never shut off then.” (124:35)

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12. Notable Timestamps

• 04:30 — Matt on Serpentine Prison, childhood, intention, Booker T. Jones
• 10:32 — Burnout, pandemic, “crash”
• 16:05 — Losing his house/art project; “crushing but wise”
• 22:33 — “Burning down” to rebuild, surrendering all projects/Ego
• 25:07 — Insomnia and the “well” metaphor
• 49:57 — “God is bravery”
• 61:27 — Post-tour decompression, Bono’s metaphor
• 67:51 — “National records are me climbing up that wall of that well. Yeah.”
• 71:12 — Michael Stipe’s lyric inspirations
• 85:59 — National’s set list process
• 92:02 — “I always connect most to music that’s messy and filled with flaws.”
• 121:43 — Matt’s baseball lyric-writing method
• 135:59 — “That’s the closest to a metaphor of being visited by a higher intelligence that we can.”
• 137:00 — Album release details ("May 30th")

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Tone & Chemistry

• The mood is intimate, oscillating between earnest vulnerability, playful goofiness, philosophical depth, and artistic shop talk.
• Pete is an exuberant, loving fan, but also deeply empathetic about mental health and artistic struggle. Matt is self-deprecating, open, and generous with his vulnerabilities, balancing serious admissions with humor and humility.
• The conversation is both freewheeling and deeply focused—a “slush” of ideas, fittingly mirroring the creative lives being discussed.

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For Listeners New and Old

If you’ve never listened before, this episode stands as a definitive portrait of a singular artist wrestling with life’s messiness. It’s also a model of the kind of weird, real, and revealing conversations that mark the best of You Made It Weird. Anyone interested in creativity, music, emotional honesty, or the struggle to balance ambition and well-being will find resonance, consolation, and more than a few memorable lines to carry with them.

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Listen for:

• The recurring motif of order → disorder → reorder
• Pete and Matt’s friendship and mutual artistic admiration
• Honest discussion of depression, insomnia, and healing (25:07–28:38, 54:12–56:55)
• The impact of place on creative output (111:18–114:00)
• Matt’s baseball lyric trick (121:43)
• Insights into the communal magic of performance and songwriting
• The blurry, fragmentary, “slushy” beauty of living—and creating—while “making it weird”

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Transcript

[Matt Berninger]

You made it weird. You made it weird. You made it weird. Oh, yeah. You made it weird. Made it weird. Yes, you did. You made it weird. With Pete Holmes.

[Pete Holmes]

What's happening, weirdos? I am thrilled to announce that this is the return of Matt Berninger, the frontman and singer and lyricist for the national, which fans of the show will know that's my favorite band in the world. And Matt is also one of my dearest friends and I'm so glad that he'. And we chat and we get into a lot of very interesting things, one of which is his new solo record, Get Sunk, which comes out this Friday on May 30th. So if you're hearing this anytime after May 30th, after this pod, during this pod, instead of this pod, listen to Get Sunk on whatever, whomever you get your music. It's so good. It's such a great record. Everything Matt does is great. Elvi, Serpentine, Prison, obviously, the national, and now Get Sunk. So check that out. It is my current music obsession. It is a masterpiece. I love it so much. And we're so glad that you're here. Let's get to this chat as quickly as possible. Only going to plug. Well, Nashville, I think, is mostly sold out. And thank you to all of my Tennessee weirdos for coming out to Nashville this weekend. Irvine, California is next, followed by San Jose, California, Los Angeles. We have our Largo once a month. Houston, Royal Oak, Michigan, D.C. boston.

[Matt Berninger]

Sorry.

[Pete Holmes]

Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Spokane, Washington, St. Louis, Missouri. Cleveland, Homestead and Atlantic City, New York will be announced very soon around that date as well. And we're so glad you're here. Get into it. I mean, oops, I already said get into it. Matt Berninger, Get Sunk this episode. Get into it. Did I say all those tickets were [e-mail]? this intro's all over the place. Get into it. We don't normally say this, but I am sitting here with Matt Berninger and I am. Well, we're dear friends, but there's another side of it.

[Matt Berninger]

I got a little coconut water on my.

[Pete Holmes]

You may. Our sponsors at Vita Coco will be thrilled.

[Matt Berninger]

Vita cocoa.

[Pete Holmes]

Clip it. Clip. Rockstar spills our delicious beverage into beard. Into beard. Remarks. My beard has never tasted so sweet. I was gonna say that. Know this. There's another facet of our relationship, which is I'm just a huge fan, so I'm always so excited to talk to you.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah, I'm ditto.

[Pete Holmes]

This is not where I hit the ball to use. I know.

[Matt Berninger]

You were using. You were using, like, mistaken for strangers and Mr. I Can't Remember. It's not like opening your sets.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, yeah, I walk November now.

[Matt Berninger]

Now, the new special, the new tour.

[Pete Holmes]

Every tour. There's kind of like a new national.

[Matt Berninger]

Song that I walk out to. No, it's cool.

[Pete Holmes]

We did.

[Matt Berninger]

We did November. Yeah, of course.

[Pete Holmes]

And you guys are always so wonderful. But I love it.

[Matt Berninger]

I, I, I. I really love it.

[Pete Holmes]

And you haven't. Let's get it out right at the top for the people who just dip into this podcast and then realize they don't like my grading personality. So we'll get it out right. Up top. There's a new Al. New solo record.

[Matt Berninger]

There's a new solo album. Matt Berner solo album.

[Pete Holmes]

What's it called?

[Matt Berninger]

Get Sunk.

[Pete Holmes]

I think I knew that. I just wasn't positive because I'm listening to it on the preview, and it.

[Matt Berninger]

Just says, well, Meg Duffy, they're on the record. And they. They were talking about it, and they were calling the record Bonnet of Pins because that's a single. And a lot of people think that the record is called Get Sunk. But. Yeah, so you. So you and Meg are both wrong.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Matt Berninger]

But, yeah, Getsunk is the name.

[Pete Holmes]

Well, we were saying you have another solo record. I'm a Matt Berninger completionist.

[Matt Berninger]

I love Elvi.

[Pete Holmes]

I think Elvi is fantastic. Of course, every national record. And I love Serpentine Prison. I listened to. That was like my Pandemic record.

[Matt Berninger]

That was like.

[Pete Holmes]

Leela was like. I could put it on Serpentine Prison, just on a loop and kind of drive her around and, like, chill.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah. So I have memories with that album. That record, for me was my. I mean. I mean, making it was the intention for Serpentine Prison was to a soothing record, because it was. It is. Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

And we're kind of getting into the difference with Get Sunk. Sorry to jump in. But, like, Getsunk rocks. Like rocks. Yeah.

[Matt Berninger]

This is more of. I would say this is more of me being me being me. Although Serpentine Prison absolutely was, too. And I think. I mean, I really. The reason I even made that record and started even writing songs was because I wanted to make a record like Willie Nelson's Stardust, which was the record in my childhood. And still, when I put it on, I'm just comforted by. Because, you know, my mom and my dad would be. I could hear my dad singing along, you know, or my mom singing along that record when I hear that. And it's just. It's just. And I had a really happy, lovely, wonderful childhood and that record. So I've been. And I have a daughter now. She's 16 now. But when I made Serpentine Prison, you know, she was 10. Or when I started writing, or even maybe. Maybe nine when I started working on that stuff. And I really wanted to make a record like that for her kind of, in a way, and for myself, you know, because the national has, you know, has gone to lots of different, you know, branches of, you know, musical, you know, compass, you know, turning this way or that way. But this one for Serpentine Prison, I definitely was dialed it a very specific way, even to the point where I got Booker T. Jones, who produced Stardust, to produce it. And.

[Pete Holmes]

And is it funny? I drove around my daughter listening to it to relax, like, to chill. Not to just zone out to, like, feel nice.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

I drove her all around these neighborhoods. Just that album on.

[Matt Berninger]

There's a lot. I mean, there's a lot of darkness in that album. But I think kids really do respond to dark themes the same way. I completely agree.

[Pete Holmes]

You know, we watched Princess Bride yesterday, and I was like. I was trying to get her to watch it because I love it.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

And she was like, the one with the eels. I was like, yeah.

[Matt Berninger]

Oh, yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

And then she goes. And the guy on fire. So Andre the Giant being lit on fire and the eels is the reason why she wanted to watch it.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah, yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

She's the coolest.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah, yeah. But keep going.

[Pete Holmes]

So there's dark stuff.

[Matt Berninger]

Killings and everything. Yeah, sure.

[Pete Holmes]

And poisoning.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah, yeah. No, but. But, yeah, but even, like. Well, the song. The song Serpentine Prison itself, you know, it's. It's such a dark two words together. Right. And I think I just wrote that down because down in Venice, where I live, there was. There's, like, a wall that goes out in the ocean. It's got a cage on the end of it so that people can't go climbing out on it. And it looks like a little. Little jail on a curved, like. Like. Like cement platform. It's just down by. Near. Near Manhattan Beach. But. And. And I saw it one day and I just wrote down Serpent, New Prison. But. But that song turned into very much a. Yeah, it's a song about. About, you know, the traps. We get into it, whether, you know, our own traps or whatever. But. But I really was writing that and. And thinking of it like a playful children's song. There's so many rhymes in that. And my daughter was really obsessed with that one particularly. And just because all the rhymes. And it was very like, there's a Dr. Seuss thing about that. That song particularly, and kind of a.

[Pete Holmes]

Play to it as well, it's not taking itself too seriously. That makes it sound like a silly song. It's not a silly song, but it is having fun with it, I would say.

[Matt Berninger]

I would say Prison has some silliness. Has some silliness and some. Yeah, I was definitely trying to write a record that would both soothe me and my daughter at the same time.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah. I mean, because we were spending all of our time driving around in school. That's what we were doing. I was with my daughter more than anybody, you know, during. You know, I guess that's still the case, but especially in that time. So that's what Serpentine Prison kind of was. But, yeah, this new one is. And the truth is, I kind of started writing some of this new stuff right after finishing Serpentine Prison because I couldn't tour Serpentine Prison. No one could tour at all. It was right in the lockdown, and it came out just like, weeks before the lockdown or something. So, yeah, so I started. There was nothing else to do. Nobody could do anything. But I was able to go to, you know, just 10 minutes from here to Silver Lake to Knob World Studio, and with Sean o', Brien, who I made Serpentine Prison with, along with Booker T. He co produced that. And we just started cooking new things. And all of Serpentine Prison, I also wrote with, like, eight different friends. You know, guys from the Walkman guys, Scott from the National, Mike Brewer, a bunch of people. A lot of those people are back on a few songs on Serpentine Prison, like Mike Brewer and Walter Martin from Walkman and Sean o'. Brien. But Sean o' Brien wrote, like, six of these with me. I'm telling you the whole story.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, it's great. You mean musically or lyrically or both?

[Matt Berninger]

Just music. Yeah. I write all the lyrics and melodies and all that stuff of everything I do, but except for when I'm, you know, on someone else's record, on their song.

[Pete Holmes]

Except for Trouble Will Find Me. No, well, well, oh, no Sleep.

[Matt Berninger]

No, no. I am easy to find. Corinne wrote a lot.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Matt Berninger]

And then. And then there's some things that Mike Mills wrote the lyrics for. And I am easy to find. That's the. That's the one.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Matt Berninger]

But I don't even know if I sing those. But. But, so, But. But. But, you know, Serpentine Prison was this really collaborative thing with all these different writers, but get sunk. I started mostly just with SEAN, and so six of the 10 I wrote with him and then Paul Maroon from Walkman. I. I wrote one with. I'm forgetting somebody. That's okay. But, but so, so we'll splice it.

[Pete Holmes]

In a different outfit and you'll go like Todd Martin.

[Matt Berninger]

We'll do this whole section and I'll remember the fourth person. No, it's fine. But, yeah, so, so, so, so get sunk. You know, but we were saying. Started about five years ago, and then I. And then. And then. But then I stopped. I just stopped everything. I stopped writing everything for a while, and I thought.

[Pete Holmes]

Was that the kind of crash?

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah, that was the crash.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah. I was wondering if we were gonna talk because we've never talked about it on. Is it something you talk about publicly?

[Matt Berninger]

I've talked about. Yeah, A lot publicly, and I have no problem talking about it. That's very interesting. I mean, the truth is, I enjoy talking about it because I learned a lot about that, and I've had some of the best. Like, I had a long conversation with David Letterman about it all, and he's gone through really similar things. Yeah, like, really.

[Pete Holmes]

What do you call it?

[Matt Berninger]

It's depression.

[Pete Holmes]

A depressive episode.

[Matt Berninger]

Sure, sure, depression. But it was, you know, it was triggered by all these real things. And then I think with me, that whole, you know, not being able to get out there, not being able to tour Serpentine prison, not really being able to do anything for a while was nice, you know, like, home alone with family and so much time with. With my daughter.

[Pete Holmes]

You just started building that house.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah, we bought. We. We had been. We had been built. Well, yeah, that's a whole other.

[Pete Holmes]

Is that. Was that not a time?

[Matt Berninger]

If that's. We don't talk about. We'll talk about the house. Yeah. I had been building house for six years.

[Pete Holmes]

Well, you and I had a long conversation. I forget what expression you use, but I think about it all the time. Oh, the Sword of Damocles.

[Matt Berninger]

Is that what it is?

[Pete Holmes]

You put this like. You buy something you can't afford unless you're working a lot, and then you're like. And then you're forced to stop working. That's a heavy cost.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah. I was out on my skis on a bunch of stuff.

[Pete Holmes]

I didn't know that expression either.

[Matt Berninger]

Well, because, I mean, I also had, like, all these products. I was writing another Elvi record. I was writing with a lot of different people for a lot of different projects. I'd been, you know, I'd become really good friends with Roseanne Cash, and we'd been cooking on songs, and I had started writing a Whole batch of national songs, too. I had like 20 national songs cooking. Then there was Serpentine Prison made Serpentine Prison. We'd also been chasing a TV show, you know, and doing a lot of putting a lot of energy and time and stuff into trying to get a TV show.

[Pete Holmes]

Like a Tom show.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah, the Tom. Yeah, like taking from the Mistaken for Strangers. Yeah. I watched the, the proof of concept thing. Yeah, the proof of Interesting.

[Pete Holmes]

And I listened to those national sketches. Yeah, I, I, they were rough.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

But I remember. No, no, no. I'm just letting you know that you're not gaslighting yourself. I mean, like, what you're saying is true, but I remember this time it was like a very. Even as you're saying it, I'm like, jesus Christ. That's maybe too much.

[Matt Berninger]

I had way too much going on.

[Pete Holmes]

That's maybe too much.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah. And so, and so in a. So what happened, you know, when the, when the, when the, the lockdown happened and everything stopped? There was actually a huge moment of release or relief where I was like, I can actually take a break. I don't have to, like, I don't.

[Pete Holmes]

Want to take a break. I want everyone to take a break.

[Matt Berninger]

I wanted, I mean, I think a lot of people, you know, there was a phase of that where I knew that I needed, I was going to burn out one way or another, you know, pretty soon. Yeah. So there was a relief when nothing could happen and nothing could really make any forward progress. We couldn't go into the studio to do hardly anything or I couldn't pursue all these projects. And this big one was this house I had been building from scratch. And we had bought a house a long time ago and lived in it. And we thought about trying to save it, but it was one of these houses that it was like a little beach bungalow, but impossible to save and termites and stuff. So we tore it down and started building from scratch, you know, And I was designing that house with the architect Kathy Johnson, who's a dear friend. And so that was like a, that was a six year from, from just drawings to finishing the house. Yeah, we were in it once.

[Pete Holmes]

Val and I went, and it was very new. All I remember is the staircase. There was a big staircase.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah, it was probably still under construction.

[Pete Holmes]

No, it was, it was a construction site.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah. I mean, it was a really tiny house, but it was this beautiful little modernist house and it'. And since won all these awards and all this stuff. Yeah, yeah, no, yeah, it's a beautiful house.

[Pete Holmes]

We need to stay linear because no.

[Matt Berninger]

You can look it up. You can look it up.

[Pete Holmes]

You don't end up in this house. What's interesting.

[Matt Berninger]

No, I had to sell it. Tom spent a few nights in it just to sort of. Because. Yeah, so we, without being able to tour and everything, my wife and I decided it was like we just have to get rid of that house, you know, and sell it.

[Pete Holmes]

Did that feel sorry to project? Was that challenging to your identity? Yeah, because you and I are similar.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah. But it was just a house. Right. And like, so there was a. Both, There were both things. It was just a house, but it was like it was, for me it was, it had been a six year art project. I mean, the truth is I'd put more sort. I'd almost put as much passion into the building of this. Designing and you know, building of this little tiny house. It had more yard than it had house. I like, I like a big yard. So. But it was beautiful and it was so cool and it was just perfect for like a little small three person family, which is what we were, you know, And I wanted, and I was building it because I wanted to leave something beautiful, you know, something tangible, something literally concrete, you know.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Matt Berninger]

And even though that's, you know, none of that will last either. But, you know, but so. Yes. So having to sell it was both the wise thing, but crushing that I never, you know, I never got to spend a night in my greatest art project. You know, it's almost like making a record and never being able to listen to it yourself.

[Pete Holmes]

And how hard was it to bounce back from that again? I'm like, I think it would be very tempting to sort of wallow in that.

[Matt Berninger]

Well, I mean, I mean, I think.

[Pete Holmes]

I think that's what depression is. I'm just saying, like, no, no, no.

[Matt Berninger]

I didn't bounce back. I didn't bounce back. But that, but I didn't bounce back. But that wasn't the only thing. You know, there were just so many, there were just so many projects. I was so excited about that, that I was, you know, and I, and, and so had to, had had to just like say goodbye to all of them for a while.

[Pete Holmes]

This is a very me thing. But I think we're very, we've talked before a lot about this shared temperament. I wonder if you can relate to this. Sometimes I feel like I take everything on myself. That's how I want it. I want to be like the commander of my captain of the family of the ship. And then if things start getting tight, I start resenting that everything is going through me, even though. And Val will gently remind me of this. That's my design, right?

[Matt Berninger]

No. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

I say I will do this. And it's usually when I'm up and I'm, like, manic and I'm excited, and I have 17 projects, and then when things get around my neck, I'm like, it's all on me. It's all on me. And it's like, yeah, it sounds like that's.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah. And it's a thing, because, I mean, I think a lot of people take on multiple projects, too, because if everything's depending on one, the national, then, you know, then it's so much pressure on the national that you start to hate that thing, you know? And so. So I was taking. I was Elvi, the TV show Mistaken for Strangers, the dock, you know, even the house. And all the other projects were ways to. I mean, I needed to put some more ships in the ocean because I had no idea if everything was on the national ship. It's a great thing. Anything could happen with a band. And, like, you know, it's hard. It's hard for a band to stay together. And I can't believe we've stayed together this long, and I'm so grateful and so thankful, and I love those guys. And we've all gone through shit, and we're still together. And then after all that, so. So. But knowing that, like, that still, you know, that could just go away. I had. I had been building all these other ships and putting all these other ships in the. In the sea, you know, and just trying to, like, diversify my mind and my artistic, you know, impulses and ambitions. And so it wasn't always on the national because, like, if you put all your ambitions on one thing right, then you just. You just get crazy, you know, And I think we all had been kind of getting crazy, and so that's. Everybody sort of just. There's a moment where everybody just boom, and went away and did. Did other things. It became very successful with those things. But so, but, but, but. So the pandemic hit, and I had all these ships in the water, including this house that, like, you know, it's one of these things. We just have to finish it in time so we can get in and stop paying the rent of the places that we were, you know, while we were building, we had to rent. So we're paying double, you know, mortgage, A plus rents. So we were way out, you know, and.

[Pete Holmes]

And you're waiting for these ships to come back, like, A king. I'm not saying exactly, but, like, you feel I relate.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

I'm like, I write on a whiteboard in my office, just the things that are going on.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

And tell me how you feel about this. You check your email and you're like, it's a wonder we're not on our phones more because, you know, you never know. One of the ships could email back and be like, hey, they're moving forward with that thing, or you got the green light on this. Those are like, the more things change. We're still just kind of village people waiting for ships to come back with spices and.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah. I mean, especially. I mean, honestly, this is not. I mean, we've been. I, I'm, I'm. I'm grateful how. For how successful we've been and thankful and I know how rare it is, but it's like, it's still a hustle, you know, it's. It's still a hustle to, to stay on top of, you know, and, and I don't live a lavish lifestyle and everything, so. So, so, so anyway. But. So, so, yeah. So the depression was definitely linked to seeing all those ships just suddenly. I mean, I'm glad I wasn't having to manage them and lockdown happened, but they all just sunk. All those projects and all those ideas just sunk. And I couldn't even go back to them. I mean, I was. I couldn't walk past the house, you know, only recently have I been back to it and looked at it through the gate, you know, and I can see it online. It's beautiful.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Matt Berninger]

And it was just. Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Am I right? It's because it's.

[Matt Berninger]

But it's become a whole because it's. Now I live in Connecticut. And I live in Connecticut was unrelated to having to sell the house, but. And I live in a house that I absolutely love and I would not want to live in Venice in that house anymore, you know, and not because of that. It's not a rationalization. I know we were, we were, my wife and daughter and I, all three of us were ready to. We're ready to be out of, of, of of California, I think in la. We were ready to be out of la. My daughter was just, you know, she, she wanted to go to high school somewhere in a different thing. She, you know, in Connecticut. And we have family in Connecticut, so we were going to end up moving to Connecticut. Connecticut anyway, but, but never been able to spend a single night or take a bath in that brass tub and all those little things. All those Details, you know, the light switches and everything.

[Pete Holmes]

And then you watch it win awards and then it.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah, but. But the people who live there love it, and the people that live there appreciate it and are very happy. And I'm really happy where I am. And it exists. It's this beautiful thing that exists, you know, and so. Yeah. And then. And then again, it's just a house. And like, as we all know, like, you know, especially LA is like. Like, like that is losing. Like that's losing something. A house is traumatic, but it's just stuff, you know? Yeah, yeah, it's just stuff. And. And if it.

[Pete Holmes]

If you can see it clearly, though.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah. And it took a while. Yes. And by the. And it wasn't just the house that caused my deep depression. It was lots of things. Lots. There were a lot of things I had to kind of burned down to rebuild, including. Including the National Me, all my projects, you know, my ego, everything. I just. I had to. And.

[Pete Holmes]

And what does it mean to burn it down?

[Matt Berninger]

Just. Just. I had to stop. I. I think. I think it wasn't. I mean, it was an unhealth. An unhealthy time. And it was like six months of real unhealthy time of just not being able to get out of bed. But part of it was. I think I had to just unplug everything and let, you know, let it all just let the refrigerator thaw out and leak all over and just nothing and make it just a nothing mess. And just to see what happens when I do nothing.

[Pete Holmes]

The courage of. I don't want to say failure. The courage of surrender. Right.

[Matt Berninger]

It was a very fearful place, but it was a. It was a giving up to see what happens.

[Pete Holmes]

But not a chill giving up.

[Matt Berninger]

No, it was not. It was because.

[Pete Holmes]

Brought to your knees kind of sounds.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah. Because I had no idea to even get started again. And like, I didn't even know. I did not want to write another song again in my life. I didn't want to step on stage again. I did not. I didn't want to go to a restaurant ever again. You know, it was that point you're like. You're just like. And it was depression, but insomnia was the real thing that. And I talked, I think a lot with David Letterman about that and different people, is that sometimes the anxiety when you can't sleep and you're tossing and turning, you can't solve these problems because there aren't any solutions. You just keep going over them all and they. And you just spin. And after three, four, Nights of insomnia, you really start to. Your brain starts to melt and logic stops working. Right, right, right, right. So I was dealing with, like, you know, Corinne would tell me, you know, like, this is not reality. It's not nearly as dark as you think it is, you know, and. But I could not see that, you know, I understood what she was saying, but I was like, you know, she's like, there is sunshine. Look out the window, there is a sun shining. And, like, I would not go near the window because I hated sunshine does that, you know? So, like. And I know it made no sense, but. But me hating. No, sunshine made no sense to her. And that's where the sickness gets in there. You're just. And that's the depression. But I think that was. Insomnia was really the thing, because I tried a lot. I did try a lot of antidepressants, and I quit drinking, quit smoking weed for, like, a whole year. None of that really helped. I mean, I do think some of them kind of raised the floor, but it was once. Once I was able to get some sleep. So back then, how did you do that? Xanax and. And Trazodone, and it was like some sleep aids, you know, things like that, which were sort of antidepressants, too. And. And after a month, after, like, a few weeks of getting sleep, I was. I was starting to feel better. And then. And then getting back in the studio with the guys, and it was then I was just sleeping. And so for me, if. Like, if I don't get enough sleep and anxiety, you know, then I can see. I can see when it's coming, you know, And I know. And it just. Now I know how to just like, all right, just turn all the ships off and let them. Let them idle for a minute and get some sleep and then come back to it.

[Pete Holmes]

Can you talk? Just because I know other people who can't sleep, and they tell me this. How annoying it is when you can't sleep, how everybody has, like, sleep tips, right? Because everybody sleeps. Most people sleep every night. So they want to tell you, yeah, here's what you need. A cold room.

[Matt Berninger]

Matt. No.

[Pete Holmes]

And you're like, you don't understand what.

[Matt Berninger]

We'Re talking about, you know? You know, and I. And I tried some things. I mean, I'm probably. I probably should have taken, like, just focus more on my sleep towards the beginning, because that was just such an obvious issue that I was pretending, like, thinking was compromised. Yeah, but my thinking was compromised. Right, right.

[Pete Holmes]

It's 4:00am Thoughts. I was talking to somebody recently, and they were, like, up in the middle of the night, and their upstairs neighbor was walking crazy. And then they're like, what if they're out of their mind? What if I bang on the ceiling? They shoot down at me. And I was like, that is such a 4am thought.

[Matt Berninger]

Right.

[Pete Holmes]

Right. There's a flavor to the insanity of vulnerability. You should be asleep and your mind is just exhausted. But you were kind of having 4am thoughts.

[Matt Berninger]

And I was. I mean, during this period, I was sleeping in my own room because I. Because I just. I could not. I'd toss and turn. I was tossing and turning so much that just flipping, flipping, flipping, flipping, flipping, flipping. That I was. You know, I was physically sore from. From the movement. Or I'd get up and you'd get up, and I would just pace. Just pace, you know, and. And stare at the window and wait for the sun to come up and just try to solve all these problems, which there was no way for me to solve, you know?

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Matt Berninger]

I just needed to get some sleep. But I. But I.

[Pete Holmes]

Even though I haven't been exactly there to relate, Val has been like, pete, what you're talking about, it's like in. Get out, when he falls into the sunken place, there's a little hole of light, and somebody's like, it's not that bad. Like, that's a perfect metaphor. And there's even a part of you that goes, like, I know she's right. But then there's this, like, ocean of, like, not that we can do anything about it. Like, I feel angry.

[Matt Berninger]

It's like this. It's like you're at the bottom of a well. Right. And it's cold and dark and. And. But yeah, there's the light, and they're there, and you can see that little light. And they're really, like. And they're saying, all you have to do is climb up the well.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Matt Berninger]

You're like. And it's. The walls are wet and rocky, and you're. You're exhausted. You can't even stand up. Yeah. Much less climb up to that light. But, yeah, the light's there, and you know that you're. But, like, you're just. Like, you don't understand.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Matt Berninger]

Like. Like, I can't. I can't.

[Pete Holmes]

Right.

[Matt Berninger]

Get up there and then did.

[Pete Holmes]

What did you need at that point? In the spirit of helpful. Do you need someone to go. I see that you can't. Do you need, like.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Commiseration.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah. And I mean. I mean. Yeah. When it was, it was, you know, you know, Manic depression or not. Not, man. No, no, it was, it was a. I don't. Manic depression is like something that's more like comes and you know.

[Pete Holmes]

Well, then you have the.

[Matt Berninger]

It's not bipolar or something like that, but. But I was in a. In a deep depressive episode. Right. You know, you're just right. And so, you know, I was. It was like the flu, you know, it's kind of like it's. Depression isn't. Isn't. Isn't like a thing that comes back and go. You know, and everybody has their constant battle. It can, it can come out of nowhere and hit anybody like a flu and last a year and you know, and, and then go away, not come back, you know. And I remember having one episode when I was 12. And I remember distinctly like that year when I was a 12 year old, the things that happened. I got the crap beat out of me and by a bunch of other kids and stuff. Little things that just like trauma that triggered it. I think when I jumped. I got beat up in the woods by a bunch of kids. You know, I was seventh grade. No, it was. Long story. That's a whole long story that I do realize. You know, I've unpacked that a bunch of. But like any. And it wasn't like I wasn't. I wasn't debilitating injured in a way, but I, you know, I cleaned my clock. A couple of guys in front of a bunch of people. Right. So. Yes. And as a seventh grader, that changed me, you know, and that made me. That put something in me that I wish it wasn't in me, you know, it kind of go right at it, you know, and kind of an energy that just like anything that's I feel like is unjust or is gonna. With me, you know, I go right at it with my horns out. And so that's. That's caused me a lot of problems in my life.

[Pete Holmes]

That's when like, look, I'm not trying to.

[Matt Berninger]

Because I'll never get beat up again, that kind of thing.

[Pete Holmes]

No, I'm never gonna let that. I'm with you. I'm very, very much the same way. And I'm not trying to just provoke you. I'm saying like the house is kind of like getting jumped or like your ship's all sinking is a. Like what's happening.

[Matt Berninger]

Suddenly you weren't in control.

[Pete Holmes]

Suddenly you're not in control. And, and even the people watching. Not to turn your trauma into a metaphor, but like, and then people see that I have been humiliated. And that's why I think you and I. Yeah.

[Matt Berninger]

I had no power. It was the first time, like, all my autonomy and power had been taken away in my whole life, you know, And. And it was just, you know, it was. It was a seventh grader getting beat up by a bunch of ninth graders, you know, and. And it made me think about every woman that's. Their. Their ass has been grabbed at a party. It made me think of all that stuff. So. So that kind of, like, any kind of humanizing assault, any kind of assault like that, you know, is. Is. Is. Is. It takes your power away. Like, what they're doing is they're taking all your power away. And, you know, because they. You know, and it's. And all that's. Well, whatever. Oh, that's what. Just, Just. Just like. Like all of that is. Is their fear. You know, Any. Any. Any aggressor, any. Any evil. It's like people, you know, are hurt. Hurt each other because they're afraid, you know?

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, of course.

[Matt Berninger]

It's like, I think the. The world is just infected with fear right now. And. And there's very little bravery and scapegoating. Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

I'm not saying we can know why these kids do it, but they want to. They feel small and whatever, weak, stupid. So I'll beat somebody up and I'll feel like I. I'm not.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah, I did that. I mean, it's like, why we have our government. It's just like, people. People, like, they're just. They just make every. Try to make everybody afraid of everybody else. And then they watch look at us beat them up and, you know, it's gross and primal.

[Pete Holmes]

It is gross and primal.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah. And. And we're really, you know, we're really.

[Pete Holmes]

And unfortunately, it works.

[Matt Berninger]

It does work.

[Pete Holmes]

I just block.

[Matt Berninger]

Fear sells.

[Pete Holmes]

Nobody needs to know how little I'm looking at social media, but I'm really blocking the sites. Taking off my phone because I realized I went on Facebook and all I saw was a bunch of kids running up to a Waymo, you know, an automated card and graffiti ing it. That's not even that traumatic image, considering the things you can see online. I know it sounds kind of awesome. You could, but the way I was, the state I was in, it made me go like, oh, the whole world is kids with hoodies and masks and they're running around like Dark Knight Returns. Like, there's no.

[Matt Berninger]

They're trying. Street punks make everything look like it's. It's a. It's terrifying.

[Pete Holmes]

But if you. It's funny. If you did put that same clip in like a wonderful documentary about like Banksy and art and, and creativity, like, I would have it. But that's not the state you're in when you're looking at social media. And I just realized even something as benign as that. And unfortunately you do see a lot worse things than that just randomly.

[Matt Berninger]

Well, negative, scary stuff is just primally, we're more interested and we click it and that makes money for everybody.

[Pete Holmes]

That's right. And it's the Velcro, Teflon thing. Things like that are Velcro. So I couldn't just, I couldn't stop thinking. It wasn't that. I think graffiti is like offensive because I can get in touch with that. I'm just saying it's like this idea that people are out. What really struck me about that image was the person sitting in the back seat. That was just kind of like.

[Matt Berninger]

I.

[Pete Holmes]

Guess, I guess this is the world we live in. Like we make automated cars and we just can't wait to fuck with it.

[Matt Berninger]

By the way, when you said Waymo thing at first, I was manning those little carts that deliver groceries on the side.

[Pete Holmes]

Those get fucked up too.

[Matt Berninger]

Made it a bunch of punks spray painting as it goes by, I thought. But no, the Waymo.

[Pete Holmes]

But anyway, it was because a person was sitting in it and you can't do anything and the car doesn't have protocols. I get it. The point is, when you're in a fear state, like the smallest little thing like that can scare you. And I was like, I'm done peering into the black mirror.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

You know.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah. I mean, it's these people's fault and they're coming for you and they're, you.

[Pete Holmes]

Know.

[Matt Berninger]

And I'm the only person who can protect you from that stuff. Is every. You know, it's. It's like, it's the, it's the whole political game and all of it's capitalism and it's all of its capitalism. The Catholic Church has become mostly. You know, it's like you turn something into a money making venture. All the, all the things it goes sideways, sideways, you know, and like, I'm a Catholic. I think I'm a good Catholic, you know, and, and, but, but I haven't been to church forever, you know, and. Because I don't believe in the church anymore.

[Pete Holmes]

Right.

[Matt Berninger]

I haven't for a long time. But I believe in. You know, I do. I don't. I don't. I Don't believe in God. But, and, but I do believe like, you know, and, and I think Jesus was a great dude, you know, and a real person. And today, you know, would have, would have, you know, had, you know, been a very good influence, you know, and we could use more guys like that or more people like that. And we have them, you know, we've always had them. And so I don't, you know, but so, but, but I am, I consider myself a Catholic, a good one. And you know, I was raised on all that. And I, and I, and then the pillars of how you treat people and yeah, you know, do unto others as you would have them do unto you. That those are the basics, you know. And so the whole thing of bravery and kindness was everything that Jesus was talking about. You know, I mean, I got a lot of hopes for the new Pope. Maybe Leah, he's gonna, maybe talk some sense into Christians.

[Pete Holmes]

And Cathol, I do take not issue, but I'll push back a little bit on that. If Jesus was just a groovy guy who told people to treat people how you want to be treated, there's no way we would be talking about him right now.

[Matt Berninger]

Meaning there was something even more.

[Pete Holmes]

There's something else. And I don't think it's the miracles either. I don't even think it's necessarily the resurrection. I think those things. I know that might sound crazy.

[Matt Berninger]

No, no.

[Pete Holmes]

I think if somebody aligns with the essence of the universe and that radiates off of them. Human beings don't really know what to do other than talk about like the great things they said. But really the, the medium was the message. I think being with someone like Jesus was probably a transformative experience, definitely.

[Matt Berninger]

But, but I, I would say that. But I do believe that he was, he was human and he was, he was absolutely in a normal and an exceptional human. But the same way Patti Smith or Muhammad Ali, you know, or Desmond Tutu or go down the Line. No, I completely are just exceptional. But back then, you know, I think, you know, and then the Bible, it was a huge collaborative work. Right. Of written over.

[Pete Holmes]

Well, people who weren't collaborating with each other though.

[Matt Berninger]

No. And they were all, they were all deciding on, you know, what should we say about the story about the virgin birth? Like, how do we explain.

[Pete Holmes]

Well, that's what I mean.

[Matt Berninger]

And all that kind of stuff. And if you really, really are interested in the Bible, it's a fascinating and entirely enlightening and motivating on 90% of the levels. But you gotta remember this was a collection of stories handed down, word of mouth that was eventually collaboratively written by. Not Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Those are names given to the collections of writings that were like, this pocket of stories that tells this version of his life. And then the Old Testament was a whole other different kind collection of writings. Writings and taken from. From myth and Greek and, you know, or way. You know, taken from. From. From other ways of telling stories about gods and stuff. So it's a. The Bible is one of the greatest books ever written, for sure. But it is a huge collaborative concept.

[Pete Holmes]

It needs some concept. It needs context.

[Matt Berninger]

It needs context. And when you do get the context, it's. It's. It made. It's made me a better Catholic.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah. Well, it makes it richer.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

If you spend. If you waste your time defending. If. If the things in the Bible literally happen, I think you're sort of missing the point. Or if you're defending, like, it's journalistic integrity or something. Yeah. This episode is brought to us by our friends at Element. You probably hear about Element a lot on other podcasts. I know I do. And I want to be really clear. I love it. This isn't just an ad. It's changed my life. It's changed my morning routine. It's changed my hydration strategy. And they now have lemonade salt. Sometimes Element, you drink it. You know there's salt in it. I'm gonna say lemonade salt. You drink it and you wonder if there's salt in it. It tastes incredible. It is like the best lemonade I've ever had. But it has the optimum ratios for hydration. We're talking about sodium, magnesium, and potassium in the perfect doses that your body is flooded. You can feel every cell is flooded with optimum hydration. And water isn't enough. You gotta get electrolytes into your body. And what are electrolytes? We're talking about salt, talking about potassium, talking about magnesium. So don't drink some soda after your game or after your workout. Drink Element. In fact, I drink Element first thing in the morning. Replace the need for a morning cup of coffee, because there's something energizing about getting optimum hydration flooding into your body. It is amazing. And lemonade salt, which is just here for the summer. You gotta get it. And if you use our promo code now, you'll get a free sample pack of elements, most popular drink flavors. We're talking citrus salt, raspberry salt, watermelon salt, and orange salt. I love all of those. Watermelon salt is Another particular favorite, two sticks for each flavor. When you use promo code weird. Go to drinklmnt.com weird to get your free sample pack with any purchase. That's drinklmnt.com weird. Try the lemonade salt. I've hoarded it. I have so much of it because I. It's only here for the summer and I'm gonna want it for a long, long time. I love it. I absolutely love it. We're also brought to us by our friends at Shakti Mats. Shakti Matt is like having a personal masseuse rolled up in the corner of your house that you unfurl like an old, old map or a flag, and you lay down on it and it's thousands and thousands of tiny little pokies, little spikes. It's like laying on a bed of nails. Why would you do that? Because it floods. Relief and tension melts away. Those pokies send blood and circulation to the areas you need it most. So I like to swim. That means my right shoulder is always getting jacked up, which means I'm laying on my Shakti mat. I don't know, at least every day, sometimes twice a day, because it's like a massage. I love massage, but it's hard to find the time Sometimes. I don't feel like getting naked and all oily with some weirdo. Some weirdo. You know what I'm saying? I just want something fast that gives me that relief, that gets stress melting away, that gets tension melting away. It's like cold exposure or deep tissue work or sauna. The release that you get from doing something that's a little bit intense up top but then you melt into it is amazing. It's an acupressure mat. It is such high quality. You need to get this in your life. I'm talking about deeper sleep, stress relief, muscle relaxation, better circulation, mental clarity. Just a general sense of well being whenever you need it. Go to Shakti matt.coms H-A-K-T-I-M-A-T.com and use weird 30 as the code and you'll get 30 off. It's also a great gift, perfect for the person. You don't know what to get them because everybody wants relief on command. And it's fun and it's interesting. Shakti Mat Acupressure Matt get into it. All right, back to the show. I wrote this down. I was like, God damn it, I'm starting to sound like a pastor. I was like, it's not if it happened. Is it happening? It's talking about a process that you're supposed to undergo. It's actually similar to yours. I'm not trying to be sacrilegious here, because the pattern of the universe is order disorder, reorder.

[Matt Berninger]

Right?

[Pete Holmes]

And you just experienced order disorder reorder. And that's the story of Jesus's life, and that's the story of the Bible as a whole. Even the Bible as one piece kind of tells the story of order to.

[Matt Berninger]

Sort of from Old Testament to new.

[Pete Holmes]

All the way through and every story. But it's not unique to holy texts. The reason why the Avengers resonates with us is because we go like, oh, Tony Stark is the man. Tony Stark dies. Oh, Tony Stark comes back. Like, that's. We can't stop telling that story. But also the trees tell that story. The leaves die, they fall, they plant, more trees grow. It's like we can't get over it. It's. It's.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah, no, I know. Energy works. It's such a. I think, a strange thing with specific. I mean, it's like, you know, organized religions, all of them have a set of superheroes, you know, and how. We don't understand that. All these stories, Star wars, they are all stories based on whether you go back to the stories of the gods and where the stars came from. We're telling stories to try to explain how to be better and how to educate and how to enlighten ourselves. And so things like Galileo discovering that the Earth was maybe. Was not a flat thing. It was maybe something else. There's, you know, maybe. Maybe this universe is structured some other way. You know, he was. He was thought of as just like a crazy, you know, and like, what. What? Insane. So the idea of miracles, the idea of. Of. Of. Of things we don't know. That's why I'm not. I don't say, you know, there aren't things that have divinity in them. And Jesus would be example of someone that has a thing like divinity, whatever. Because divinity, I think, is maybe a connection to God in a way or a godliness in a way. But God is like. When I think of God, God is the collective us. We are all God, you know, even the. I mean, to get hippie stuff. Yeah. The Earth is part of this organism. Like, you're just water and matter. The Earth is just water and matter.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Matt Berninger]

You know, but somehow we've developed to the point where our brains and the chemicals, we start to. And we start to look at the sky and try to figure out what's. What's. You Know a monkey. Monkeys didn't figure out that we were on a. On a sphere, not on a plane. You know, they don't. They still don't know, even though we tell them.

[Pete Holmes]

I keep telling them, I told. I signed it to Coco.

[Matt Berninger]

But I'm saying. So, like, are we special? Well, we're unique. That we were, you know, from. From. You know, it seems to be we're the first creatures on this that has. Has been able to imagine. We. We did go to the moon, you know. Yeah, Like, I met him, you know, Neil Armstrong. I met the.

[Pete Holmes]

You met Neil Armstrong?

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah, yeah, when I was like 7 years old.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, my God.

[Matt Berninger]

At my uncle. He was my doctor or my uncle's. He lived in Lebanon, Ohio. My uncle. My great uncle Howard was a doctor in Korea. Was in the MASH unit and stuff. And he lived about 45 minutes away. And so instead of going to the hospital, whenever Neil Armstrong had any kind of issues, even the army hospital, because there'd be press about it, he would just go to my uncle's house. So he was his personal physician. So we would go over there and there was really only, like. He would be there a couple times, but there was only one time. I remember it was like around Christmas and we were there and he came over to get something looked at and. And it was all snowy out and he. He. He was. I was playing pool with him for a little while, you know.

[Pete Holmes]

With Neil Armstrong?

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah. And he kind of showed me how to line up shots and stuff. So I tell everybody that Neil Armstrong.

[Pete Holmes]

Hit the ball and it goes around the eight ball.

[Matt Berninger]

We'll use the orbit. It's like.

[Pete Holmes]

Watch this. It's like it never leaves you. Never leaves you.

[Matt Berninger]

But. Yeah. No, that's incredible. So.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, sorry. We were talking about.

[Matt Berninger]

But that goes back to like. So like, you know, the idea of, like, what is real. And like, I believe in magic to the extent that, like the idea that you could walk on that thing that's glowing up there called the moon, that it's round. It seemed like a magical thinking. Like what? You know, so all these things, we keep discovering the true magic of the possibilities of what this all is and why we're here, you know, and so I believe in all that. And so I'm very spiritual and at the same time, I think a really good Catholic. So do I believe Jesus was the son of God, you know, and all that stuff? Of course not. You know, I think everybody is. We are all.

[Pete Holmes]

Well, you could. You could borrow this slide.

[Matt Berninger]

God is everything, you know.

[Pete Holmes]

I believe Jesus Christ is the one and only son of God and so am I and so are you. I forget who said that, but.

[Matt Berninger]

Right, yeah. I mean, it was a metaphor. It's like, how can people not understand if he did say those words? Which, like, nobody knows exactly what words he said. These are all hearsay. Telephone. That was over the years following his death that they started to tell the stories of exactly what he'd said and to who and where and when and the miracles and all these things. And all the Gospels. And the Gospels are great. I love that stuff. But I did. I mean, the fact that. That we still don't kind of understand that all that beautiful, beautiful ideas, all that philosophy that's in the Bible, that we can't separate that from these literal. Like these are metaphors where, you know, that we're talking about trying to explain. Explain ourselves to each other. You know, just like. Just like they explained the stars by saying this was, you know, these gods and created. And for these reasons.

[Pete Holmes]

Turtles all the way.

[Matt Berninger]

And every culture has Native Americans. Every culture always had a. Had a mythical, magical explanation to try to help understand how to. How to survive, you know, how to live and how to. How to. Maybe it was a search for truth and enlightenment and it led us to landing on the moon. Yeah. And now the Internet and now all this stuff we have.

[Pete Holmes]

So when you say it's funny. I'm working on a joke. I can't make it funny, though, is I go, I believe in God. And I go, don't get me wrong. I don't think God exists. And that's just what I have written down. That's my serpentine prison. I have that written down because I think it's very funny that, like, when people say I believe in God, they think that I think you could go somewhere and see something. Like, we could go somewhere.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Even if it's something.

[Matt Berninger]

There's a. Yeah, yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

It's a light bulb with octopus.

[Matt Berninger]

Interventionist entity.

[Pete Holmes]

It's. It's Oz behind the curtain. I don't think you can go somewhere and see something. I think that with which you see everything is what we call God. It's the knowing.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah, right. Yeah, it's. I think it kind of comes down. I've always. I think it comes down to a binary thing. Like a lot of. Not binary. I mean, everything is such. But like, when you have a choice, if somebody cuts you off or beeps at you, you could give them the finger or you could just go, all right, that guy's having a Bad day, just let him go. You know, every little thing, you know, big decisions, little things. And like sometimes you don't know what to do. And that's where it takes bravery. And I think God is bravery. God is your make the brave choice. And that's, that's God talking, right? And I do think we have a center that when you get down to a choice, if you really thought about it, that's God talking. I think everybody, I think everybody has a moral compass that wants to do the brave kind thing that arcs towards love. It wants to, it wants to. But there's so many pressures, like everything making money like. And you'll compromise your compass because the whole world seems to have compromised its compass. And we see by examples, if you compromise your compass, you'll get rich and you'll have or whatever, all these things. Powerful, all these things. But what is that you're wealthy with what numbers? Where does any of that go? Your stuff, your bank account, your conquests or your power? All that, all that's left is ideas. And all that's left is moments where you may have made someone's life a tiny bit better or a tiny bit worse. Like if I had given the finger to the guy who was honking at me or you know, would I have felt better? Would he have felt better? Would I? But like by not giving the finger, and I'm not saying I give the finger to people all the time and they deserve it, but I'm just saying, you know, I don't believe in the turn the other cheek necessarily every time. Speaking of Jesus, you know, it's like, I don't, I think you have to defend yourself and you have to defend justice and you have to defend these things. But I think we're all like, are clouded by what is acceptable and what is the brave right choice on all these little things. And so I am a socialist, I believe in those basic things. But every one of those labels that you give a cause gets corrupted. So I don't like to put, put anything on myself but. Because it just, everything gets corrupted. But, but I do think it's just there's, there is a global mental illness and it's created by fear and it's being, being fed to us like streamlined fear is being fed, fed to us just in ways that, that we're not even absorbing. Every billboard, every, every ping on your phone, every time you turn on the news, what's putting it.

[Pete Holmes]

Even someone you give the finger to, all of those things that you just mentioned is just reinforcing the idea of separation. So if you give the finger to somebody, you're not recognizing that we're all. You could say this non spiritually. We're all here together. We're all alive at the same time. This is amazing. You're going like, it's me versus you. And your phone goes. You get more points or lose points. You could lose your house. Get your house. Have a hit single or not have a hit single. And that just makes more fear and keeps you on the treadmill.

[Matt Berninger]

Right, right.

[Pete Holmes]

And money.

[Matt Berninger]

Right. And so going back to Sunken Place, it was fear. I was afraid of never being able to, you know, protect my family again. You know, keep my family from. Like, I wouldn't. I wasn't. I was not going to be able to. You know, I was. I was running this as captain. I had run us into ground. Yeah, we've run aground. It was iceberg, you know. Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Worse.

[Matt Berninger]

And I was like, and I'm standing there, and I drove us right into the thing, you know. But then again, then I was also mad at everybody for like, why am. Why is everyone depending on me to pilot all this whole fleet of ships? Yeah. You know, I mean, you know, my.

[Pete Holmes]

Voice in that situation is, why is this all on me? And there. And people will say, because you took it all.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

And then I'll go, you shouldn't have let me.

[Matt Berninger]

And then everybody's like, yeah, but we've helped. Like. Like. But obviously, like, I haven't. I've never done anything else alone. I've depended on all these people. I can't play the guitar, and I'm a rock star.

[Pete Holmes]

So you got to write down the people that you. That are helping you. Like, one of the things. This is not advice to you. I'm saying to me. I have to. The way my brain can be. And I think you can get very focused on just what's in front of you. I need to go like, holy shit. List the people who want good for you, even if they're not actively helping you. But, like, like, I want good for you. Like, I'm on your list. You're on my list. Like Tom, Corinne, all these. But then, like, even, like your manager, I'm sure, wants good for you. Like, there are people on your friends.

[Matt Berninger]

Well, I will say this. When I just shut down and I wasn't doing anything, you know, there were a lot of people that. That were. That I had promised a lot of things to. And they were excited about those things. And. But to a sink. To. To a person, every single Person that I had to make a terrible, uncomfortable, embarrassing call to say, like, I just can't do it at all anymore. Yeah. Every single one was like, don't worry about it. Don't even. Don't even. Not. You know. And so that was when I just realized that, no, nobody was the fantasy.

[Pete Holmes]

Being everybody was gonna be okay.

[Matt Berninger]

When I realized that every. Everybody. Everybody was. No one was gonna hate and everything, and I could lose all this stuff, and I was still gonna be fine.

[Pete Holmes]

Well, this is. This is order disorder. You were in disorder.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Have you seen the movie up? Did I watch that with you? Remember, there's the part where he's got his house tethered to him and it's low to the ground because of the balloon. So it's like middle age.

[Matt Berninger]

Oh, yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

And the house is on fire. Spoiler up. Spoiler. 20 years late. But I think about him.

[Matt Berninger]

They all die.

[Pete Holmes]

The magical bird dies. The little boy dies. But when I think of him with that low house and it's on fire all the time, I think they did something. Like, the mythic imagination is. We're all dragging around this, like, house.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

That we think we need.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

And the balloons are losing their air, and it's. And it's literally dragging, and then it's. Now it's on fire.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

The bad guys lit it on fire. It's the house that you and your wife lived in.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah. And it built together that your whole life. Life was. Your whole life was the house, and.

[Pete Holmes]

It wasn't the house. You've said it. It's the movie up. You're the movie up.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah. Even though, like, I put a lot on the house, that house was. Was. Was really only, you know, a. A one slice of the pizza. Yeah, that. That. That killed me, you know?

[Pete Holmes]

Tell me, though, what did you. Sorry.

[Matt Berninger]

I mean, that. That. That just put.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, I understand.

[Matt Berninger]

Everybody sell the house with only one part of it.

[Pete Holmes]

Nobody thinks it was the house.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

That was just because of the movie. Else up. Nobody thinks Bringer is house obsessed.

[Matt Berninger]

I'm. Look, I want to rent it one day for a month, airbnb the house and just live in it for a while. Oh, my gosh.

[Pete Holmes]

Is it. It's not on airbnb, is it?

[Matt Berninger]

No, no, no. It's very.

[Pete Holmes]

They're just turning it and burning it. They want everybody.

[Matt Berninger]

I can reach out, though. I'm not ready. I'm not ready yet, though.

[Pete Holmes]

I. I understand, but go ahead. Completely get it. No, I. I was saying, like. Well, first I'm curious what Did Letterman. I. I know he's a famous person, but it sounds like he was a helpful person in this time. Did he tell you anything?

[Matt Berninger]

Well, it was funny. I mean, I met him many times just being on the show way back. The national. Our first time on television was on that.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, I've heard him mention the national.

[Matt Berninger]

A bunch, and he has, and he's. It turns out that he's been actually a genuine fan for a long, long time. And a few years ago, I kind of found that out, and he kind of was talking on some podcast about that. And. And then we got. We connected. And, you know, outside of doing his show, and this is when he's not on t. You know, and.

[Pete Holmes]

Beard. Letterman.

[Matt Berninger]

Yep. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And. And. And then he came. Not. Not. Not just a few years. A couple years ago, he came to a show, a national show, and in. In Connecticut, you know, not. He drove 45 minutes from home. He and his wife came in and. And came up to me, you know, behind. Behind backstage in the green room, you know, about 20 minutes before walking on, and. And he walked up. The first thing he said, he's like, you know, and we'd met before, so it wasn't like. Like, oh, you know, it was like, hey, how are you? He's like, can I talk to you? Like, let me. Talk to me. What happened to you with your depression and that? He. And right away.

[Pete Holmes]

Wow.

[Matt Berninger]

And I started talking to him, and then he started talking to me about the times that he's backstage. Yeah, yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Sweaty.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah. Right before it was supposed to go on. Oh, before you went on. Yeah, yeah. And it was. But it was. It was. He. I think I, you know, he'd been reading interviews, and I had. I've always been pretty, like an open book about everything, and I think he liked that. And he read some recent interviews where I talked about all this stuff. Those are these last two records. And he just right away wanted to talk about that. And then later he came over, you know, a month or two later, he just came over and we kind of hung out and we talked, and I asked him to come over just to talk about whatever he wanted to talk about, but depression. So we talked about depression for, like. Like, we talked about depression for about two hours. Wow. And. And I. We. We boiled it down to about 27 minutes of. And I filmed it because I was like. And it was in my little cottage behind my house and stuff. And.

[Pete Holmes]

Where's the tape?

[Matt Berninger]

It's on. It's on. You can look it up.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, you can look it up on YouTube.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Okay. So he's public about it.

[Matt Berninger]

He is very. Talked about real similar.

[Pete Holmes]

And we talked about how like, like bedridden. No.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah, Well, I mean, he didn't. He didn't. He. But he says it's like, he's, he described it. He says it's like, like discovering a house, a room in your house you didn't know was there and that you don't know what to do when you're in it. You can't get out. And his doctor told him, like, listen, this typically lasts a year. And he said that turned out to be right. And we talked about just the kind of the physical manifestation of the depression, right. And how debilitating it is. And, and he was just, you know, and just how like, sometimes it's just time and you have to just. You kind of have to just reboot and obviously the life he's had and the pressure and like, I've always wondered, like, especially as one of these guys that do the late night shows, how do they do that every day, like, turn on. And I've met them all and you see them, they have to turn on and then turn off, turn. And I know that that messed me up with the shows. And so. And you must, you know, have, like when you're on tour and you have to do your show and then come down, do your show.

[Pete Holmes]

I will say that the weirdest part. And as you're saying this, I'm like, of course it's jarring to your nervous system to have like. It's like the throttle on an airplane, you know, that like. And you put it in and then you bring it down. And like, science is always just telling us, like, try to be routine. Try to go to bed at the same time, try to wake up at the same time, try to like, be even. And we're like, it takes me the.

[Matt Berninger]

Same amount of time to, to, to kind of come down, come down from something and sometimes longer than the whole thing lasted. You know, I know I'll do a three hour, two and a half hour national show and I. It'll take me three hours just to just settle back down.

[Pete Holmes]

I've probably said this to you before, but Bono. The metaphor Bono uses is, he says, when they came back, hey, Neil Armstrong from the moon, right? Synchronistic. They don't just go to the grocery store. NASA buries them in the ground. Not literally, but they go in an apartment that's in the earth underground to re. Acclimate them to the earth And Bono's like, after I come off a world tour, I go to the.

[Matt Berninger]

This.

[Pete Holmes]

I don't know if it's an apartment in Manhattan or a cabin in the woods, but he doesn't go home right away. No, cuz you can't.

[Matt Berninger]

No, cuz you're bouncing off the walls.

[Pete Holmes]

And I, I think not to fluff our feathers. I don't mean it in a fluffing feathers way. There's something sort of shamanic about it. I think shamans are like exhausted dream catching people that are incanting things.

[Matt Berninger]

Music is incanted to Muhammad Ali earlier. It's like he, he, he had to do this thing where he's like fighting. I can't imagine he was a. Boxing is such a thing. And so to get in that space, to get in, like, he had to wrap himself up. And you see him. And he is a poet, he is a philosopher. His character is strong. He did not go to Vietnam and he risked losing his. He lost his belly, risked losing his entire reputation. Fortune almost went to prison. Prison. I know. And it was congress that kept him out of prison. And, and so, and so I think. But also he was doing all that while.

[Pete Holmes]

He's also in the prime of his life.

[Matt Berninger]

Well, physically, but also in these, these intense things where you have to try to beat someone unconsciously.

[Pete Holmes]

I say this all the time. I'm doing interview shows and I'm like, I can't imagine, like, how do you sleep the night before? You're like, tomorrow I'm gonna be punched in the face.

[Matt Berninger]

Right?

[Pete Holmes]

And I'm gonna punch someone in the face. I think both of those are not chill.

[Matt Berninger]

Right.

[Pete Holmes]

Like you think punching is winning. I don't think it's chill to punch someone in the face.

[Matt Berninger]

No, it's a, it's a.

[Pete Holmes]

Everything about it is intense.

[Matt Berninger]

No. And all of that. I mean, the sport is a metaphor and baseball is a metaphor. Like, like it's a game we're trying to play.

[Pete Holmes]

But you are trying to manipulate. Good. Manipulate a lot of people. I just saw you guys at the bowl. I'm watching like, it's almost like if we were on psychedelics, we would see this, like rainbow swirl. Kind of not to make you paranoid, but it's kind of mostly going to you. That's kind of the lead. The front man's job is to take it and to send it back and take it and send it back. And I'm like, oh, Matt's like, our liver. Like, we're sending all of it to our liver. And when you start Coming into the audience, as you often do. Nobody's like, what's he doing? He's like, of course. Let us. Let us completely consume you. We've been teasing it. Let's end this how it was always gonna go with us swallowing you up. Right.

[Matt Berninger]

I mean, it is what it is. It is also. I mean, like, performance shows, like, I used to. I used to really. I did like church a lot, you know, until I started paying attention to.

[Pete Holmes]

Like, you know, I understand.

[Matt Berninger]

And so. But when you're in a room with a bunch of strangers and you're all. Everyone's really emotional, and it's all abstract, like, what is. Like, what are songs mean to these. You know? But we all realize. No, no, these songs all mean something to all of us. And, like, that's. I mean, it's all pointed in one direction, but in. In the art. And I know what I'm doing because I. I would see Nick Cave and Tom Waits and. And, you know, the greatest by. By seeing punk shows in Cincinnati, I just realized, like, oh, my God, I'm in a community of people. It's not even about that person. It's about the room.

[Pete Holmes]

The person is an excuse.

[Matt Berninger]

I'm the excuse. You're the excuse for all this joy.

[Pete Holmes]

And I say that all the time. I go, it's not. You think you're here for the new jokes. You're here for a frequency that we create together.

[Matt Berninger]

And when you look up there and you see, like. I almost see 10,000 people, you know, like, singing along to words that I wrote 15 years ago when I was drunk, you know. You know, smoking a pack of cigarettes and about some girl that I don't remember, and everybody's crying. Yeah. Crying.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Matt Berninger]

And there's a kid on his dad's dad's shoulders, and the dad and the kid are both crying.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Matt Berninger]

You know, and I'm looking at that, and. And it's the most beautiful thing, and it's the most. I can't. You know, but then. But then. Then you do it again the next night. Do it again the next night. So. So. And that's why you can't not do it.

[Pete Holmes]

Right?

[Matt Berninger]

You've given this opportunity. You have to take this opportunity. Right. To do this beautiful thing.

[Pete Holmes]

But there is a. The liberty analogy. There is a cost.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

And at a certain point, you can go like, it's all the donuts in the world. Remember when Homer goes to hell and they give him all the donuts in the world?

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

But then you. You do have to Bolster yourself.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

My best shows are the ones where I remember there's not literally. But there's a kid on his dad's shoulders out there or there's a kid who is going to become a comedian out there or there's somebody going through a hard time or whatever. You brought up something that I didn't plan. I always love talking with you, but there was one area I planned. And she finishes off my drink is a hook from this new record, Get Sunk, which is amazing.

[Matt Berninger]

The song is Bonnet of Pins.

[Pete Holmes]

That's the single I didn't know because I'm just listening to it, so I didn't know what the song. Song. That is the single.

[Matt Berninger]

Yep.

[Pete Holmes]

There a R man said I don't hear a single Tom Petty. But I. I did hear the single. I was like, that's.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah, I kind of knew that there was a single. Yeah. I didn't know.

[Pete Holmes]

You know, I. Yeah.

[Matt Berninger]

Although I don't. I mean, I like. I think all the songs on this.

[Pete Holmes]

I'm like at the show already and everyone's screaming. She finishes off my drink. Now, you know I'm the hugest fan in the world, but like it takes an ocean not to break. She finishes off my drink. These are the lines that people scream.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Like we can't get enough of it.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

And then I'm like, before your boyfriend's.

[Matt Berninger]

Cry, I think is gonna be. I think I can hear everybody. Oh yeah, that's right.

[Pete Holmes]

That's right. Yeah. It's Saturday.

[Matt Berninger]

Yep, it's Saturday. I almost named the album It's Saturday because of that song.

[Pete Holmes]

But I have the chills because these. It's fun to know that what resonates with you resonates with me. And there is a tonality.

[Matt Berninger]

It was originally called Get Sunk like four years ago when I started and like and did this whole batch. Then I did a. Then then shut down Depression year national two and a half years. Coming back to it, I was calling the record It's Saturday because I didn't even want to go back to that other stuff. But then once I started going back to that other stuff, once I got these new songs and putting together, it felt like, oh, this, this, this has always been get sunk for this whole time.

[Pete Holmes]

It's order disorder, reorder.

[Matt Berninger]

It's crazy.

[Pete Holmes]

I love that you have an audio record of.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Pre depression.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Post depression in one place.

[Matt Berninger]

Cuz that and the national records are me climbing up that wall of that. Well. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what they sound like to me. And I like them for that reason.

[Pete Holmes]

I, I, I, I was surprised. Sorry. I'm going to get to this question. Yeah, I really love I'm Blank Laugh Track. I think Laugh Track is one of the best national records. I told you that. And I remember you. You were a little surprised.

[Matt Berninger]

I think it is, too.

[Pete Holmes]

Okay. You do. Okay, I do too. I just thought maybe, I don't know.

[Matt Berninger]

I love the last two national records. And, like, and honestly, it was, I love the records because it was. Those guys were really doing a lot of the heavy lifting in terms of, like, getting us back together. I was barely able to do, you know, but so when I hear those songs. But when I was, I do the right. I think I was writing very well on those, of making some sense out of where I was and starting to, starting to climb out of it. And so when I hear those records now, I'm like, oh, I was, I was, I was doing some good processing of all that, all that garbage and making some beautiful stuff out of it. And thanks to Aaron and those guys. Really. Yeah. And then it was my idea to have the same album cover. And it is sort of like a double album because those two records, first two pages of Frankenstein and, And Laugh Track do really, really illustrate a phase for me. A phase of total darkness. Back to, Back to something else. And, like, every corner of that awful year gets kind of.

[Pete Holmes]

Well, smoke detector sounds like a guy pacing in his bedroom thinking about protecting.

[Matt Berninger]

Turn off the house.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, turn off.

[Matt Berninger]

I mean, there's a lot of stuff about houses burning to ash and stuff. There's a lot of house. House stuff.

[Pete Holmes]

Okay, so here's the question.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Just because I feel like this is a classic, like, Rolling Stone kind of thing, but it, you know what I mean? Like, yeah, it doesn't have to be this podcast, but here we are. If you look at, like, the Ava brothers, who I also love, they'll write a song about dying. Like, no Hard Feelings is one of my favorite songs. Just a song. It's not just a song. It's a brilliant song about dying.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

You write songs where 10,000 people are yelling or will be yelling. She finishes off my drink. And it means, as I'm saying, it means something to me already being familiar with this record, but this is what I'm gonna load into you. It's more like a dream. It's like you had a dream and I'm telling you, and I'm like, and there was an ET Phone. I never even had an ET Phone, but I couldn't stop Crying. And it was ringing and it was Arnold Schwarzenegger, like. I'm not saying your lyrics are nonsense. No, no. I'm just saying they're more. There's a lot of details that we don't know why they matter to us. It takes an ocean not to break. I know what that means to me, but I don't think it means the same thing to three guys down or the lady next to him or whatever it may be.

[Matt Berninger]

Well, Michael Stipe is one of my favorite lyricists. Who?

[Pete Holmes]

I'm just kidding. Imagine the 20 year olds maybe don't know who any of us are.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah. No, REM really love. I do feel like when the dots are not all, you know, it's not colored in. The dots aren't connected. It really lets you create.

[Pete Holmes]

There's a million examples.

[Matt Berninger]

And Michael is. He knows that. It's the sound and the vibe and the blurriness. He's an abstract painter of fragments of thoughts. But it's the way he. His soul is expressing deep, complicated, messy things. And it's so clear what his soul is saying, even though the words don't quite right. It's like a great Cy Twombly painting. You're just like, wow. Or abstract. You're just. Sometimes you don't know why, but the blurriness of it is why it feels so crystal clear. Because. Because our brains are so blurry. Our hearts are so blurry.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Matt Berninger]

Our guts, our stomach, everything is such a blur.

[Pete Holmes]

Yes.

[Matt Berninger]

Like, there's not a real. There's not a real story. There's not a. Whatever you think really happened or what we think we were really feeling is such a blur. So the. The songs. I think all my favorite songs are blurry. And. And so I don't try to like, purposely blur them up. But I. But I. But when I write, I'm writing, I'm writing sloppily.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Matt Berninger]

And then I just wait for the. Like. And then I keep getting this out of it. Take that out of it. Put this in, move this out until it's like suddenly. Okay. I don't know why, but this. It feels like it's. I don't need any more thoughts here.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Matt Berninger]

You know, and then other songs, like, Nowhere Special is like every thought, every single thought I had in real time, I just put it in there. Right. And that one song has got more lyrics on it than the whole rest of the record combined.

[Pete Holmes]

Right, right.

[Matt Berninger]

And that was like a purposeful, like, well, let's go the other way. Where I just like, don't don't even craft it at all. Just. And it was crafted, but just like, let it all go out and see what. That kind of like. That was almost like a Jackson Pollock.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Matt Berninger]

In terms of, like.

[Pete Holmes]

I like that new. That's a. That's a new. That's like a second half of the national mat burninger kind of move.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Which makes. I always think about the one that was written in a red Sharpie on a whiteboard in the Lincoln Bedroom. See, you're not going to know. I'm going to know your lyrics better than you.

[Matt Berninger]

Well, this. We walked in and, like, this was in here. And it took us a while, but.

[Pete Holmes]

Was I right?

[Matt Berninger]

Carried to a dolphin balloon. Carried to space on a dolphin balloon. And then there's a chocolate chip. It's from the pool of you. Yeah, I'm easy to find.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah. Yeah. So we walked past a national lyric, but before I realized it was a national lyric, I was like.

[Matt Berninger]

It was. It was.

[Pete Holmes]

Sounds like I lose it all.

[Matt Berninger]

Carried to Dolph. Carried to space by a dolphin. Dolphin balloon. Yeah. It was kind of. It was like that, wasn't it?

[Pete Holmes]

I get it. I get it.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah. It's kind of like how I lose my mind, you know, it just floats away.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Matt Berninger]

You know.

[Pete Holmes]

Yes. And then, you know, there are. Well, okay, so. What a beautiful answer. You completely. I'm not grading you. I'm just saying that was a very satisfying answer because to me, there are people that write more folky, kind of like, this is the story of the hurricane. There's a good one. I'm telling you a story about a guy who was wrongfully accused.

[Matt Berninger]

I try to write those, too. Oh, you do? I think Serpentine Prison had a lot more songs like that, where. Almost like country songs where they're so crafted. They're so. The lines and the metaphors and the puns and the double entendres are just so perfectly balanced. Like this chandelier of, you know, Willie Nelson as a master at that. You know, George Jones. And I love those kinds of songs. But. But then I also just love the Pavement, the. The John Berryman Ashberry type of poem. Thinking. Or. Or David Berman. Do you like Silver Jews and David Berman?

[Pete Holmes]

I've only listened to a little.

[Matt Berninger]

Really. I mean, really crafted. Just, you know, it really, you know, or Leonard Cohen. He takes years to write a song, you know, so I do do that, too. But sometimes. Sometimes I also like to embrace just the like. Like real blurry, you know, and. And I just. By talking to so many songwriters and people over. I've just realized you can do it so many different ways. And was there good advice you got.

[Pete Holmes]

From anybody in particular that's putting you on the spot? We can also.

[Matt Berninger]

I mean.

[Pete Holmes]

I mean, the next question.

[Matt Berninger]

Ready? Well, I mean, tons of things, but specifically about, like, lyric writing. Not nothing real specific, like lyricists in song. Like, we don't really. It's. I found every. Most, like, my favorite songwriters do not like to talk to another songwriter.

[Pete Holmes]

I've never talked to a comedian about, like, specific.

[Matt Berninger]

How do you write a joke or what was your process?

[Pete Holmes]

You just. The most will do is maybe you should move that part to the top.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah. It's almost like you don't ask magicians there. You know, it's like you like.

[Pete Holmes]

Or you know the moves. I mean, it's like, oh, you did a double lift there and. Oh, yeah. And you did a misdirector. We don't even have names for them.

[Matt Berninger]

Well, because, like, I mean, I. I've gotten to know Patti Smith a little bit and kind of been able to talk to her just about her approach to everything to art and. But I'm like. I'm not going to ask her about, like. Like, what she was with with songs so much because, like, I've listened to the songs. I know being a songwriter, I know that she probably doesn't have a very, very sad, like, an answer to me. For me, that's gonna satisfy her or me. Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah. We're both just gonna feel sad at.

[Matt Berninger]

The end, you know, a little bit. But I say that. But at the same time, I love trying to explain what I think I was trying to do with the lyric, you know, But I don't really know most of the time.

[Pete Holmes]

Well, I think that's really great. And let's not even think too much about it because I think not to flatter myself, I think a lot of times when I'm doing a joke, the joke, there's something underneath it that we're actually connecting to. It might be shame, it might be fear. It might be something peaceful, loving. I don't know. And we're talking about this, but it's happened. And the national is. Or your lyrics specifically on this new record, too, are like, it's everything. There's something really kind of. You know, the word holy means whole. There's something about, like, it is. She finishes off my drink. It's not just the word hallelujah, you know, it's like it's in every little moment.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

And like, you know, one of my Favorite songs is Nobody Else Will Be There. I think all the comedians I know love it. That song, Mike Birbiglia, I think that's.

[Matt Berninger]

His favorite, is that I'll Get Funny, I'll Get Money, I'll Get Funny Again.

[Pete Holmes]

No, no. Oh, nobody Else Will Be There.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah. I can't remember because.

[Pete Holmes]

No, no, it's okay. I'll Get Money, I'll Get Funny Again is my divorce song.

[Matt Berninger]

Oh, yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Because I was so unfunny for a year, people would say, we're still waiting.

[Matt Berninger]

But why do comedians like. Nobody Else Will Be There.

[Pete Holmes]

I think it's. It's one of your saddest songs. It's hey Baby.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah. I love that song.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, you do know the song.

[Matt Berninger]

Oh, yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, I thought you didn't know it, but I literally was singing it to jog.

[Matt Berninger]

No, no, no, no, no. I mean, actually, no, that's helpful. But. But, but, but I.

[Pete Holmes]

Why are we still holding it this way?

[Matt Berninger]

I know that that's one of my favorite songs, but if you asked me to sing it right now, I probably couldn't.

[Pete Holmes]

But maybe comedians really relate to. Like, can we just leave? Goodbyes always take us half an hour.

[Matt Berninger]

And.

[Pete Holmes]

And also the. The image of why are we still standing here holding our coats? We look like children is a great line. It's. It's like a funny. But it's. It's soaking in this, like, very sad sound. And I just.

[Matt Berninger]

It's.

[Pete Holmes]

I think.

[Matt Berninger]

I mean, when I'm writing. When I'm writing. I mean, I'm writing lots of stuff, but. But they're. I mean, most of the super sad lines are just questions I do ask myself, and it makes me want to cry. And I'm like, I gotta write that down. Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Matt Berninger]

Like. And just weird ways that you. That you. You ask yourselves really profound questions in. In sneaky small ways. Like, I mean, you know, the Freudian slave slips are. Are real in your own mind. Yeah. So you're constantly. I'm writing lines that are. That I realize are Freudian slips that I'll discover at what they mean later.

[Pete Holmes]

You. You can't trust yourself to do it. You have to let.

[Matt Berninger]

Your brain is just a giant slush of stuff. And it's. Yeah. So whenever a song isn't. Isn't a kind of a slush, then I feel like it's insincere.

[Pete Holmes]

I completely agree. Can I tell you something? I thought on mushrooms once that I feel like is so up your alley. So up the National Valley, specifically, is. I was like, I was laying there, Val was there, and I was like, am I cold? And I went, I'm always the last to know. Like, meaning my body was cold. And then my mind realized I was cold. I was quite cold.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

But like, doesn't that feel.

[Matt Berninger]

Am I wrong?

[Pete Holmes]

That feels like kind of in.

[Matt Berninger]

Sometimes your first thoughts about like how you feel about something are abstract, but they're the ones that like, why it.

[Pete Holmes]

Does it still say I'm always the last to know? It's so funny that there's a sadness to it. It's like my poor toes were cold. This whole time I just looked up the lyrics to Guilty Party. I, I just remember thinking, we're not going to read them though. I'm not going to embarrass you.

[Matt Berninger]

I love that one too.

[Pete Holmes]

I think it's perfect.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah, I think that, that's, that's, that's one that I remember like, like really trying to get it just right.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, you know, it's really, really special. Here's a, a lighter topic. I want to be sensitive to your time. It's eleven. Are you okay?

[Matt Berninger]

What time did I get here?

[Pete Holmes]

We started at 9:40. So 10:40. We've been going an hour and 20.

[Matt Berninger]

No, I'm totally fine.

[Pete Holmes]

Okay.

[Matt Berninger]

Can we take a bathroom break?

[Pete Holmes]

You eat. Let's take a bathroom break and then I have a fun question.

[Matt Berninger]

Great.

[Pete Holmes]

We'll be right back.

[Matt Berninger]

We'll be right back.

[Pete Holmes]

You know, I could be. You know I could be. Here's a little mini 10 second AD. Sorry for the interruption, but I love modern mammals. You know this. I hate washing my hair with shampoo. Fries. It, dries it out, looks fluffy, looks horrible. You got to fill it with all these chemicals and products to make it look right again. Modern Mammals cleans your hair, but makes it look like you didn't wash it. It's just Perfect. Hair in 15 seconds. Go to modernmals.com weird use promo code. Weird. You can try both the bottle and the bar. Both ways that you can get modern mammals on your hair. You're 15 seconds away from a perfect hair day. We're also brought to us by our friends at Apollo Neuro. Of course I'm wearing it because I'm always wearing it. Because if there's one piece of tech that's changed my life in a positive way, obviously more than any other, it's the Apollo Neuro. It's a wearable device. I have it here on the inside of my wrist. That helps your body recover from stress by sending vibrations that speaks to Your nervous system in its own language in a way that it can understand, giving your body the sensation of being touched or held. It's like a virtual hug when you need it. When I'm traveling, when I'm stressed, when I'm recovering, it's perfect. It's got settings for energy, social and open, which is usually what I have it running on when I'm doing this podcast. Clear and focused when I'm working, which can help fight off symptoms of ADD and dial you in. Rebuild and recover calm. Unwind. There's even a setting called Good night which I use while I'm unwinding at night. Helps me fall asleep. And then of course, the sleep setting, which if all it did was helped you fall asleep and stay asleep because it reruns the program while you're asleep, helping you stay asleep. It would be worth it just for that, that. But it has settings for all of those things and I've used it for years. It is an absolute game changer. It's developed by a neuroscientist and a board certified psychiatrist. This is not sold in a crystal shop. This is science. It is neuroscience. And they've been studying the stress in humans for over 15 years. And Apollo's effects on stress, sleep and cognitive performance have been proven in multiple clinical trials and real world, real world studies. So go to Apollo Neuro AP O L L O N-E U-R-O.com weird and use promo code code weird. Try it. Give one away. Get one for yourself. 40 bucks off when you use promo code weird. ApolloNeuro.com weird okay, you can have your magic mind now.

[Matt Berninger]

Magic.

[Pete Holmes]

We're on set. We're in the second half. And I don't feel burdened that we have to go the length of the first half now. I'm just saying this is.

[Matt Berninger]

No, no. I was a breakout all the time in, in the.

[Pete Holmes]

Well, I. I always love talking with you and. Thank you. This is my, my one time I just saw you guys at the bowl and you. I'm interested in how you guys put together your set lists and I'm a little sneakily.

[Matt Berninger]

Get us in.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, do it.

[Matt Berninger]

Did you hear that? There we go. No.

[Pete Holmes]

I'm curious. And you. I don't know why I'm worried that this is like an annoying topic like bands and their set lists because it's kind of like what do the fans want? And like when, when fans tell George Lucas what Star wars is like. You know what I mean? Like, I understand. It's like the set List is sort of the meeting point between the audience and the band.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

And we love it and we want your set list and what did they play and all these sorts of things. But when I saw you most recently at the bowl and I've seen the national at least six, seven times, it was like, like what I would call the greatest hits set. Like the, like here we go. We're gonna do Terrible love. We're gonna do. We're gonna do what, what you want. It is what we want. And we loved it. It was a great show.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

It wasn't what I was expecting because the time or two times before I saw you guys live and you played I am Easy to Find almost in its entirety.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah, that one, we definitely did that. Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

And I was again, as I'm saying this, I feel myself infringing on, on your thing.

[Matt Berninger]

No, it's a good. There's no challenging.

[Pete Holmes]

But I'm like, I'm wondering what the process.

[Matt Berninger]

It's different.

[Pete Holmes]

You're also in la. I'm like, Phoebe. Well, maybe Phoebe's in New York. But I'm like, surely Feist is here. You know, I'm like, oh, it's probably going to be all the songs from. I'm Easy to Find and, and then.

[Matt Berninger]

Oh, you mean because we're in.

[Pete Holmes]

Because you're in la, everybody. And am I just tell me everything you got.

[Matt Berninger]

Well, I mean, I mean now that we've got 12 or 13 records or 12. Yeah, 11.

[Pete Holmes]

It's, I mean it's a lot.

[Matt Berninger]

There's more coming.

[Pete Holmes]

What do you pull down for those.

[Matt Berninger]

Take away from.

[Pete Holmes]

Come on.

[Matt Berninger]

One of those records. No, but, yeah, so, so we've got, we've now we've got so many songs and we've also got a really interesting thing where we do not have like one record that's like our big record. You know, most bands have one or two that are like they're, they're big ones, you know.

[Pete Holmes]

And of course.

[Matt Berninger]

And weirdly every single one of ours, except for the first two, we didn't have much, you know. And, and you know, those, those make sense to me why those aren't our most popular records. We were just kind of learning how to, how to bs. But Alligator, and it was, you know, the self titled and then Sad Songs for Dirty Love.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, Alligators the third.

[Matt Berninger]

And then, and then, then there's a Cherry Tree EP where we really started. And I love all those, I love these first two records.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Matt Berninger]

But my point is, is that that, is that like. Yeah, we do have we. We have, I guess for us, hits, but it's like one song off of every record. One or two of a record, you know, and then we have certain records that are really beloved by, you know, that. But. But we have six that have like different encampments of like, super love. Right. So a set list is always just like. Is kind of hard to figure out, you know, And. And I don't. I'm not never involved in the picking of the songs.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, really?

[Matt Berninger]

I stay completely out of it. Aaron does.

[Pete Holmes]

Here's Aaron and Scott.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah. And those guys kind of like. Well, and Brian will chime in depending on like too many drum, you know, rockers in a row. Just, you know.

[Pete Holmes]

So those guys all like for exhaustion, you mean?

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah, we're just like, you can't, like, you can't do able. Into available into whatever, you know, certain things, you know, certain songs where he's just. He's just. He's going to, you know, 100 miles an hour for the whole song. You can't do three of those in a row.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Matt Berninger]

So those guys all figure out the set list. And I don't know what's gonna be on the set list until I don't even look at the set list when I walk out on stage, you know.

[Pete Holmes]

Is that to keep it fresh?

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah, to kinda like. I don't wanna know what this next scene is gonna be. Because if I know, if I kinda know, I'll start to get ahead of myself, you know, and it's like, I just have to like, what's the wave coming? Okay, I gotta. I gotta paddle out to get on it. I'm not trying to look at the wave after and the wave after that. I've just gotta ride this one.

[Pete Holmes]

In fact, that's a great tip that Isaac Witty, who's a great comedian gave me, which is like, if you're tired of your hour as a comedian, go out of order. And Louis does it too. It's like you'll throw something from the end into the beginning and it elevates everything.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Sometimes I do it by accident and I go, oh, that's where it always should have been. You know, we're talking about a structuring thing.

[Matt Berninger]

I like. I mean, when I don't know what's next and I'm not sure, like. And suddenly there'll be a song that we haven't played in in a long time. I mean, if we're gonna do someone that we haven't played in 10 years, we'll rehearse it, you know, at Soundcheck. But there's so many songs now that we just. The whole band just knows that, yeah, there could be a song that we haven't played in three years. And all of a sudden it starts playing and I'm like. I look down, you know, I see, oh, it's this one. And like. And then all of a sudden I'm like. I'm so into that song. I'm really experiencing it. And I'm really like. Like listening to the lyrics and. And enjoying my own writing, of course. And the band's joint and like. Like, there's songs that we. For whatever reason. There's a famous song of ours. Not famous. It's called Guest Room. I think it's on Boxer. And for whatever reason, we just always. For some reason, we're embarrassed by it. And then we. We've been playing it recently and we all realized what a great song it is.

[Pete Holmes]

It's a great song.

[Matt Berninger]

It's a great song. And I think it was just something about the production. We just. I think I didn't like the way it was and was. It ended up sounding on the record, but. So all those songs.

[Pete Holmes]

It's interesting. Yeah. There's some. I. There's a. It's a little bit smoother. It's a little bit round. Like that song Guest Room.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

There's something a little bit like. It's less gritty than where you've ended up. And I like that. This is actually just give you a compliment.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Listening to this solo record and the later national records. You know what it reminds me of is something in the way the Nirvana song. And he was. They couldn't crack it in the studio.

[Matt Berninger]

And then they laid down.

[Pete Holmes]

He laid down on the couch or the couch and they recorded it. No.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Is that it? Sounds city.

[Matt Berninger]

It's in the. It's back in the storage. Holy. Actually, Phoebe and I got it out. Took it out of the storage place and. And. And brought it. Like, we had it and set up in the parking lot. This is 10, five years ago. I had a long time.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Matt Berninger]

When we were doing that song Walking on a String for Zach's movie, for Between Two Ferns movie. And anyway, we were doing that over there and we found back in there. There's that couch. There's a table that Johnny Cash used to write on. There's Tom Petty's like, custom vocal booth with orange shag carpeting. Anyway, we dragged. We pulled that couch out and we all just like, kind of hanging out on that couch. And imagining what it must have felt like to be those three guys. Because that was the couch that was in the room with the board. Right.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, so they're listening back.

[Matt Berninger]

So they would be sitting. Listening back to Nevermind demos, you know, or Nevermind tracks at Sound City and sitting on that couch. And did they know what was about to happen, you know, with that song?

[Pete Holmes]

Like, unbelievable.

[Matt Berninger]

So just sitting on the couch and it's just a couch. We talked about. About stuff. Right. Houses and just stuff.

[Pete Holmes]

But it was just like, it was so much more.

[Matt Berninger]

That's, that's the something in a way on like this, you know, and they just.

[Pete Holmes]

And they record so they, they couldn't. What I love about that story too, sounds like you love it as well. They were banging their head against the wall. They couldn't get it. And then he was just in between, was laying down, probably smoking, playing the guitar and there. And they just moved a mic over and record it. And that's on the record. Of course. The band kicks in at the chorus.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

But then I think it goes back and there. I think that's one of the. I'm telling you. What a great compliment I'm giving you. That's like. I think if you did guest room now, you might bring some of that nuance that you found. And again, I love it.

[Matt Berninger]

It's not a criticism. Right.

[Pete Holmes]

But you figured out this something in the Wayness.

[Matt Berninger]

Exactly. I think towards the beginning, we were, you know, it was this effort to like, you know, the Strokes and Interpol and all these, I mean, incredible bands. But like, like, they just had these songs that were just like. And we had. Our songs were just a little, little squishier and a little, A little not, you know. And so I think around, around that time, we were trying to like, like, create songs that were gonna punch through. So there's songs, there's some songs like Guest Room, I think that maybe, maybe needed to stay a little squishier. And they. But, but, but that's why, that's why playing these old songs. I love all those kind of adolescent versions of the songs.

[Pete Holmes]

I agree with. I, I really, I mean, I, I think Boxer is perfect.

[Matt Berninger]

I, I, I. Even the way I sing on Boxer, though, is, is I was crooning. You're crooning, you know, but because I was insecure now.

[Pete Holmes]

It's funny that you mentioned punctures. I grew up loving punk. That was the first music I love. And I don't know, have we ever talked about this? But like Tim Armstrong from Rancid. Yeah, I see it. I think you guys could cover.

[Matt Berninger]

I love Rancid. I love Rancid.

[Pete Holmes]

But. And do you notice what I'm talking about? Like, vocally, there's. You'll keep in the, like. Like the crack or the. Oh, yeah, obviously.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

He's sort of.

[Matt Berninger]

Well, I mean, like, the flaws. The.

[Pete Holmes]

More they don't even tune their instruments.

[Matt Berninger]

No, I mean, I just. I always connect most to music that's messy and filled with flaws.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Matt Berninger]

I mean, Pavement, I do think, is one of the greatest bands. I think they can be kind of a hard thing for people to get into, you know, to kind of get across some line. But once you get across this line in Pavement, you're hearing not only Malchimus, but like a bunch of like. Like five people. Just really, really, really.

[Pete Holmes]

A lot of different.

[Matt Berninger]

You know, people going lots of different directions, and it's. It's a chaos that creates a really, really special thing that's like. Like no one else. And. And so. Yeah, and singers like Tom Waits or Leonard Cohen who are like kind of. Kind of croakers and kind of flawed singers. I mean, Bob Dylan is, I think, my. You know, what an incredible singer. So I've always kind of like, maybe felt like if they let this guy sing, he must actually have something to say because he's a terrible voice. You know, in a kind of a funny way. Part of it.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Matt Berninger]

You know, that's part of it. You, like, actually trust them more because it's not like great singers, I think, have a.

[Pete Holmes]

Have a.

[Matt Berninger]

Have a hard thing to overcome when they're so technically. Good. Good.

[Pete Holmes]

I agree that it feel.

[Matt Berninger]

That you don't. It feels a little.

[Pete Holmes]

I agree.

[Matt Berninger]

Icy with.

[Pete Holmes]

And I like Michael Buble a lot, but Michael Blue. You're not like, well, this guy. I don't know. I'm not leaning in. In the same way. And. But then he. You know, he has to overcome that.

[Matt Berninger]

He's like, I'm not even Otis Redding, like one of the. But, like, when he sings, all. All the flaws are still in there.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Matt Berninger]

Even though he's, like, killing it. Yeah. You know.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Matt Berninger]

But you. You. He's like. Like, he's singing so beautifully, but, like, when Otis Redding said, I think he's the best singer ever, and somehow, because it's so beautiful, but then it's also just so raw, and I think it feels like it's really coming from his soul. It's not. He didn't. He wasn't like. I mean, he. I'm sure, he warmed up, but when he sings, it doesn't sound like he was. He's, he's trying to be a great singer. Yeah. He's let his soul is crystal clear coming out. Does it.

[Pete Holmes]

I think in the age that we're pretty much in already, but with AI and we're not, we don't have to have a big AI convo. I'm just saying, like with this podcast that you're on currently. Yeah, we like a lot of podcasts and I, I, I don't mind. I listen to those podcasts, but they take out all the odds and the ums and they take out. You say, can we go to the bathroom? That's all in. No, no, of course it's in. Yeah, of course it's in. I love when you say, can we go to the bathroom? I, I, I, I, I'm, I Cr.

[Matt Berninger]

Crave. Oh, yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Something human and real and, and I think we're going to want that even more. I think that's going to become the.

[Matt Berninger]

We can't talk about AI because I know everybody's terrified of it, but I think, I mean, or whatever artists, it's not going to replace what it's going to do because I think that, like, a lot of songs are written by teams of people anyway anymore, and they sound like they might as well be written by AI And AI is doing exactly what that conference room was of. People at the label need this kind of song. So I think the more AI starts to generate content, artists really are going to be. That'll be. One of the things that we search for in art is that it's not AI human made. I almost feel like we've been in an AI phase of songwriting, like the Brill Building. Almost like amazing stuff came out of there, but so much schlock came out of, of songwriting when it turned into like a, when they just tried to figure out the formula. Right. And then, then you, then you get Bob Dylan's and then you get the Beatles and then you get the artists that react to that. So I think the best art is.

[Pete Holmes]

About to be made. People run the fastest from a forest fire. You know what I mean? Like, something will come out of you.

[Matt Berninger]

Because of this and some people are gonna learn how to use. Just like when they invented the camera, people thought painting was dead.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Matt Berninger]

You know. Right. And, and, but then, you know, but then, but then, you know, photographers turned the camera into. Everyone was afraid of the camera was going to steal your soul and everything. You know what I'm saying? Same thing they're saying about AI, but artists, the best artists will learn to harness AI in an interesting way. Yeah. You know, so I've already seen some.

[Pete Holmes]

AI stuff that I'm like, VAL doesn't like it, but I'm like, like, how the did it do that? Like, really, like it's its own thing.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

I don't see it as a replacement of a real thing.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Real human made thing.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

But I'm like, this is dreaming in a really. In perfect darkness. But it only. It's dreaming in a really.

[Matt Berninger]

When people first saw a movie for the first time, you know, it started out with a First time, like anybody saw a photograph, they thought their soul had been taken.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Matt Berninger]

And put on a, you know, you know, on a. On a two dimensional piece of paper, they thought that was them.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah. Right.

[Matt Berninger]

You know.

[Pete Holmes]

Right.

[Matt Berninger]

Like, and then, you know, it was. I mean, I mean there was painting and there was, There was representation, but so then, then a movie like when wizard of Oz Goes Color. You know, it's. It's one of those things that every time we think like, oh, my God, color, color film is going to ruin classic black and white films. You know, it's just like, it's Right. It's just another tool.

[Pete Holmes]

I like that perspective. I like that a lot. And I think, you know, Val and I, to me. Famously. You said famously earlier. I'll say my own famously. We asked AI to make a podcast based on a podcast that we had done where we were trying to decide which cereals were which Marvel characters.

[Matt Berninger]

Right.

[Pete Holmes]

And like, which sodas were which cereals.

[Matt Berninger]

That makes total sense.

[Pete Holmes]

It was so fun, actually. I mean, like, it really was Dr. Pepper was Coco.

[Matt Berninger]

Only a human could mix, like, could do this experiment.

[Pete Holmes]

That's actually kind of true. But we loaded it in and it made in about 15 minutes. It does take a while, but it made this two hour podcast of a woman and a guy going back and forth very much like, what. How we're talking.

[Matt Berninger]

But I was like, were the voices AI generated?

[Pete Holmes]

The voices were AI generated. And it was. It was fabulous. I'm not one of those guys that's like, my VCR is great, but it's blinking 12. It's like, yeah, shut up. I've read review, but it wasn't. It wasn't exactly.

[Matt Berninger]

Right.

[Pete Holmes]

It was its own thing.

[Matt Berninger]

Right.

[Pete Holmes]

It was its own thing.

[Matt Berninger]

I read some of my best. I've read some of the greatest reviews I've ever gotten and I'm like, that was 100 an AI generated review. Oh, really? That took. Took the best parts of other reviews and. And then repurposed it into this thing. And I read it. I was like, oh, my God, this is the best review I've ever gotten. It was like. And I. But I knew it was AI and why.

[Pete Holmes]

Why would it do that? Somebody else did it.

[Matt Berninger]

Oh, yeah. Yeah. I would say. It feels like a third of the articles you read are. You know, I mean, anything that doesn't have a real, you know, like a picture of a person, namely is. You know, it says, you know, media team. Yeah. You know, it says our digital team put this together. It's all. It's just. All. They just put in a prompt. Yeah. And they generate an article about Matt Berninger's new record. Right, right. Doesn't hurt me. Helps me. You know, people read it, and it's a great review. Yeah. I mean, AI is eliminating all kinds of jobs, obviously, so it's a terrible thing, just, you know, on that level. But I'm not. I'm not existentially worried about art at all. In fact, I think art is about to get real good. I love that.

[Pete Holmes]

I love that so much. You know what's interesting about going back just a click to the vocal thing, listening to this new record and where. Where you are, for what it's worth, vocally, I think is just. Just right in the sweet spot. It just sounds perfect to me. And what's funny about it to me is if you were in, like, a high school music class and someone was like, matt, sing a solo. And you sang the way you sing on this record, which really is, like, hugely benefited by a close microphone in a quiet room. What I'm saying is it's kind of like what we were saying about guest room. Guest room is a little bit more like, like, everybody be quiet. I'm gonna sing a song now. You know what I mean? And now you've sort of gone into this place where it's like. It's actually kind of hard to capture. You can do it live, obviously, but without a microphone, it's sort of tricky. It's pretty quiet, right? I mean, not always. Not always talking about, like, a verse, quiet, sad song or whatever. Like, what. Did that spark anything for you?

[Matt Berninger]

Well, yeah, we were talking about something in the way. And the truth is, I think I write. I write. I mean, I write all the time. I'm writing while I'm painting. I'm writing while I'm on my bike. I'm writing when I'm driving. I'm like, I drive and it drives my. My. My wife and daughter crazy.

[Pete Holmes]

And does Corinne text you? I asked Val to text me.

[Matt Berninger]

No, I tell Siri I got my car, you know, like, hey, Siri, text me. And it will be anywhere. Like, hey, Siri, text Matt. And then. Okay, what would you like to say? Say to Matt, you know, and I'd give him some random bunch of lines. I do this whole day. Yeah. Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

I did it on the way in.

[Matt Berninger]

You have to. You're doing your best writing when you're not. When you don't think you're writing, you know, but then when I do the, like, sit down and pull together my thoughts and try to put them in the melody on the music. I'm always doing that laying down on a couch just like this. And I'm usually. I got weed and I, you know, some tea and my laptop right here. And I'm. And I'm like this laptop on my stomach, and I'm just. Just, you know, mumbling along, just blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And just not thinking at all. And. And so then you go from that place to into the studio where you got like a $10,000 mic and you're spending all this money all day and you got all these musicians and you're like, well, shit, I wrote that song half, like, half conscious, like half here. At 4. At 4. At 5 in the morning, I got up, had some tea, smoked, you know, smoked some weed. And then all of a sudden, this. This melody and all stuff just came out when I was, you know, and then you have to, you know, do it for real, for the record. And you can lose a lot.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Matt Berninger]

You know, we're going from there. So sometimes you have to go make a big shiny version of the song and then throw it away. Yeah. And then lay down on the couch and re Record it laying down on the floor. And we did that with Get Sunk on a few. A bunch of songs. Oh, really? We're just versions of. Just like, all right, go back in. Because like, you were. You were. Your vocal sounds great, but it doesn't. You found. You sound like you're a little bit it in a studio. You don't sound like you're in your mind.

[Pete Holmes]

Well, did you hear Bob Dylan said that he was like, the best versions of my songs weren't on the record. They were never on the record. It was always some random show.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Where like, you just totally. You synced up with your original intent.

[Matt Berninger]

The record versions of anybody's music. Unless there's somebody like Fugazi who Tours, everything before they go in the studio, you know, and some people do that, and the National's trying to do more of that, that, like, just, Just write while we're out on the road instead, you know, and, and, but, but, but, yeah, the songs on, on, on a record, I think anybody's record are like high school photographs, you know, of what. What that song will turn into, you know, and, and, and, and sometimes they get. They turn into terrible. The live things, they go. They get. They get too loose or too overdone, and. And so they all go through all kinds of phases. And so, yeah, I love. I mean, songs that we've literally. I've literally performed, you know, I Need My Girl or fake empire, Mr. November, you know, over thousand, you know, over well over a thousand times on. On probably 20 songs, I've done over a thousand times, but every single. I Need My Girl or Fake Empire, when they come up, or even Mr. November, when they come up in a set, I'm like, fuck, yeah. I feel great about it.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Matt Berninger]

And I love it. And it's. They, the songs, never. There was a phase where you started to feel like you're a little bit turned into a robot version of yourself. But the past few years, the national has. Maybe it's because we got so many that we jumping around a lot, but the ones we play almost every night, even those we love, I think we enjoy it every single night.

[Pete Holmes]

Really. I don't feel any fatigue. Maybe I feel physical fatigue on you by the end of the show.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Like, it's.

[Matt Berninger]

Oh, yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

It's just hard.

[Matt Berninger]

I think we play too long. That's a big contradiction.

[Pete Holmes]

I wasn't saying that.

[Matt Berninger]

No, I think it was a big debate.

[Pete Holmes]

Someone watching and caring about you. I'm like, he must be exhausted. But I never feel you going, like.

[Matt Berninger]

No. Oh, God, no. I mean, there have been phases where, you know, I've been on the road for six weeks where I just, you know, and just feel miserable and lonely and homesick and, you know, hungover, where you just like. But then. But then you can't. I mean, you stand even. No matter how all of us have been like, two minutes before supposed to walk on, about to cancel the show.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Matt Berninger]

You know, many, many times, like, can't do it. Can't do it. Everybody's like, we're gonna cancel. Are you sure? We. Last minute, like, fuck it, we'll do it. You know, whether you have diarrhea or people. You know, we've all thrown up off the sides of the stage many Times. And, like, you just have to go. Because if you don't do that show, you gotta come all. Gotta come back again. I mean, in a way, so people plow through all those things. But the truth is, once you walk out and you see these people, adrenaline kicks in. Everything, like, you know, everything.

[Pete Holmes]

It's undeniable.

[Matt Berninger]

It's a miracle what your body will suddenly get into shape to do. And then. And then 10 minutes after you're off stage, you collapse. But, yeah, there's something about that, and that's the addictive part about it. And I think that's why it's like the performing becomes. Becomes a. You just. There's a strange high. I mean, when thousands of strangers are crying and singing back at you and they're all. You know, it's unbelievable.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, I'm so happy to hear.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah, it's really. It's really good.

[Pete Holmes]

Really.

[Matt Berninger]

Really.

[Pete Holmes]

I've walked on stage with a limp and walked off without a limp.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah, because it's.

[Pete Holmes]

You're just. It's like your.

[Matt Berninger]

Literally endorphins go through your body and they heal you.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, like.

[Matt Berninger]

Like that. You get. You get. You get healed in some ways. Like when people, you know, people go into battle or go into, like, athletes, you know, like suddenly in the heat of the moment, their pain goes away, you know, and they. And they can. They can, you know, Muhammad Ali. We talk about it, like, suddenly you go to a. Another place and pain and fear are gone. And that's addictive once you visit that.

[Pete Holmes]

This is a silly question, but as a frontman, did you ever go through a tambourine phase?

[Matt Berninger]

No, no. I mean. I mean, I have, oddly. I mean, like, I am very musical. We were talking about this, but, like. Yeah, and I'm a great dancer, but keeping the right rhythms, like. Like, clap, clap, clap, clap, clap, clap, clap. I was trying to do this at a Patti Smith people are the power thing. And I just, you know. And even when you see people, you know, clapping along to people of the power, even Patti Smith is getting it wrong. The clapping.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Matt Berninger]

So I've tried because I had to do something with my hands, but they took the tambourine away from me right away. I used to have sleigh bells that I would smash on the floor until the bells would all fly off. Fun. Yeah, but it was more of just like a. A bit a prop for destruction. But, yeah, a couple of the people.

[Pete Holmes]

That you worked with and you. We can, you know, you can pass on anything, because I'm not looking for.

[Matt Berninger]

Like a click or a clip.

[Pete Holmes]

But I am interested in, like, what was your takeaway? Working with Phoebe. Phoebe Bridger. She did the show. She's awesome. I know her a little bit, but I'm curious.

[Matt Berninger]

I think she's one of the best contemporary songwriters, one of the best living songwriters for sure. And. Yeah, no, I was. You know, Phoebe opened for the National. Most of the musicians I know are. Because they open for the national, you know, then there's a bunch of others, you know, But. But, like, I know what you mean, you know, and so it kind of. It wasn't like a reach out to Phoebe. Did you know? That was like. We've, you know, and the first thing we did together was that song for Between Two ferns Walking on a string. And then.

[Pete Holmes]

Well, Laugh Track is such an amazing song.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah, yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

What's the other one? There's the third one.

[Matt Berninger]

Which one? On Laughter. Oh. Oh, yeah. Laugh Track. I think Laugh Track's one of the best songs the National's ever written. And that was the one I really wanted Phoebe on.

[Pete Holmes]

And she elevates it absolutely a lot.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah. And then. And then your mind is not your friend, which. Which was on the. The one before that first appearance of Frankenstein. But. Yeah, but Phoebe is just. She's. She knows. I mean, she's just a great. She's just in great instinct, like, her instincts for delivery of a line, her instincts for writing a line. My favorite singers are the people who write well, too. I think the best writers are also the best singers. Because when you're. When you're a great writer, then you know that you have a confidence in the words, and then you can do whatever you want with the delivery. Honestly, when she's got all that.

[Pete Holmes]

When I've written something that I'm acting and I have this. Yeah, you don't. You never sit down to learn the lines.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

You know what I mean? And I know your lines, too. It's like. It's like.

[Matt Berninger]

No, no, no. She's in it. She's like, you know, she's like. You know, she. There's a Christopher Walkingness about her. The way she.

[Pete Holmes]

You know, she's just.

[Matt Berninger]

She's always just. She's truly. Generally. Phoebe, it feels. Feels like in all her music and all her stuff, you know? But then there's like. I think Adrien Lanker from Big Thief is. Dazzles me just like, just the way how. How Adrien Lanker uses words and melodies. I don't.

[Pete Holmes]

I don't know.

[Matt Berninger]

Big Thief. Big Thief. Incredible. And Adrian's got a lot of Solar records out. That whole band. Yeah. I think Big Thief is. Is the. I mean, the best band out there, right?

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, really?

[Matt Berninger]

Kind of, in a way. I mean, Radiohead. I mean. I mean, I. I will. I'm. I'm one of those people that do. Does think Radiohead is. Is our. Is the. The greatest contemporary band, you know, and not necessarily. Not necessarily my favorite band, but the best one. Like.

[Pete Holmes]

Well, you want to talk about vocal performances, Tom actually sings things that I'm like.

[Matt Berninger]

I can't even.

[Pete Holmes]

You'd have to get. This sounds like. I don't know how this sounds. I'm worried it sounds anything other than Tom York is.

[Matt Berninger]

Is.

[Pete Holmes]

But in the studio, I'm like, he just made a sound that's like. It's kind of orgasmic and it's a little bit weird. And what I'm saying is he doesn't care. He's making art, like. You know what I mean? Like, those guys are. They're not trying to look cool. They're trying to make the coolest, best song.

[Matt Berninger]

No. Yeah. And they're not. They're not always there to. To. To deliver a product to their faithful constituents. And that's why they have such faithful constituents. People who. Because they know that Radiohead is searching and Tom York is searching for something new, something weird, something different.

[Pete Holmes]

That's what I mean.

[Matt Berninger]

And he delivers. Yeah, He's.

[Pete Holmes]

I love that they won't leave. I think they're in Oxford and they won't leave because they don't want to fuck with their mojo. Do you feel a spatial difference writing songs in Connecticut? Like, is it. I feel different writing jokes in Ojai, to be honest.

[Matt Berninger]

I'm like, yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, I feel different. And I write.

[Matt Berninger]

Moving from Brooklyn to LA changed the way I wrote and really supercharged a lot of rating. I mean. I mean, it's now 12 years ago that I moved from Brooklyn, in Brooklyn to la, but I can't remember. We'd have to figure out. But I finished the documentary and then there's five albums, you know, five or six albums probably in that whole period that I was in la. Yeah. And then now moving to Connecticut. I've been here almost two years in Connecticut now has been a total. Yeah. I think it's really good for me to. To yank my roots out of the soil and plop them into another. Another different minerals and. And. And all of a sudden. And I'm reading all kinds of different books, you know, and just like, books.

[Pete Holmes]

Make sense in different places. I swear.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

There's places I've read books and I'm like, I get it. And then you take it to somewhere else and you're like, this book doesn't work here.

[Matt Berninger]

Well, I'm back to Mad Men. Watching that again.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, nice.

[Matt Berninger]

And like, reading a lot of Cheever and Mark Twain, all the stuff from that area. Cause I live on the train up. Very, very, very Mad Men lifestyle.

[Pete Holmes]

And you have winter.

[Matt Berninger]

In the winter. It's great. So. So I've been. So. Yeah. The kind of the world you're in, you start to. And so get sunk very much. Most of the record takes place in this sort of, like, mythical, blurry version of Indiana. And it's mentioned three times on there.

[Pete Holmes]

I know I have that written down.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah, it's. I grew up in the western side of Cincinnati, which was just right across the border from Indiana, my uncle's farm. And so a lot of my childhood, all my favorite memories of childhood all happen on this farm and out in this, you know, creeks and woods. And so a lot of the record, it takes place in that thing. But it was, it was. I was really inspired to go into that sort of pastoral middle America, like, history in my youth in Cincinnati and Ohio and Indiana by being in Connecticut, because suddenly, like, oh, you know, once again, I started, like, the visceral feeling of. I mean, there's creeks and there's all this stuff. And so I've really. It's just changed the chemistry of my writing significantly. But then, you know, LA was, I think, some of my best writing because of the chemistry of LA and Venice, particularly the witchiness and the. I agree. The magical strangeness of Los Angeles, like the extreme, extreme difference, you know, like, of, of, of. Of beauty and, and, and, And. And, you know, it's almost like a Garden of Eden. And then just under the surface, it's chaos and, and, and terrifying, you know?

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Matt Berninger]

And that's. It's always.

[Pete Holmes]

And it's you in these places, too. It's funny. It's. It's so clearly a Cincinnati boy going to la. You feel that and then go, like, where. You're a huge part of the. That I just listened to this. I'll keep this brief. I hate summarizing other people's podcasts, but Malcolm Gladwell did an episode about location and how, like, if you're in. If you're a heart surgeon in Chicago, you do heart surgery very differently than someone in Alabama or whatever. And if you move from Chicago to Alabama, he goes, how quickly do you Start doing it their way. He goes almost immediately.

[Matt Berninger]

That's crazy. Isn't that wild? Makes total sense.

[Pete Holmes]

And nobody, like, talks. Talks about it. It's just like we are in a system. And, like, when you change the system, you kind of change everything.

[Matt Berninger]

Well, when I moved from Cincinnati to New York, like, and I'd had a band in Cincinnati, a college band called Nancy, and we were doing a kind of a lot of thing, and it was you know, really influenced by that. That Ohio bands like. Like Brainiac and Guided By Voices and Breeders, but also Pavement and. I mean, Guided Voices and Pavement were kind of like, you know, know, bands that were our band was obsessed with. But then moving to New York and just that whole different thing all of a sudden. I just mean Boxer and an Alligator and all those natural records are about a. Someone completely out of place trying to feel, feel of. Feel, feel of this. This place and who doesn't fit in and struggling with fitting in in the world. And then eventually I started really owning New York and fitting in. And then my song started getting less. I started. I didn't know what else to write about. And so then moving to LA felt like a fish out of water all over a lot, you know, and it was so exciting.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, that's so great.

[Matt Berninger]

I think. I think probably in a few. Like, in probably nine years, eight years, I think I'll probably move somewhere unexpected.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah. Portugal.

[Matt Berninger]

Ireland.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, I was gonna say. Yeah.

[Matt Berninger]

There's, like, a lot of places that this. What. What's going to happen when I go there.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah. I think it's one of the missing sort of ingredients. Val and I were so revitalized by.

[Matt Berninger]

Our move to Ojai.

[Pete Holmes]

And now the hour that I'm doing right now is my favorite hour. And I think similar to you kind of going to. Into your trans. Yeah, my stuff just shows up like, am. You ever get an Amazon package and you don't remember what you ordered?

[Matt Berninger]

Right.

[Pete Holmes]

That's exactly what the jokes are like.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

So the jokes are coming through the filter. Not that these are what these things are, but. But the place, my friends, my lifestyle, like, I have, like, coffee with people and they're not comedians. And that means, like, I'm hearing different. I. I like writing jokes when I'm hanging out with comics, but I'm going to be writing these jokes that are sort of like offshoots of their jokes or I'm trying to shock someone who's a shocking person. Now I'm hanging out with, like, more. And I mean this with all the love More ordinary, in a beautiful way. People.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

And then I'm like, oh, look, I can make them laugh like this. And I don't have to say twat, everybody. You know what I mean? Like, it's interesting to see what those flavors do.

[Matt Berninger]

Well, somebody like Dave Chappelle lives in Yellow Springs, Ohio, real close to where I grew up and stuff. And he talks about, like, you know, he spent a lot of time in house and he loves LA and stuff. But there's something about Dave Chappelle, you know, who. That. That I do feel like. Like he's such a. A genius. You know, I don't. They're, they're, you know, they're. They're, they're. They're.

[Pete Holmes]

I think you're safe to say Dave Chappelle's a genius. Yes, obviously.

[Matt Berninger]

Obviously. No, no, I mean, I'm saying not. Not, you know, not. Some. Some things. Some places Dave Chappelle goes. I'm like, I don't. I. I think you're stepping over. But that's his job, and that's your job, and that's good to ask these questions. But. But I think something about his being in Ohio, in Ohio, and specifically Yellow Springs, and he talks about it, and I know Yellow Springs, and I know that there's a. Something. There is something. A beautiful, healthy, artsy, mystical, witchy, magical thing Antioch College is there and all this stuff. And there is an acceptance of fringy thoughts that are really, really looking for the truth in. In. In exciting ways. And that's Yellow Springs. It's in the. It's in literally in the water. You know, it's. It's. It's not literally, but so. So there's something about place that. That you can hear in a Zach Galifianakis, being where he is from. From. Well, being from. From, you know, the south, in North Carolina and stuff. And then also, then, you know, not being an LA fixture and living in, you know, pretty, you know, really being out there living and out there in a natural world, and I think he's one of the healthiest, best minds, you know.

[Pete Holmes]

I agree.

[Matt Berninger]

I'm saying.

[Pete Holmes]

And that had a. No, Zach inspired me when I was right, moving. I don't know if Chappelle did, maybe unconsciously, but, like, I was like, I know there's a precedent here, and Zach is one of those people that was just like. Like, I can't. You know, what's weird about la. And I'm not. I love la. We're in LA right now. I. I think it's weird to drive around in a city where you make something and then you see posters for that thing that you made, and then you see posters of your friends, and you see posters announcing awards that other people won. Or it's just like that. That is. It's like Instagram. It's like living inside of Instagram. And everyone agrees. Even the founders of Instagram are like, I don't know if this is good for you. You know what I mean? Like, they're like, I try to limit how much I'm on.

[Matt Berninger]

Well, my label. My label, the Nationals label, like, 4 AD. And they did it because it was a good place to put up signs. But when I lived in Venice, right. Right there on Lincoln Boulevard, like a block from my house, they put a billboard up, you know.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, wow.

[Matt Berninger]

Like, national billboards and stuff, you know? And so I would, like, every morning I'd walk to get coffee, and there it wasn't, my face. It was album covers. But, like. And that was weird. It was like. And speaking of Zach, I remember he. He's probably told this story a bunch, but, like, I think he was in Brooklyn sitting on a stoop, you know, having. Smoking a cigarette with some friends, and looked up and saw Hangover, the first hangover billboard. And, you know, and Hangover had just come out the week, and it was just a huge thing. And he realized. He realized. And it was a moment where he's like, oh, like.

[Pete Holmes]

Like, part coming for me, part of.

[Matt Berninger]

The world just kind of got uncomfortable for me. Like. Like, you know what I'm saying? Like, suddenly a whole new paradigm. Because he just, you know, he was a. He was a. He was a thing now.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Matt Berninger]

He was a thing.

[Pete Holmes]

Commodity.

[Matt Berninger]

He was a.

[Pete Holmes]

He was. Well, he tells those stories about being on some, like the Staten island fairy or something.

[Matt Berninger]

And.

[Pete Holmes]

And someone kept taking his picture, you know, like, he really.

[Matt Berninger]

And like, for so many people, he is only Alan. Right.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Matt Berninger]

And I can. And he knew right away that that was going to be a problem. Yeah. And so he, you know, he made some really smart choices, I think.

[Pete Holmes]

No, I know Balance.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

It's funny that you say that we talk about this a lot. I don't think there are a lot of champions of balance.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

In any of the.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

In any field, really.

[Matt Berninger]

Right. Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Someone. More people in every field.

[Matt Berninger]

I don't think I figured out that you need that as much as you do need it until I went after you because I was so unbalanced. Yeah. I was so top heavy.

[Pete Holmes]

And what do you try to make more room for now, like, not to scare you, but like to just slow.

[Matt Berninger]

It all down a little bit. I'm writing on baseballs to slow the process down. To get my phone out of my hand.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, wow.

[Matt Berninger]

And so I've got.

[Pete Holmes]

Literally write lyrics on baseball.

[Matt Berninger]

I've got lots of baseball. And then, and then I put pins in them for like, for line breaks and, and it slows the process down. It's. I don't have my phone in my hand.

[Pete Holmes]

Did you just make that up?

[Matt Berninger]

No, no, no. I've been doing it for years. Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

I mean, but like, did you just invent the slow riding baseball process?

[Matt Berninger]

Maybe. I don't know if it's an invention, but.

[Pete Holmes]

Is it.

[Matt Berninger]

But it is a. It was a way, it was a way for me to just not have that like. Or. Hey, Siri. Hey, Siri. You know, it's just like, okay. It's just this physical thing and it's the perfect. I love. I used to, I mean, I don't play baseball. I don't. I used to, but I don't follow baseball. But I used to toss baseball with my dad, so baseball. And I tossed baseball with my daughter. Tossing baseball is a way of communicating. That's like having tea with someone, you know, and like, and, and, and, and, and you're forced to like. And I had conversations with my dad that we would never have had around the, around the dinner table or like on the way to school or, you know, and it was because we're just out there for half an hour. Just like, you have to focus on this thing, you know, and try to, and learn. You're, and you're, you're fun because you're learning something. And that's why I do it with my daughter. And then you just start talking and you'll end up talking about things and you'll pretend like you're not even talking about things. So baseballs have always been this comforting thing. So I would, I would travel with them and I was on a flight in a, In a, In a. I had it with me and I. In a. And so instead I just like, instead of, I started writing on the ball. It was just relaxing, you know?

[Pete Holmes]

I know what you mean. There's the pen on baseball field.

[Matt Berninger]

Especially old baseball is the best. It takes the, the pen, you know, like a felt tip pen just really feels good. And then I was able to just write around, fill the whole baseball up. And then I was like, okay, I'm done writing. You know, it's like writing.

[Pete Holmes]

I did One baseball.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah. And that's like. I love that I'll write on a baseball, like maybe once a week or something. But then some days I'll just. But it's been. It's been a way of just changing. It's almost like changing. Yep. Just taking the gears that you've been using in your head and they're just running so hot. Taking them all off and putting it all back together. Slowing it all down.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Matt Berninger]

Anytime you can do that, however you do that is a good way to.

[Pete Holmes]

We shouldn't be doing our work on Infinite entertainment. Pornography, music, everything. Television, machines. You know what I mean? Your phone, too many things.

[Matt Berninger]

Instagram. I mean, I got addicted to Instagram. I loved it and I was good at it. And because you have an opportunity to be publicly funny or clever, like at any second, at any moment, you like. Ah, the picture of that thing with that funny comment.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, so you're.

[Matt Berninger]

Then suddenly you realize that you're always at work, meaning you're always trying to. Trying to feed.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Matt Berninger]

Just give them everything, like, give them more content. And. And so I was doing that and then. And I realized that, like, I was never shut up. Shutting off, you know, when. When I think Instagram is a problem, social media is. Because you never shut off then.

[Pete Holmes]

Right.

[Matt Berninger]

Like anytime you wake up from a nap, you're like, oh, did somebody respond to my thing? How many likes to. You know, you just. Pavlov. You just can't. And it's all. It's like you're science designed by doctors, literally. So you. You do pick it up and can't put it down.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Matt Berninger]

And so I was really. I found myself totally infected as design by that. That thing. And so I quit Instagram for two years and it really, really was part of my healing process. I'm back on it now, you know, because I have an. I have. You know, I live in the world. You have to. You have to promote. I have to. People. People have to know about. I have this record out, you know, and the labels like we had. So I'm using Instagram again. And. But, boy, you can. It is a slippery slope.

[Pete Holmes]

It's tricky. This is advice. I just uninstall it.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Post and then I uninstall it because it's really easy to reinstall it.

[Matt Berninger]

Right. It's basically.

[Pete Holmes]

But it's a.

[Matt Berninger]

The ass. It's like slowing down and it's like, do I really want to do it?

[Pete Holmes]

And by the way, good, you're going to the bathroom or something. And you're installing it and then you're like, I'm peeing right. I'm going to be done before this thing. And then you just stop. And then, yeah, you just stay off it because you, you said it. It's not like I think that's funny with a lot of addictive things. It's like, oh, I got a sugar thing. It's like every human person, right, if you give them sugar and fat will be like, can I have more of that? Like some more than others. But I mean like Instagram.

[Matt Berninger]

And I mean I am, I was convinced that all that stuff is just pure capitalist evil and it's messing with our brains and it's why we are. It's, it's all the social, the invention of social media. Just like discovery of oil and then, you know, industrialization are these things. And people say AI is the same thing. These like. But then, and I, you know, but then talking to my daughter, she's, she's like, who's. And she's very, she's kind of self polices herself, but I see her stuck on TikTok and YouTube videos, but she has taught herself to make her own clothes. She's taught herself how to, how to play guitar. I can't play guitar. I didn't teach her. She didn't have a guitar teacher. She has found a community. She's like, people who are, who don't have a community, maybe in the high school or in the family that they are, can find safe communities in this place. And then, and so she gave me a whole perspective on it that did make me realize that like, it's all how this stuff is used. And, and, and thank God for social media for, for certain communities.

[Pete Holmes]

Dude, I found the most important teachers in my life to speak out of the other side of my mouth on podcasts or from a YouTube clip or something. So nothing. It's funny when, like we were talking about alcohol before we were rolling and I was like, I stopped drinking. But it's not like I'm. My wife will drink or my friends will drink. And I'm not like, you know, that's evil, right? You know, it's, it's just like you.

[Matt Berninger]

Still welcome me into your, into your.

[Pete Holmes]

Well, you're lit right now.

[Matt Berninger]

Drunk as.

[Pete Holmes]

He's drunk as a skunk. A Cincinnati skunk.

[Matt Berninger]

No, but are you nuts?

[Pete Holmes]

This guy had three Cincinnati bangers. It's just rum, tequila in equal measure.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah, but what, but we were talking about it because like now it used be to, to like, like your Body is telling you. Like I, I don't drink nearly as much as I used to, but I still do it a little bit. Yeah. Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Well you have a cocktail on an airplane and, and you're for like two days and you're like, what is this? That's me because I don't drink. But like if I have a slice of pizza at 11 and I'm like the next day I'm just like, I hate everybody. I'm like, yeah, you can't do it anymore.

[Matt Berninger]

I'll say this. I write well when I, when I'm, when I'm drinking a little bit, you know, it helps I write it loosen up and I, I perform well with a tequila soda in me, you know, sip of what I perform better. And it's again, I think because I get to loosen, it does help me loosen the self consciousness. I lose a little bit of fear. It's a crutch. But then when I lose a little bit of that fear, then I say the things and I write down the things that I really want to say. And that helped me. Right.

[Pete Holmes]

So I, I, I don't, I, it's funny again, I don't drink, but I don't think it has to be a crutch. It to me it would be like you could set an alarm and wake up in the middle of the night. That's another way of dysregulating yourself or like putting yourself off access. That's what a, a drink is. Kind of like changing you.

[Matt Berninger]

Coffee changes you, changes your channel.

[Pete Holmes]

Jet lagged or sleep deprived changes you. There's lots of ways to do it. And so who cares what I think? But I do think that's totally fine.

[Matt Berninger]

Well no, but it is a problem though is like, especially with like turning on and off something the alcohol allow, helps you to turn that thing off. You know, like. And so in a funny way that's, that's why entertainers and people that do this stuff like, you know, David Letterman struggled with alcohol for a long time and then. Yeah, you know, he's been so over for probably 30 or 40 years or maybe longer, but he realized that, that, that he was using that thing. And so, and so, and I do realize that I, I use it in a way that I should, can get, can get stuck in a pattern.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, well I, sure, yeah, that was me. I was, yeah, I was just doing it thoughtlessly and constantly.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah, yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

What was I just gonna say? Oh, you brought up David Letterman. That made me start thinking about David Letterman. Alcohol, trance writing, crutch disruption. Wake up in the middle of the night.

[Matt Berninger]

God, that was funny. I like how you. I can't believe you brought all that back. We were on something and then. Then I think I. I kind of brought up alcohol.

[Pete Holmes]

We brought up my alcohol, which.

[Matt Berninger]

There was something before that that you're about to say. Yeah, we got into something else.

[Pete Holmes]

Chocolate chip and I can't remember. Cherry shaped swimming pool. This is.

[Matt Berninger]

When have you ever done the episode where, like, where it just keeps all this stuff? What were we.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, we do keep all those, for sure. This is exactly my point.

[Matt Berninger]

Where was I again? Okay, Pete Holmes show Dolphin Balloon. We already did that.

[Pete Holmes]

Dolphin balloon. We did. Nobody else will be there.

[Matt Berninger]

Well, we were talking about Zach. We were talking about, like, changing your environment. We were talking about Big Thief.

[Pete Holmes]

Big Thief, Radiohead. Do you listen to Atoms for Peace?

[Matt Berninger]

What's that?

[Pete Holmes]

It's Tom York's.

[Matt Berninger]

I didn't listen. I didn't listen much of that. But. But like everything. Everything he does, there's. There's windows into, like, there's. There's things I've never heard before.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, I completely agree. Have you ever seen. In your Cincinnati days, have you ever seen a ufo? I don't know if I've ever asked you that.

[Matt Berninger]

No. No. That is one of those things that, like, I really, really fantasize about. You would like aliens and being saved by aliens. I fantasize about that a lot. Yeah. I mean, your arrival and interstellar in all the ways. I mean, not, you know, arrival is great. Aliens, interstellar is more of like a. Same fantasy discovering of a wormhole that allows us. Us to. To find another place to live. Yeah. Yeah. Or some. And. And all of it's the same story. You know, we're all. We're all dealing with extinction myths. Right?

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Matt Berninger]

And. And, you know, but I do. I'm one of those people that I, like, we were talking about, like Galileo looking up and trying to figure, wait, I don't know if this thing is flat. You know, I don't know if this is a dome of light, lights, you know, over us. This is. Something else is going on here. So the. The sense of, like, all this. This idea of wormholes and. And, you know, where there might be life on another planet, is there another, you know, piece of sand in the expanding, empty nothingness that has a little water on it like we are. You know, Is there another one of these grains of sand with a tiny bit of water?

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, yeah.

[Matt Berninger]

That allows all this to exist? Right.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Matt Berninger]

I believe that there's there, there, there are. But do I believe that there's any way to, to, to bridge the, the, the, the, the, the, the hypothetical, you know, gap light, you know, traveling light years. They just discovered it. 1 like they said, it's like 160 light years away that might sustain life, you know. And like they just. The new one, they're like, this one has potential that there could be life on this little grain of sand that they've, you know, however they know I.

[Pete Holmes]

Want them to try and it's just like how they know, because that really sounds like something. They might just be like it was.

[Matt Berninger]

Like two weeks ago. I can't. It's got a name and it's a planet they found. It's 160 light years away and they're like, this is the best, this is the only one right now so far that's got the best chance. Right. And it's just like. So the sense that on that one there could have been evolution, you know. Yes. There could have been much more advanced evolution past where we are, you know, whatever. They could, could be octopus looking things, you know, that have figured out how to time travel, but no one has yet otherwise, you know, or if they have, they, they haven't bothered with us. And so. Yeah, my sense is, is that, that we probably are alone, you know, and, and that's, that's the reality.

[Pete Holmes]

Well, my favorite theory is that UFOs are time traveling. Like that's what they're doing. Or like.

[Matt Berninger]

Oh yeah. Oh, right, right.

[Pete Holmes]

Like it's us. Like their eyes go dark because all they do is look at screens. Their bodies are thin because it's all about like consciousness. Stimulating.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

You know what I mean? Like there's no more use for the body. It's just a shell. And these things are just going around and.

[Matt Berninger]

Right.

[Pete Holmes]

Wouldn't you.

[Matt Berninger]

Right, right. Well, that's why every, every movie they have to have a spaceship and then you have to like arrival. They come in a contraption that'll never happen. There's like, there's no spaceship. There's no actual alien spaceships buried anywhere. Like, like, because they, because that would never be the way they would get here. There would be never the way they would come. They would connect or try to communicate with this other. Well, that's my other favorite intelligent life form that they discovered. Yes. It wouldn't be by sending a bunch of them in some sort of tin can to go land on that.

[Pete Holmes]

That's how we think about it. But that's my, my other Favorite theory is that it's mushrooms. Like, mushrooms don't have, like. I don't mean just psilocybin and I mean like mushrooms. I'm not. Paul Stamets is the one to explain this. But like mushrooms have like interstellar origin. Like, there's theories that it came from, like an asteroid. And that's where we got mushrooms, really. Because there's something unique about them, a property that nothing else shares. And then if you look at the way they behave and then if you look at the psychotropic effects of them, like you smoke dmt, which I believe DMT is derived from. From ergot. I'm not actually. That's not true. Lsd.

[Matt Berninger]

Ayahuasca.

[Pete Holmes]

Ayahuasca being a vine and a root. But like, I'm just saying, like the aliens are here and they're in plants because you take them and then you're with them.

[Matt Berninger]

That makes. And they're like actual sense.

[Pete Holmes]

That's what I'm saying is like. Yeah, we didn't come here in an airplane. You mean like you. Yeah, that's not what we do. We're already here. And if you want to see us, you take these compounds and you'll like have like a little visit. But we're here.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

And we're not really worried about what you're doing, it seems.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah. No, I think. Feel like that's the closest to a metaphor of being visited by a higher intelligence that we can. Or something like that. Like this higher intelligence. A different way of thinking is in the plants.

[Pete Holmes]

It has to be a different way. That's why I think simulation theory is. I'm trying to do a joke about simulation theory that computer programmers, a lot of them think that this is a computer program. And I'm like, don't you see that that's sort of darling that like, you're like, maybe it's what I do. There's something meaning. I think the answer has to be weirder than just right, well, like in the joke, I'm like, when we were ruled by kings, we thought God was a king. Now we're ruled by computers and we think God's a computer.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

I'm like, it's always going to be something.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Where you go, M. Night Shyamalan twist.

[Matt Berninger]

Right, right, right.

[Pete Holmes]

I feel good. Do you feel good?

[Matt Berninger]

I feel great.

[Pete Holmes]

I feel like I could talk to you forever. We've gone. We've gone a long while, which is actually great because the bathroom break can be the mid rolls.

[Matt Berninger]

That's great. And yeah. Shape it as.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, it will not be shaped. It will not be shaped.

[Matt Berninger]

Carve it into a. It will.

[Pete Holmes]

It will be unshapen.

[Matt Berninger]

Well, thanks, Pete.

[Pete Holmes]

I couldn't love the record more. It's so good. It's called Get Sunk. When will it be out?

[Matt Berninger]

May 30th. Which is in, like, two weeks.

[Pete Holmes]

Congratulations.

[Matt Berninger]

But this probably will come out, like, a month after, because you guys will probably take a long time. No, I'm just kidding.

[Pete Holmes]

We'll release it right around May 30th.

[Matt Berninger]

No. Oh, cool. So it comes out tomorrow.

[Pete Holmes]

Pete, it comes out tomorrow. Or it might be even out. What's the Wednesday closest to May 30th? Okay, so it's out in two days.

[Matt Berninger]

Two days is all right. Two days from now. Oh, I'm just gonna this guy down.

[Pete Holmes]

Can I talk about it?

[Matt Berninger]

Take this with me.

[Pete Holmes]

Of course. You. Well, we'll have to ask.

[Matt Berninger]

I got it back from space.

[Pete Holmes]

Thank you, Matt.

[Matt Berninger]

Thanks.

[Pete Holmes]

This is your third time on the show. Your third time saying keep it crispy.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah. Would you keep it crispy?

[Pete Holmes]

There it is.

[Matt Berninger]

There it is.

[Pete Holmes]

Okay. Thank you so much.