Matt Berninger #4

Summary

Podcast Summary: "Matt Berninger #4" on You Made It Weird with Pete Holmes

Podcast Information:

• Title: You Made It Weird with Pete Holmes
• Host: Pete Holmes
• Guest: Matt Berninger
• Episode: Matt Berninger #4
• Release Date: May 28, 2025

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Introduction

In this episode, Pete Holmes welcomes Matt Berninger, the charismatic frontman of The National and his dear friend. Holmes enthusiastically introduces Matt’s latest solo endeavor, the album "Get Sunk," set for release on May 30th. The conversation quickly delves into Matt's musical journey, personal experiences, and creative processes.

Notable Quote:

Pete Holmes [00:04]: "Matt is also one of my dearest friends and I'm so glad that he's back."

New Album: "Get Sunk"

Matt Berninger unveils his new solo album, "Get Sunk," highlighting it as a deeply personal project that encapsulates his authentic self. He clarifies some misconceptions about the album's title and shares his excitement about its release.

Notable Quote:

Matt Berninger [03:15]: "Get Sunk is the name of the album, but Elvi and Meg are both wrong about the single title."

Previous Work: "Serpentine Prison"

Matt reflects on his earlier solo album, "Serpentine Prison," describing it as a soothing project inspired by Willie Nelson's "Stardust." Produced by Booker T. Jones, the album was intended to create a comforting musical space for both him and his daughter.

Notable Quote:

Matt Berninger [05:46]: "The intention for Serpentine Prison was to make a record like Willie Nelson's Stardust."

Personal Struggles: Depression and the House Project

Matt candidly discusses his battle with depression, exacerbated by the COVID-19 lockdown which halted his ability to tour with The National. He shares the emotional toll of selling a six-year house project—an artistic endeavor he never fully realized—as part of his struggle.

Notable Quote:

Matt Berninger [22:02]: "I had to stop everything, say goodbye to all my projects, including the house."

Recovery and Conversation with David Letterman

During his darkest times, Matt found solace in conversations with David Letterman, who had faced similar challenges. This dialogue was instrumental in his path to recovery, emphasizing the importance of discussing mental health openly.

Notable Quote:

Matt Berninger [10:38]: "I've talked about it a lot publicly and I enjoy talking about it because I learned a lot."

Songwriting and Collaboration Process

Matt delves into his songwriting methodology, highlighting a balance between structured collaboration and spontaneous creativity. For "Get Sunk," he primarily collaborated with Sean O' Brien and Paul Maroon, among others. He emphasizes the organic evolution of his lyrics and melodies, often inspired by personal experiences and introspection.

Notable Quote:

Matt Berninger [72:21]: "I write sloppily and then I let the melody and lyrics fall into place naturally."

Reflections on Social Media and Artificial Intelligence

The conversation shifts to the impact of social media on mental health and creativity. Matt shares his struggles with Instagram addiction, highlighting its dual role in fostering community and inducing anxiety. They also explore the role of Artificial Intelligence in art, with both Holmes and Berninger expressing optimism about AI as a tool rather than a replacement for human creativity.

Notable Quote:

Matt Berninger [95:47]: "The best art is about to be made as artists harness AI in interesting ways."

Live Performances and Setlists

Matt discusses the dynamics of live performances with The National, focusing on how setlists are curated to maintain freshness and emotional resonance. He shares anecdotes about performing beloved songs repeatedly without feeling burned out, attributing it to the deep connection with the audience.

Notable Quote:

Matt Berninger [86:39]: "Once you walk out and see these people, adrenaline kicks in. It's addictive."

Conclusion: Album Release Announcement

As the conversation winds down, Pete Holmes congratulates Matt on the imminent release of "Get Sunk." Matt reiterates the release date and expresses his excitement for listeners to experience the new material.

Notable Quote:

Matt Berninger [137:00]: "Get Sunk comes out in two days. We're excited for everyone to hear it."

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Final Thoughts

This episode offers an introspective look into Matt Berninger's artistic evolution, personal challenges, and the creative processes behind his music. The candid discussions on mental health, the influence of environment on creativity, and the future of art in the age of AI provide listeners with a profound and engaging narrative.

Transcript

[Matt Berninger]

You made it with. You made it with. You made it with.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, yeah, you made it with. Yes, you did. You made it weird with 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's back. 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. 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, sorry. 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 is 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 and. 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 Coco.

[Pete Holmes]

Rockstar spills our delicious beverage into beard. Into beard. Remarks. My beard has never tasted so sweet. I was gonna say that. And you 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, ditto.

[Pete Holmes]

Where I hit the ball.

[Matt Berninger]

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 walked in November.

[Matt Berninger]

Now. Now.

[Pete Holmes]

The new special. The new tour. Every tour. There's kind of like a new national song. Yeah. That I walk out to.

[Matt Berninger]

No, it's cool.

[Pete Holmes]

And we did. We did November. Yeah, of course. And you guys are always so wonderful. But I love it. I, I, I. I really love it. 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 Burner 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 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 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. I love Elvi. I think Elvi is fantastic. Of course. Every national record. And I love Serpentine Prison. I listened to. That was like my Pandemic record. That was like. Leela was like. I could put it on Serpentine Prison, just on a loop and kind of drive her around and, like, chill. Yeah. So I have real memories with that album.

[Matt Berninger]

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.

[Pete Holmes]

It is.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

And we're kind of getting into the difference with Get Sunk. Sorry to jump in, but, like, get sunk. 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 isn't 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.

[Pete Holmes]

I completely agree. 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.

[Matt Berninger]

It was, like, funny. 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. Yeah, yeah. But keep going. So there's dark stuff.

[Matt Berninger]

Killings and everything.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, sure. 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 Serpentine Prison. But. But that song turned into very much a. Yeah, it's a song about. About, you know, the traps we get into. 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.

[Pete Holmes]

And kind of a 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. I would say.

[Matt Berninger]

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

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Matt Berninger]

I mean, because we were spending all of our time driving around in school. That's what we were doing. She was. She. I was with my daughter more than anybody, you know, during. You know, I guess that's still. Still the case, but. But especially in that time. So that's what Serpentine Prison kind of was. And. 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, you know, Scott from the National, Mike Bruce, 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.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Matt Berninger]

I write all the lyrics and melodies and all that stuff of everything I do, but. Except for when I, 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.

[Pete Holmes]

But so, so we'll splice it 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.

[Pete Holmes]

No, it's fine.

[Matt Berninger]

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.

[Pete Holmes]

That's very interesting.

[Matt Berninger]

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 would 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? If that's.

[Matt Berninger]

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. Is that what it is? 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, taken from the. Mistaken for Strangers.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, I watched the.

[Matt Berninger]

The Proof of Concept thing.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, the Proof of Concept. And I listened to those national sketches. Yeah, 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. 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.

[Pete Holmes]

I don't want to take a break. I want everyone to take a break.

[Matt Berninger]

I wanted. I mean. I mean, I think a lot of people. You know, there was a phase of that where I knew that I needed. I was gonna burn out one way or another, you know, pretty soon. Yeah. So there was. There was. There was a relief. A relief when I. When I. When nothing could happen and nothing could really make any forward progress. I could. We couldn't go into the studio to do hardly anything, you know, or. I couldn't pursue all these projects. We just in. In a. And. But. And, you know, and this big one was this house I had been building, you know, from. From scratch. And. And we had. We had bought a house a long time ago and lived in it. And it was. And we thought about trying to save it, but it was. It was one of these houses that you just. It was like a little. 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.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah, it's probably still under const.

[Pete Holmes]

No, 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's since won all these awards and all this stuff. Yeah, yeah, it's a beautiful house.

[Pete Holmes]

We need to stay linear because.

[Matt Berninger]

No, 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, I. My wife and I decided it was like we just have to get rid of that house, you know, and, 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, so there was a.

[Pete Holmes]

Both.

[Matt Berninger]

There were both things. It was, there was just, 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 of. I almost put as much passion into the building of this designing and you know, building of this little tiny house. And it had more yard than it had house. 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.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Matt Berninger]

Literally concrete, you know, and even though that's, you know, none of that'll last either. But, you know, but so, so yeah. So having to sell it was both the wise thing, but, but, but crushing that I never, you know, I never got to spend a night in my, My greatest art project.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Matt Berninger]

You know, it's almost like making it. 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 did.

[Pete Holmes]

I think that's what I'm just saying, like substantial thing.

[Matt Berninger]

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. I was, you know, and I. And so 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 I was taking. I was lvi. 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.

[Pete Holmes]

It's a great thing.

[Matt Berninger]

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 was a moment where everybody just boom, and went away and did. Did other things. It became very successful with those things. But so.

[Pete Holmes]

But.

[Matt Berninger]

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 were Paying double, you know, mortgage A plus rents. So we were way at, you know.

[Pete Holmes]

And, 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. 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 small vill 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.

[Pete Holmes]

But.

[Matt Berninger]

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, and 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 haul 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. It's not a rationalization. I know we were, we were. My wife and daughter and I. All three of us were ready to. Were ready to be out of California, I think in la. We were ready to be out of la. My daughter was just, you know, 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 gonna end up moving to Connecticut any. 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, the light switches and everything.

[Pete Holmes]

And then you watch it win awards.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah. 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. And so. Yeah. And then again, it's just a house. And as we all know, like, you know, especially LA is like. Like, like that is losing. That's losing something. A house is traumatic. But it's just stuff, you know?

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, yeah, it's just stuff.

[Matt Berninger]

And, and, and if it.

[Pete Holmes]

If you can see it clearly, though. Yeah.

[Matt Berninger]

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 the national me, all my projects, you know, my ego, everything. I just. I had to.

[Pete Holmes]

And what does that mean, to burn it down?

[Matt Berninger]

I had to stop. I think it wasn't. I mean, it was 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 sound.

[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 didn't want to go to a restaurant ever again. You know, it was that point you're like. You 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 and you can't solve these problems because there aren't any solutions. You just keep going over them all and they. And you. You just spin. And after three, four nights of insomnia you really start to. Your brain starts to melt and logic stops working. 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, 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 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.

[Matt Berninger]

A cold room.

[Pete Holmes]

Matt.

[Matt Berninger]

No.

[Pete Holmes]

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

[Matt Berninger]

We'Re talking about, you know, in a. You know, And I. And I tried some things. I mean. 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.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, but the thinking was compromised.

[Matt Berninger]

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? Right.

[Pete Holmes]

There's a flavor to the insanity of vulnerability.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

You should be asleep and your mind is just exhausted. But you were kind of having 4am thoughts.

[Matt Berninger]

And I was.

[Pete Holmes]

I had.

[Matt Berninger]

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 the movement. Or I'd get up, and you'd get up, and I would just pace. Just pace, you know, and stare out 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, I just needed to get some sleep. 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. 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, it's. 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 a 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, I can't. I can't get up there.

[Pete Holmes]

And then did. 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, commiseration?

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah. And I mean. I mean, yeah, it was, you know. You know, manic. Depression? Not manic. No, no, it was. It was a. Manic depression is like something that's more like comes and you know.

[Pete Holmes]

Well, then you have the opposite.

[Matt Berninger]

It's not bipolar or something like that, but I was 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 then go away and 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.

[Pete Holmes]

When I was 12, I got beat.

[Matt Berninger]

Up in the woods by a bunch of kids. You know, I was seventh grade.

[Pete Holmes]

God damn it.

[Matt Berninger]

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.

[Pete Holmes]

Yes.

[Matt Berninger]

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 happen. 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 it was just, you know, 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 ass has been grabbed at a party. It made me think of all that stuff. So that kind of like any kind of humanizing assault, any kind of assault like that, you know, is. It takes your power away. Like, what they're doing is they're taking all your power away.

[Pete Holmes]

Right, right.

[Matt Berninger]

And, you know, because they, you know, and it's. And all that's. Well, whatever.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, that's what I'm just.

[Matt Berninger]

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 world is just infected with fear right now. And. And there's very little bravery and scapegoating.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah. I'm not saying we can know why these kids to 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. Yeah. And.

[Matt Berninger]

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

[Pete Holmes]

And unfortunately, it works.

[Matt Berninger]

It does.

[Pete Holmes]

I. I just block.

[Matt Berninger]

Look, fear sells.

[Pete Holmes]

Nobody needs to know how little I'm looking at social media, but I'm really blocking the sites. Taking it 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 car 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 to. 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 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, 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 managing those little carts that deliver groceries on the sidewalk.

[Pete Holmes]

Those get fucked up too.

[Matt Berninger]

Made a bunch of bunks, spray painting one of the. As it goes by. That's what 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, 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, it's, it's, it's the, it's the, it's these people's fault and they're coming for you and they're, you know, and in, in, in. And I'm the only person who can protect you from that stuff is, is.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Matt Berninger]

Every, you know, it's, it's like, it's the, it's the whole political game and all of it's capitalism. It's all of its capital. The Catholic Church has become mostly, you know, it's like you turn something into a money making venture. All the, but all the things, it goes sideways immediately, it all goes sideways, you know, Like, I'm a Catholic. I think I'm a good Catholic, you know, 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 believe in God, but I do believe like, you know, 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 I am. I consider myself a Catholic, a good one. And you know, I was raised on all that and the pillars of how you treat people and yeah, you know, do unto others as. 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 a. Leah is going to maybe talk some sense into. Into Christians and Catholics.

[Pete Holmes]

I do take. Not issue, but I'll push back a little bit on that. I don't. 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. He. You.

[Matt Berninger]

You mean. Meaning. 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 medium was the message. I think being with someone like Jesus was probably a transformative experience.

[Matt Berninger]

Definitely.

[Pete Holmes]

But.

[Matt Berninger]

But I would say that. But I do believe that he was. He was human and he was. He was absolutely in. 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.

[Pete Holmes]

No, I.

[Matt Berninger]

Completely exceptional. And, and, 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 this story about the virgin birth? Like, how do we explain.

[Pete Holmes]

Well, that's what I.

[Matt Berninger]

All that kind of stuff. And if you really, really are interested in the Bible, it's fascinating and entirely enlightening and motivating on 90% of the levels but you got to 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 of collection of writings and taken from myth and Greek or way. You know, taken from other ways of telling stories about gods and stuff. So the Bible is one of the greatest books ever written, for sure. But it is a huge collaborative concept.

[Pete Holmes]

It needs context.

[Matt Berninger]

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

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, well, it makes it richer if you waste your time defending if. If the things in the Bible literally happen. I. I think you're sort of missing the point. Or if you're defending, like, it's journalistic integrity or something.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

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 going to 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. 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. Sleep, stress relief, muscle relaxation, better circulation, mental clarity. Just a general sense of well being whenever you need it. Go to shakti mat.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 mat. Get. 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 is it happening? It's talking about a process that you're supposed to undergo. It's Actually similar to yours. You. I'm not trying to be sacrilegious here, because the pattern of the universe is order disorder reorder, right? And you, 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 all the way through.

[Pete Holmes]

And every story, it's not unique to holy texts. The reason why the Avengers resonates with us exactly, 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.

[Pete Holmes]

Energy works.

[Matt Berninger]

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 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, get 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. I told. I signed it to Coco.

[Matt Berninger]

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

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Matt Berninger]

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. 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 unc. My great uncle Howard was a doctor in Korea. Was in the mass 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 did.

[Pete Holmes]

He hit the ball and it goes around the eight ball and like, we'll use the orbit.

[Matt Berninger]

It's like.

[Pete Holmes]

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

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah, but. Yeah, no, that's incredible. It is so.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, sorry. We were talking about.

[Matt Berninger]

But that goes back to, like, so, like. 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. And 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 borrow this slide.

[Matt Berninger]

God is everything, you know, I believe.

[Pete Holmes]

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, you know. You know, over the. 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, you know, 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 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. And every culture has Native Americans. Every culture always 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. As 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 empty. There's a. Yeah, there's something. There's a. Yeah, yeah. 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. Yeah, right. Yeah, it's.

[Matt Berninger]

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. Every little thing, big decisions, little things. And sometimes you don't know what to do. 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, 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 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, I don't believe in the turn the other cheek necessarily every time. Speaking of Jesus, you know, it's like, you know, 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 that. We are clouded by what is acceptable and what is the brave right choice on all these little things, you know, and so I am a socialist, you know, I believe in those basic things, you know, but every one of those labels that you give a cause gets corrupted, you know, So I don't like to put it, 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. Going back to that 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 gonna be able to. You know, I was running this as captain. I had run us into.

[Pete Holmes]

We're aground.

[Matt Berninger]

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 fucking ships?

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Matt Berninger]

You know, I mean, you know, my.

[Pete Holmes]

Voice in that situation is, why is this all on me? And they're. And people 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 alone. 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.

[Matt Berninger]

But, like.

[Pete Holmes]

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. Like, there are people on your friends.

[Matt Berninger]

Well, I will say this family, 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.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Matt Berninger]

Every single one. I 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. Hate me 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 ever 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 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. Yeah.

[Matt Berninger]

And it built together that your whole life was.

[Pete Holmes]

Was.

[Matt Berninger]

Your whole life was the house.

[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, A one slice of the pizza. That. That. That killed me, you know?

[Pete Holmes]

Tell me, though, what did you. Sorry. I mean, that. That.

[Matt Berninger]

That just put me down.

[Pete Holmes]

I understand.

[Matt Berninger]

Having to sell the house was only.

[Pete Holmes]

One part of it. Nobody thinks it was the house. That was just because of the movie.

[Matt Berninger]

I. Up.

[Pete Holmes]

Nobody thinks Burninger is house obsessed.

[Matt Berninger]

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 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 understand, but go ahead. I completely get it. No, I was saying, like, well, first I'm curious, what did Letterman. 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, you know, 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. You know, 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 podcasts 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 tv, you know, and Beard, Letterman. Yep. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then he came. Not just a few. Couple years ago, he came to a show, a national show in Connecticut. You know, he drove 45 minutes from home. He and his wife came in and came up to me, you know, behind backstage in the green room, you know, about 20 minutes before walking on. And he walked up, and the first thing he said, he's like, you know, and we'd met before, so it wasn't like, oh, you know, it was like, hey, how are you? He's like, can I talk to you? Like, let me talk to you. What happened to you with your depression? 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. 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 about. And. And I asked him to come over just to talk about whatever you want to talk about, but depression. So we talked about depression for, like. We talked about depression for about two hours.

[Pete Holmes]

Wow.

[Matt Berninger]

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. He is very.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah, he really talks about really similar.

[Pete Holmes]

And we talked about how, like, like bedridden notes.

[Matt Berninger]

Oh, yeah. Well, I mean, he didn't. He didn't. But he says it's like, he described it. He says it's 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 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, 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.

[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 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 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, Synchronous death. 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 this. 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.

[Matt Berninger]

No. Because you can't. No. Because you're bouncing off the walls.

[Pete Holmes]

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. Music is incanted.

[Matt Berninger]

I read Muhammad Ali earlier. It's like he had to do this thing where he's like fighting. I can't imagine he was. 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, he is a poet, he is a philosopher.

[Pete Holmes]

He is.

[Matt Berninger]

His character is strong. He did not go to Vietnam and he risked losing his. He lost his belly. Risked losing his entire reputation, force. And almost went to prison.

[Pete Holmes]

I know.

[Matt Berninger]

And it was congress that kept him out of prison. And so I think. But also he was doing all that.

[Pete Holmes]

While he was also in the prime of his life.

[Matt Berninger]

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

[Pete Holmes]

I say this all the time. I'm going to do 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, right? And I'm gonna punch someone in the face. I think both of those are not chill, right? 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, 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. When you start coming into the audience, as you often do, nobody's like, what's. What's he doing? He's like, of course. Let Us. Let us completely consume you. We've been teasing it. Let's. 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, like. You know.

[Pete Holmes]

I understand. Me, too. But.

[Matt Berninger]

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 do these songs mean to these people? But we all realize, no, no, these songs all mean something to all of us. And, like, that's.

[Pete Holmes]

I mean, it's all pointed in one.

[Matt Berninger]

Direction, but in the art. And I know what I'm doing because I would see Nick Cave and Tom Waits and the greatest. By seeing punk shows in Cincinnati, I just realized, 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 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.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Matt Berninger]

I'm crying. And there's a kid on his desk. 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 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. 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 to do this beautiful thing.

[Pete Holmes]

But there is a cause. The liver analogy. There is a cost. Yeah. 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? 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, but.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, that's the single. I didn't know because I'm just listening to it.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah, yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

On the. So I didn't know what the song. That is the single.

[Matt Berninger]

Yep.

[Pete Holmes]

There A and 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.

[Pete Holmes]

I didn't know. You know, I. Yeah.

[Matt Berninger]

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

[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 going to be. I think I can hear everybody. Oh, yeah, that's right.

[Pete Holmes]

That's right.

[Matt Berninger]

The end of the chor. Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

It's Saturday.

[Matt Berninger]

Y.

[Pete Holmes]

It's Saturday.

[Matt Berninger]

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

[Pete Holmes]

But I have the chills. Cause 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 Getsunk. 4 years ago When I started and did this whole batch. Then I did a. Then shut down depression year national two and a half years. Coming back to it, I was calling the record It's Saturday. Cause I didn't even wanna 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 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 pre depression, post depression in one place.

[Matt Berninger]

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

[Matt Berninger]

I think it is, too.

[Pete Holmes]

Okay. You do.

[Matt Berninger]

Okay, I do, too.

[Pete Holmes]

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 think I was writing very well on those, of making some sense out of where I was and starting to climb out of it. And so when I hear those records now, I'm like, oh, I was doing some good processing of all that garbage and making some beautiful stuff out of it. And thanks to Aaron and those guys, really. 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 Laugh Track, do really, really illustrate a phase for me. A phase of total darkness. Back to. Back to something else. And every corner of that awful year gets kind of.

[Pete Holmes]

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

[Matt Berninger]

Turn off the house. House.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, turn off.

[Matt Berninger]

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

[Pete Holmes]

Okay, so here's the question. Yeah. Just because I feel like this is a classic, like, Rolling Stone kind of thing, but it. You know what I mean?

[Matt Berninger]

Like, yeah, it doesn't have to be.

[Pete Holmes]

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.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Just a song. It's not just a song. It's a brilliant song.

[Matt Berninger]

That's a great song.

[Pete Holmes]

Song about dying. Yeah. You write songs where 10,000 people are yelling or will be yelling. She finishes off my drink and it mean. As I'm saying, it means something to me already being familiar with this record, but it. This is what I'm going to load into you. It's. 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.

[Matt Berninger]

No, no.

[Pete Holmes]

I'm 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. Although the 20 year olds maybe don't know who any of us. Sorry.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah. No, Rem. I do 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. You know, it's like a great Cy Twombly painting. You're just like, wow. Or any abstract. You're just like. Sometimes you don't know why, but the blurriness of it is why it feels so crystal clear.

[Pete Holmes]

Because.

[Matt Berninger]

Because our brains are so blurry. Our hearts are so blurry.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Matt Berninger]

Our guts are 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 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.

[Pete Holmes]

Right.

[Matt Berninger]

And that one song's 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 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, I Like that.

[Pete Holmes]

New moves or whatever. 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 gonna know. I'm gonna know your lyrics better than you. Well, this was like we walked in.

[Matt Berninger]

And, like, this was our end here, and I. And it took us a while, but was I right? To a dolphin balloon Carried to space and a dolphin balloon. And then there's a chocolate chip. It's from the pool of you.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Matt Berninger]

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.

[Pete Holmes]

Sounds like I lose it all.

[Matt Berninger]

Carried to dolphin. Carried to space by a dolphin.

[Pete Holmes]

Dolphin balloon. Yeah.

[Matt Berninger]

It was kind of. It was like. That was.

[Pete Holmes]

I get it. I get it.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah. It's kind of like how I lose my mind.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Matt Berninger]

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 this. Those too.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, you do?

[Matt Berninger]

I think Serpentine Prison had a lot more songs like that where. Almost like country songs where they're. They're. They're. They're. 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 then I also just love the Pavement, the John Berryman, Ashberry type of poem. Thinking. 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, 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, real blurry, you know, And I just. By talking to so many songwriters and people who were. 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?

[Matt Berninger]

We can Also, I mean.

[Pete Holmes]

I mean, the next question. Ready?

[Matt Berninger]

Well, I mean, tons of things, but specifically about, like, lyric writing. Nothing real specific. Like lyricists and song. Like, we don't really.

[Pete Holmes]

It's.

[Matt Berninger]

We found every. Most. Like, my favorite songwriters do not like to talk to. To another songwriter.

[Pete Holmes]

I never talked to a comedian about, like, specific. How do you write a joke or.

[Matt Berninger]

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.

[Matt Berninger]

Oh, yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

And you did a misdirect there. 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. Had kind of been able to talk to her just about her approach to everything to art. But I'm like, I'm not gonna ask her about what she was with songs so much because I've listened to the songs. I know being a songwriter, I know that she probably doesn't have an answer to me. For me, that's gonna satisfy her or me.

[Pete Holmes]

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

[Matt Berninger]

The end, you know, a little bit.

[Pete Holmes]

But.

[Matt Berninger]

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, 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. But it's hav. 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 that song. Mike Birbiglia, I think that's his favorite.

[Matt Berninger]

Is that I'll get funny, I'll get money, I'll get funny again.

[Pete Holmes]

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

[Matt Berninger]

But why do comedians like, nobody else would 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 your.

[Matt Berninger]

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

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

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Matt Berninger]

Like. And there's weird ways that you. That you. You ask yourselves really profound questions in. In sneaky small ways. Like, I mean, you know, the Freudian slip. Slips are. Are real in your own mind.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Matt Berninger]

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 Nationals alley, 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. Am I wrong? 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.

[Pete Holmes]

Does that 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'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. 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 that I hate washing my hair because 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 modernmammals.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. 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 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. 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 and why multiple clinical trials in real world. Real world studies. So go to Apollo Neuro A P O L-L-O-N-E-U-R O.com weird and use promo 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. Was.

[Matt Berninger]

No, no, I was a. 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. I'm interested in how you guys put together your set lists and I'm a little sneakly.

[Matt Berninger]

Get us in.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, do it.

[Matt Berninger]

Did you hear that? There we go.

[Pete Holmes]

No. 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. Yeah, 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, definitely did that. Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

And I was again, as I'm saying this, I feel myself infringing 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, it's different. 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 am 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 the, 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]

Right, take away from 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 big ones, you know.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, 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 I'm, 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 Lovers.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, Alligator's the third.

[Matt Berninger]

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

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Matt Berninger]

But my point is, is 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. Here's Aaron and Scott. 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, 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, 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? Yeah.

[Matt Berninger]

To kind of like. I don't want to know what this next scene is gonna be. Because if I know, if I kind of 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 Louie does it too. It's like you'll throw something from the end into the beginning, and it elevates everything. 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 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 have. I'm so in 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 bands join 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's just something about the production. We just. I think I didn't like the way it ended up sounding on the record, but.

[Pete Holmes]

So all those songs, 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, there's something a little bit like. It's less gritty than where you've ended up. And I like that. This is actually to 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 just. They couldn't crack it in the studio.

[Matt Berninger]

And then they laid down on the floor.

[Pete Holmes]

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

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Is that it?

[Matt Berninger]

Sounds city. It's in the. It's back in the storage.

[Pete Holmes]

Holy shit.

[Matt Berninger]

Actually, Phoebe and I got it out, took it out of the storage place and brought it like we had it and set up in the parking lot.

[Pete Holmes]

This is.

[Matt Berninger]

Was 10, five years ago. I had. A long time ago 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 or Nevermind tracks At Sound City and sitting on that couch. And did they know what was about to happen with that song?

[Pete Holmes]

Unbelievable.

[Matt Berninger]

Just sitting on the couch and it's just a couch.

[Pete Holmes]

We talked about.

[Matt Berninger]

About stuff. Right. Houses and just stuff. But it was just like.

[Pete Holmes]

It was so much more.

[Matt Berninger]

That's the case that he sank 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 they. And they just moved a mic over and recorded 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. Right, 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, like, I love all those kind of adolescent versions of the songs.

[Pete Holmes]

I agree. 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 croonier. You're crooning, you know, but because I was insecure now.

[Pete Holmes]

It's funny that you mentioned punct shows. 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 the crack or the. Oh, yeah, obviously.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah. He's sort of 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, to kind of get across some line. But once you get across the. This line and Pavement, you're hearing not only Malus, but like a. A bunch of like. Like five people. Just really, really, really. A lot of different, 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. And singers like, like Tom Waits are. Are. 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.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Matt Berninger]

So I've always. I've always. 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.

[Pete Holmes]

I agree that it feel.

[Matt Berninger]

That 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 the flaws are still in there, even though he's like. Like killing it.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Matt Berninger]

You know.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Matt Berninger]

But you. He's like. He's singing so beautifully. But like, when Otis Redding sings, I think he's the best singer ever. And somehow, because it's so beautiful, but then it's also just so raw and it feels like it's really coming from his soul. It's not. He didn't. He wasn't like. I mean, I'm sure he warmed up, but when he sings, it doesn't sound like he was. He's trying to be a great singer. He's let. His soul is crystal clear coming out how he 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 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. Of course it's in. Of course it's in. I love when you say, can we go to the bathroom? I crave.

[Matt Berninger]

Oh, yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Something human and real. And I think we're gonna want that even more. I think that's gonna 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 of people at the label or, you know, 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. That we search for in art is that it was that it's not AI Human made. I almost feel like we've been in an AI, you know, phase of songwriting, like the Brill Building. Almost like amazing stuff came out of there, but so much schlock came out of songwriting when it turned into like a. When they just tried to figure out the formula.

[Pete Holmes]

Right.

[Matt Berninger]

And 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 about to be made.

[Pete Holmes]

People run the fastest from a forest fire. You know what I mean? Something will come out of you because.

[Matt Berninger]

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

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Matt Berninger]

You know.

[Pete Holmes]

Right.

[Matt Berninger]

And. 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 A.I. but artists, the best artists will learn to harness A.I. in an interesting way.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah. I've already seen some A.I. stuff that I'm learning. Like, Val doesn't like it, but I'm 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. Real human made thing. Yeah, but I'm like, this is dreaming in a really. In perfect darkness. But it only. It's dreaming in a. Really think of this.

[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 and. Yeah. And put on a. You know, you know, on a.

[Pete Holmes]

Yes.

[Matt Berninger]

On a two dimensional piece of paper. They thought that was them.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, Right.

[Matt Berninger]

You know, Right. 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 like, 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. 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. Was Dr. Pepper, was Coco.

[Matt Berninger]

Only a human could make. Could. 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.

[Matt Berninger]

I've read reviews.

[Pete Holmes]

But it wasn't. It wasn't exactly. It was its own thing. 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 the best parts of other reviews and repurposed it into this thing. And I read it and I was like, oh, my God, this is the best review I've ever gotten. It was like. 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. And doesn't hurt me. Helps me. People read it, and it's a great review.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Matt Berninger]

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.

[Pete Holmes]

I love that. 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.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

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.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

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 teach? Say to Matt? You know, And I'd give them some random bunch of lines.

[Pete Holmes]

I do this whole Day.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah, yeah, I did.

[Pete Holmes]

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, 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 four. At four, at five in the morning I got up, had some tea, smoked, you know, smoke 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.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Matt Berninger]

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.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh really?

[Matt Berninger]

With just versions of. Just like. All right, go back in. Because like you were, you were. The 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 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 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 got. 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 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, 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've 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]

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 that's a big debate.

[Pete Holmes]

Someone watching and caring, worrying about you. I'm like, he must be exhausted. But I never feel you going, like, no.

[Matt Berninger]

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 kid. 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? And then the last minute, fuck it, we'll do it. You know, whether you have diarrhea or people. 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. Really. I've walked on stage with a limp and walked off without a limp. Yeah, because it's, you're just, it's like.

[Matt Berninger]

Somebody gave you, literally endorphins go through your body and they heal you.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, like, like that.

[Matt Berninger]

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, like, suddenly place and, and pain and fear are gone, you know, and that's addictive.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Matt Berninger]

Once you visit that.

[Pete Holmes]

I, I, 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, I have, oddly. I mean, like, I am very musical. We were talking about this, but, like, yeah, I, I, I, I, and I, I'm a great dancer, but, but, but, but keeping the right rhythms, like, like cleaning. 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.

[Pete Holmes]

That's fun.

[Matt Berninger]

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 like, a click or a clip, 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, like.

[Pete Holmes]

I know what you mean, you know.

[Matt Berninger]

And so it kind of. It wasn't like a reach out to Phoebe, did you know? That was like.

[Pete Holmes]

We've.

[Matt Berninger]

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, yeah. Laugh Track. I think Laugh Track's one of the best songs that Ashe was 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 appearances 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.

[Pete Holmes]

Honestly, when I've.

[Matt Berninger]

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 you. I know your lines too. It's like.

[Matt Berninger]

It's like my world. She's in it. She's like. You know, she's like. You know, there's a Christopher walking this 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 Lenker from Big Thief is. Dazzles me just like. Just the way how. How Adrien Lanker uses words and melodies.

[Pete Holmes]

I don't. 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 now, 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. 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, I can't even. 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?

[Matt Berninger]

Like, those guys are art.

[Pete Holmes]

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.

[Pete Holmes]

To.

[Matt Berninger]

To. To deliver a product to.

[Pete Holmes]

To the.

[Matt Berninger]

To the. To the. To their. Their faithful, you know, constituents, you know where. And Because. And that's why they have such faithful constituents.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Matt Berninger]

People who. Because they know that. That. That Radiohead is searching and Tom York is searching for. For. For something new, something. 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. I'm like, yeah. 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 the 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 all of a sudden. And I'm reading all kinds of different books.

[Pete Holmes]

Books make sense in different places. I swear, 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 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 the.

[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 and 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 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.

[Pete Holmes]

It's really cool.

[Matt Berninger]

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.

[Pete Holmes]

I agree.

[Matt Berninger]

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.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah. 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.

[Matt Berninger]

That.

[Pete Holmes]

I just listened to this. I'll keep this brief. I. 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 why it makes total sense.

[Pete Holmes]

And nobody, like, 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]

But When I moved from Cincinnati to New York, like, and I 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, 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. I mean, Boxer and an Alligator and all those national 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. And. And. And struggling with fitting in in the world. And then eventually I started really, 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, it'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. Ireland. Yeah, I was gonna say. Yeah.

[Matt Berninger]

There's, like, a lot of places that I just. 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 gonna 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. 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.

[Matt Berninger]

Flavors do 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 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.

[Pete Holmes]

A.

[Matt Berninger]

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.

[Matt Berninger]

Yes, obviously. 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 think you're stepping over, but that's his job and that's your job, and it's good to ask these questions. But I. And 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 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. But, 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, but not being an LA fixture and living in, you know, pretty, you know, really out there. Being out there living and out there in. In a natural world. And I think he's one of the healthiest, best minds, you know.

[Pete Holmes]

I agree.

[Matt Berninger]

You know what 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.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

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.

[Matt Berninger]

Right.

[Pete Holmes]

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 Instagram.

[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, 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 or 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. 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, 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 Fair or something, and. And someone kept taking his picture.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

You know, like, he really, really.

[Matt Berninger]

And like, for. For so many people. He is only Alan.

[Pete Holmes]

Right. Yeah.

[Matt Berninger]

And I can. And he knew right away that that was going to be a problem. Yeah. And. And so he. 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. 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 your thing because I was so unbalanced.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Matt Berninger]

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.

[Matt Berninger]

To just slow 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 I'm so. I've got.

[Pete Holmes]

You literally write lyrics on baseball.

[Matt Berninger]

I've got lots of baseball. And then I. And then I put pins in them for like, for line.

[Pete Holmes]

Line.

[Matt Berninger]

For line breaks and, and it slows the process down.

[Pete Holmes]

It's.

[Matt Berninger]

I don't have my phone in my hand.

[Pete Holmes]

Did you just make that up?

[Matt Berninger]

No, no, I've been on 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.

[Pete Holmes]

Okay.

[Matt Berninger]

It's just this physical thing and it's the perfect. I love. 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. It's like having tea with someone, you know, and like, 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. Because we're just out there for half an hour. Just like, like you have to focus on this thing, you know, and try to. And learn if 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 travel with them and I was on a flight, I had it with me. And so instead I just like, instead of. I started writing on the ball. It was just relaxing, you know.

[Pete Holmes]

I know you mean that 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 enough writing.

[Pete Holmes]

I did one baseball.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah. And that's like.

[Pete Holmes]

I love that.

[Matt Berninger]

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 Infant 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, picture that thing with that funny comment.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh. And 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. Shutting off. You know, when, 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.

[Pete Holmes]

You know.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah, 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.

[Pete Holmes]

People.

[Matt Berninger]

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

[Matt Berninger]

Right.

[Pete Holmes]

But it's a pain in the ass.

[Matt Berninger]

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

[Pete Holmes]

And by the way, you're going to the bathroom or something and you're installing it, and then you're like, I'm peeing. I'm going to be done before this thing. And then you just stop and then you just stay off it because 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, 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 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? And she's very. She's kind of self polices herself, but I see her stuck on TikTok and YouTube videos, but she's taught herself to make her own clothes. She's taught herself 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 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 so she gave me a whole perspective on it that didn't even 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. No, but are you nuts? 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 you start to like, like your body is telling you, like, I don't drink nearly as much as I used to, but I still do it a little bit.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah. Yeah. Well, you have a cocktail on an airplane and you're fucked for like two days. 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, loosen up and I perform well with, with a, with, with a tequila soda in me, you know, sip of wine. I perform better.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Matt Berninger]

And it's, and it's again, I think because I get to loosen, it does help me loosen the self consciousness. Like I lose, I lose some, 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 write.

[Pete Holmes]

So 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 disregulating 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. So who cares what I think? But I do think that's totally fine.

[Matt Berninger]

Well, no, but it is a problem though, especially with turning on and off something. The alcohol helps you to turn that thing off. And so in a funny way, that's why entertainers and people that do this stuff like David Letterman struggled with alcohol for a long time and then he's been SOBER for probably 30 or 40 years, 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. It 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 going to say? Oh, you brought up David Letterman. That made me start thinking about David Letterman. Alcohol, trans writing, crutch, disruption, Wake up in the middle of the night. God damn.

[Matt Berninger]

It was funny. I like how you, I can't believe.

[Pete Holmes]

You brought all that back.

[Matt Berninger]

We were on something and then, then I think I kind of brought up alcohol.

[Pete Holmes]

We brought up my alcohol. Which.

[Matt Berninger]

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

[Pete Holmes]

Chocolate chip pancakes. I don't remember Cherry shaped swimming pool. This is.

[Matt Berninger]

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

[Pete Holmes]

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

[Matt Berninger]

Where was I again? Okay.

[Pete Holmes]

Pete Holm, Pete Holmes show. We already did that 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. Big Thief, Radiohead.

[Pete Holmes]

Do you listen to Adams for Peace?

[Matt Berninger]

What's that?

[Pete Holmes]

It's Thom York's.

[Matt Berninger]

I didn't listen much of that, but like everything he does, there's windows into, like, 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 I really, really fantasize about. The aliens and being saved by aliens. I fantasize about that a lot.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Matt Berninger]

I mean, arrival and interstellar in all the ways. I mean, arrival is great. Aliens, interstellar is more of like a. Same fantasy discovering of a wormhole that allows us to find another place to live.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, yeah.

[Matt Berninger]

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, 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 lights, you know, over us.

[Pete Holmes]

This is.

[Matt Berninger]

Something else is going on here. So the sense of like. Like all this idea of wormholes and where there might be life on another planet, is there another piece of sand in the expanding empty nothingness that has a little water on it like we are? Is there another one of these grains of sand with a tiny bit of water that allows all this to exist? I believe that there are. But do I believe that there's any way to bridge the two. The hypothetical gap. Traveling light years. They just discovered it. One, they said it's like 160 light years away that might sustain life. And the new one, they're like, this one has potential that there could be life on this little grain of sand that they've.

[Pete Holmes]

However they know I want them to try. And it's just like, how they know, because that really sounds. Sounds like something they might just be.

[Matt Berninger]

Like, it was like two weeks ago. 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.

[Pete Holmes]

Right.

[Matt Berninger]

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, they could be octopus looking things, you know, that have figured out, 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, 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, like consciousness stimulating. 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, there's no spaceships. There's no actual alien spaceships buried anywhere. Like, like because they, because they're, they. 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.

[Pete Holmes]

Yes.

[Matt Berninger]

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. I mean like mushrooms. I'm not. Paul Stamets is the one to explain this. But like, 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 ergot. I'm not actually. That's not true.

[Matt Berninger]

LSD is ayahuasca and all this.

[Pete Holmes]

Ayahuasca being a vine and a root. But, like, I'm just saying, like. 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, we didn't come here in an airplane. You mean like you.

[Matt Berninger]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

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.

[Pete Holmes]

It will. 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 would probably take a long time. No, I'm just kidding.

[Pete Holmes]

We'll release it right around May 3rd.

[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.

[Pete Holmes]

Two days.

[Matt Berninger]

All right. Two days from now.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, I'm just gonna. There he is.

[Matt Berninger]

This guy. Down. Take this with me.

[Pete Holmes]

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

[Matt Berninger]

I got it back for 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]

Keep it crispy.

[Pete Holmes]

There it is.

[Matt Berninger]

There it is.

[Pete Holmes]

Okay. Thank you so much. My.