The National formed in 1999. They’ve released six albums, and have been nominated for a grammy. Their music is everywhere from Game of Thrones, to Bob’s Burgers, to Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. In 2013 they released their sixth album, Trouble Will Find Me, which debuted at #3 on the Billboard charts. The band is made up of singer Matt Berninger along with two sets of brothers: guitarists Bryce and Aaron Dessner, who are twins, and Brian and Scott Devendorf, who play drums and bass, respectively. In this episode, Matt Berninger and Aaron Dessner break down “Sea of Love,” a song that they co-wrote. You’ll hear how it went from Aaron’s original guitar demo to a densely layered recording with contributions from their bandmates and others, and they’ll talk about how collaboration is an intrinsic part of their process and their band identity.

Buy “Sea of Love” on iTunes.

For a transcript of this episode, click here.

footnotes
Nirvana
Crazy Horse
Jimi Hendrix
Richard Reed Parry
Arcade Fire

Tycho is the project of Scott Hansen, along with guitarist Zac Brown and drummer Rory O’Connor. I spoke with Scott in front of a live audience in San Francisco (thanks to Noise Pop). In this episode, he breaks down the title track from the 2014 Tycho album Awake, including a note he misplayed, and a vocal part you aren’t really supposed to know about.

Buy “Awake” on iTunes.

See some of Scott’s design work for Tycho in this piece for Re-form on Medium.com.

For a transcript of this episode, click here.

footnotes
The Interpol song that influenced Scott is “PDA.”

Stars is a band from Montreal (via Toronto), who have been making music together since 2000. Their seventh album was released in October 2014. For this episode, I spoke to several members of the band: singer Amy Millan over the phone, and to Evan Cranley and Pat McGee in their recording studio along with their co-producer Liam O’Neil. In this episode, they talk about the inspiration for the phrase “No One Is Lost” which is the title of this song as well as the album. And you’ll hear the original version of the chorus: one that they wrote, recorded, mixed, and finished but then, ended up changing completely.

Buy “No One Is Lost” on iTunes.

Donate to the Pablove Foundation and learn more about their mission, at pablove.org/donate.

For a transcript of this episode, click here.

footnotes
James Shaw of the band Metric remixed the chorus.