'You feel this rush of affirmation': Aaron Dessner on his musical success with Taylor Swift
Aaron Dessner of The National and Big Red Machine. Picture: Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images
In March, Taylor Swift took to the stage at the 63rd Annual Grammy Awards in Los Angeles to accept the biggest prize of the night. Folklore, her ethereal, folky and critically acclaimed lockdown work, had won album of the year.
She was flanked by a lesser-known but no less important figure in the album’s creation – Aaron Dessner, the multi-talented founding member of indie band The National, who helped write and produce much of Folklore.
“When you’re sitting there right before they call it,” Dessner recalls. “And when it was Folklore… It’s just surreal. You feel this rush of affirmation, although already we had had such incredibly positive feedback to it. It felt like part of that same current of love.”
Dessner had already had a busy pandemic, collaborating with Swift on not one but two albums (they begun work on Evermore shortly after finishing Folklore) and working with Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon on their second Big Red Machine record. The latter collaboration, incidentally, had an early live outing in Cork in 2018 when they played St Luke's as part of the Sounds From A Safe Harbour Festival.
Throughout his two decades in music, the Cincinnati-raised musician, 45, has remained prolific, curating festivals in the US and Europe, working alongside his twin brother Bryce on charity projects and producing albums by the likes of Frightened Rabbit, Ben Howard and Sharon Van Etten.
And all this while touring almost constantly with The National (also recent Grammy winners). The past two years, however, have been especially fruitful.
“I didn’t really anticipate how much I could actually accomplish,” he explains from his brother’s home in the French seaside resort of Biarritz, where he is enjoying some well-deserved time off. “I guess maybe I didn’t realise what I was capable of if I wasn’t traveling all the time – what I could actually generate. So I got lucky in that sense. In a time where there was such fear and uncertainty, I was lucky. t was almost like a life raft being at home and by the studio.”
Dessner decamped from Paris to his studio, Long Pond, near Hudson, New York.
One such album to emerge during this period was How Long Do You Think It’s Gonna Last?, his second album with folk-leaning singer and Kanye West collaborator Vernon under the Big Red Machine alias (a nod to the Cincinnati Reds baseball team).
“(Vernon) is so incredibly gifted musically and he has this spontaneity,” Dessner enthuses. When he’s in the creative mode, his ability to hear an idea and execute it… He is one of the best I’ve ever seen. He’ll make a giant impact in a very short amount of time and a lot of times his first ideas, when he’s improvising, are brilliant and don’t have to be redone. So that’s special.
“But more than that, he’s an incredibly positive and encouraging friend in the studio. He’s always pushing me to keep going and he has a real belief in the creative process, where it’s almost like he still feels the sense of wonder and joy when you’re discovering songs or unearthing songs. It is infectious.
“Whenever we’ve been in the studio to make this stuff, you feel like you’re in this weird, elevated state and very much in touch with the wonder of making music with your friends.”
The album includes collaborations with nearly all of Dessner’s regular musical compatriots: Van Etten, Howard, Robin Pecknold of Fleet Foxes and singer-songwriter Anais Mitchell to name a few.
“Generally there’s a feeling of nostalgia for your childhood and looking back at a time before you’ve lost innocence,” he explains. “Before you’ve hurt people or lost people or made mistakes and are looking for remedies.”
Swift also features on two tracks, including the single Renegade.
“Obviously The National’s fan base and Big Red Machine and Bon Iver – there’s quite a bit of overlap with those projects. But then there’s some overlap with Taylor’s fan base but definitely a lot of her fans are very passionate and they’re very curious. They do check out the artists that she collaborates with or that Taylor supports.
“That’s always great when people are discovering new music and she’s very supportive. That’s also been lucky. It’s great to imagine them listening to Big Red Machine or The National or anything. I’m obviously very grateful for that.”
The title of How Long Do You Think It’s Gonna Last? may nod towards a lurking paranoia but the music itself is ultimately optimistic.
“With all creative people the pendulum swings in and out of these heightened states of creativity or being prolific,” he muses. “That’s also partly what Big Red Machine is about. It is a project that is very much about experimentation and improvising.”
However, the dual spectres of personal loss and artistic angst are never far away. The song Hutch is a tribute to late Frightened Rabbit frontman Scott Hutchison, who took his own life in 2018 after a life-long battle with depression and anxiety. Dessner produced the Scottish band’s last album and had spoken to Hutchinson two weeks before he went missing.
“Any time I think about Scott or other friends I’ve lost in the same way, it’s extremely sad and also frustrating,” he offers.
“You have this feeling of, ‘What signs did you miss? Were you not in touch enough? Did you not check in enough?’ So many people struggle with depression and go into a tailspin and whether they pull out of it or not is often such a tiny moment in time or decision.
“That’s what that song is about. How did it get that bad? And wishing that you could somehow go back in time and lift someone up, which is the feeling I always have when thinking about someone that you’ve lost that way.”
The gently undulating song Brycie, meanwhile, is a “love letter” to his brother who supported him during high school when he fell into a bout of depression.
“He was the one who kept me from really falling behind or falling through the cracks because he literally made it his personal mission not to let me go. That really helped because he was so in touch with the fact that all of a sudden his brother was in this dark place. But it’s hopeful. I’m thanking him for keeping me above the ground.”
- How Long Do You Think It’s Gonna Last? by Big Red Machine is released on August 27.
