Matt Berninger, the frontman and lyricist for The National, recently announced his second solo album, Get Sunk, out May 30th through Book/Concord Records. Today, he offers a second taste of the record with “Breaking Into Acting” Feat. Hand Habits.
The song, which features Meg Duffy (Hand Habits) on vocals, laments on the plasticity of performance. “Your mouth is always full of blood packets / You’re breaking into acting / I completely understand,” the pair sing over a slow acoustic sway. “Sometimes you have to fake forgiveness before you can actually forgive,” he explains.
Berninger and Duffy also appear in the music video for “Breaking Into Acting” directed by Hopper Mills. Watch BELOW:
Berninger worked on Get Sunk with Grammy Award-winning producer and engineer Sean O’Brien who also co-wrote many of the songs. With its rich sonic landscape and poignant lyrics, Get Sunk is a testament to Berninger’s artistry and his ability to capture the complexities of the human experience. Its sonic world blossomed with the help of numerous musicians and friends including Meg Duffy (Hand Habits), Julia Laws (Ronboy), Kyle Resnick (The National, Beirut), Garret Lang, Sterling Laws, Booker T Jones, Harrison Whitford, Mike Brewer, and The Walkmen’s Walter Martin and Paul Maroon. Most of them worked together with Berninger and O’Brien in a Silverlake, CA basement studio.
Get Sunk’s first single, “Bonnet of Pins,” highlights Berninger’s knack for world-building, pointing to the tiny details that make it all palpable. There’s cigarettes and styrofoam cups filled with “Nabokov cocktails,” miscommunication and sorrow. It’s a reminder that grief can also be a little funny.
In his work with The National, Berninger is known for contemplative narratives in which characters peer over the cliff’s edge. He has always been forthcoming about his own mental and emotional pitfalls. “Our hearts are like old wells filled with pennies and worms,” he explains. “I can’t resist going down to the bottom of mine to see what else is there. But sometimes you can get yourself stuck.”
In 2020, he went through “a long period of writer’s block and self-disgust. I just got sick of asking myself ‘Why am I like this?’” For Berninger, identity is amorphous, ever-evolving and stretches beyond individuality. This is the driving force of his second solo album. Underwater, everything moves in slow motion, and Berninger glimpsed his creative voice slipping away. But sometimes we have to drown to remember how to breathe. Get Sunk is the inhale, bringing blurry realizations to the surface.
Berninger’s “gorgeous” (Rolling Stone) solo debut, Serpentine Prison, came out in early 2020, produced by the legendary Booker T. Jones. While he says the follow-up is not necessarily an autobiographical album, the narrator is reflecting on how he became who he is. Berninger is an expert in what it feels like to lose all bravery, and Get Sunk points to an undulating reflection in the water. It’s about realizing that you are not yourself without a thousand others: parents, friends, siblings, spouses and exes, college roommates, childhood best friends, cousins, kids and even strangers.
Inspired by the flora and fauna of his new home in Connecticut after years living in Los Angeles, Berninger wrote lyrics and drew all over baseballs, and rearranged dust-covered items in his barn into strange and surreal works of art. It felt good to be creating and to understand why he loves what he does. “I was able to get the blurry picture as close to just right for me,” he says. That the picture ever comes into full focus isn’t the point; it’s by being happy that we can make out anything at all.
Berninger has also announced North American and UK/EU dates in support of Get Sunk, which will begin on May 19 at The Showbox in Seattle and continue on August 22 in Dublin, Ireland. On tour, he will be backed by the core band that recorded Get Sunk, including Ronboy (Julia Laws) who will open the shows.
Matt Berninger on tour:
May 19 – Seattle, WA – The Showbox
May 20 – San Francisco, CA – Bimbo’s 365 Club *SOLD OUT
May 21 – Los Angeles, CA – Palace Theatre
May 23 – Minneapolis, MN – First Avenue
May 24 – Chicago, IL – Thalia Hall *SOLD OUT
May 26 – Toronto, ON – Concert Hall
May 28 – Philadelphia, PA – Union Transfer
May 29 – Washington, DC – Lincoln Theatre
May 30 – New York, NY – Webster Hall *SOLD OUT
June 1 – Norwalk, CT – District Music Hall
August 22 – Dublin, Ireland – Vicar Street
August 23 – Dublin, Ireland – Vicar Street *SOLD OUT
August 25 – Glasgow, UK – SWG3 Galvanizers
August 26 – Manchester, UK – Albert Hall
August 27 – London, UK – Troxy
August 28-31 – Nr Tolland Royal, Wiltshire, UK – End Of The Road Festival
August 31 – Utrecht, Netherlands – Tivoli Vredenburg *SOLD OUT
September 1 – Antwerp, Belgium – OLT Rivierenhof *SOLD OUT
September 2 – Paris, France – Elysee Montmartre
September 4 – Berlin, Germany – Huxleys
September 5 – Copenhagen, Denmark – Vega
September 6 – Oslo, Norway – Rockefeller Music Hall
September 8 – Hamburg, Germany – Große Freiheit 36
September 9 – Utrecht, Netherlands – Tivoli Vredenburg
September 10 – Antwerp, Belgium – OLT Rivierenhof *SOLD OUT
September 12 – Brussels, Belgium – Cirque Royal
Get Sunk tracklisting:
Inland Ocean
No Love
Bonnet of Pins
Frozen Oranges
Breaking Into Acting (feat. Hand Habits)
Nowhere Special
Little by Little
Junk
Silver Jeep (feat. Ronboy)
Times of Difficulty
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