Weirdly, I was still trying to be the older brother, and trying to get him [Tom Berninger] to try to be more like me a little bit. Or not be more like me but... I was frustrated that he sometimes let things stop him in his life, and he let the wind get knocked out of his sails a few times.

Matt Berninger

Categorized in : Wind Brother Frustrated

You gotta lean towards the things that make you like yourself. Forget everything else.

Matt Berninger

forget-everything like-you forget

I never sit and fill a journal with lyrics. Most of the time I'm trying to write a feeling, not a story. I'm not necessarily trying to describe the details of a place or event so much as the feeling of the thing. It is a kind of weird alchemy that is elusive until it feels right.

Matt Berninger

feelings writing trying

It is the melody and the rhythm that are by far the most important and then words and imagery and stuff, story bits will start to stick to a melody and that is the way I write.

Matt Berninger

important stories writing

There are records that you just sink into. They coincide with what you’re going through and become an ally. If our records do that for people, that’s the greatest compliment I could ever receive. That’s one of the reasons making music is so important to me, because there’s a very strange emotional reach. For me—more than books or movies or other things—music is like a mainline to your heart.

Matt Berninger

emotional heart book

I became at peace with the darkness or the personality that I have. I am usually pretty funny and happy.

Matt Berninger

personality darkness

I drink wine on stage to sort of loosen my grip on reality a little.

Matt Berninger

wine littles reality

I think most people start rock bands in their early twenties or teens, but I was almost thirty at the time when the band started really doing anything and it took another several years before people started caring about us.

Matt Berninger

rocks caring thinking

My parents know that I have always been sort of a dark melodramatic kid, so they were never concerned.

Matt Berninger

parent dark kids

A song is a song and, if I am emotionally connected to do it, whether it is sad or not sad, I am going to chase that song.

Matt Berninger

connected ifs song

I've never quite felt totally comfortable up on stage. I've gotten more comfortable, but drinking wine is a crutch that gives me a little courage. It helps me lose a little bit of the self-consciousness and the awareness of how awkward it is standing on a stage with lights and a bunch of people looking at you while you sing love songs.

Matt Berninger

wine drinking song

Live on coffee and flowers. Try not to worry what the weather will be.

Matt Berninger

coffee flower weather

I don't want somebody telling my daughter who she can marry, or what she can do with her body. That's what was at stake.

Matt Berninger

daughter body want

We were always in the shadows of the stuff that was getting more attention. So people learned to listen to us slowly over time. And, frankly, we learned how to listen to ourselves. It takes us a long time to write a song that we all really like, so it makes sense that it would take a while for the listener to get there, too.

Matt Berninger

writing song long

When I have just sat down and tried to write the lyrics of a song, usually about half of it sounds like bullshit. I just have to go away from something and come back to it again later. I do a lot of editing and switching around and putting little pieces together to get the right mood and personality, and it takes me forever to get a song finished.

Matt Berninger

editing writing song

A person with grace is somebody who's socially graceful or is a classy person, but sometimes you just feel the opposite of that, and you just feel like a jerk and a loser and a weirdo.

Matt Berninger

loser grace opposites

The song 'Humiliation' is kind of about what if, outside of a dinner party or something, I was blown up by a drone missile, out by the pool. What an embarrassing way to go.

Matt Berninger

what-if party song

Music has got a community vibe to it that pulls people together, and those communities are different in different places.

Matt Berninger

community together people

Trying to make it and get people to respect your band, being a cool band-all of that stuff-I think we've arrived at a place where we have kids and everything is in perspective and it doesn't matter.

Matt Berninger

kids people thinking

I usually always think of characters and sometimes the characters are a little bit invented, so it's nice to give these invented, blurry, personas an actually name. It makes me get closer to them or something like that. But they're not all real, they're weird amalgamations of reality.

Matt Berninger

nice real character

I'm trying to figure out how to record at home because I have a tiny house and a seven-year-old and my wife also works at home. So I can't work in the house because she's trying to write, so I pitched a tent in the backyard. I'm literally trying to record in the tent.

Matt Berninger

home writing years