Trading in subtly anthemic, literate indie rock, Ohio quintet The National’s rise to stardom is an ongoing, 25-year project, and if you’re unlikely to find long-lens pap shots of the members in Heat, seeing them onstage in front of 10,000 people in Cardiff should say everything it needs to. Ahead of that very thing happening in early July, Gosia Buzzanca spoke to the group’s bassist Scott Devendorf.

As well as playing Cardiff Castle this summer, you’re spending over a month playing across Europe. What are your expectations and hopes for this tour?

We just did the tour about 10 weeks ago in Australia and New Zealand, so that was fun. We’re excited to come to Europe now to play shows. Hope the weather holds up or is at least bearable! [laughs] It’s always fun to come over.

I was wondering what are the differences, if any, between the audiences in Europe as compared to Australia – or the US?

Oh yeah, they are very different. Everyone is interesting in their own way; I feel like Europe, and the UK specifically, are very up for it. The shows are very energetic and not… sleepy. It’s one of our favourite places to play – and we have relatives there.

Amazing. It’s a family affair. Speaking of which, there are two sets of siblings in the band – you and Brian [Devendorf, drums] and Aaron and Bryce [Dessner, both multi-instrumentalists, plus Matt [Berninger, vocalist]’s wife Carin writes lyrics with him very often? I was wondering how this family setup affects the work dynamic in The National, for better or worse.

Usually for better! It’s definitely like a family affair – and definitely we have our squabbles as any family would or does. But I also think it’s a thing that holds us together, you know? Like, if we were random people it would be less connected. Even just knowing each other for a long time, I think; before we had a band, we’d been friends, so that was hugely helpful.

I believe you’re now all based in different parts of the US, so what does the preparation for an international tour like this look like?

We all grew up in Ohio and lived in Brooklyn for many years – that’s where we actually started the band – and now we’re all spread far and wide. Some are in New York state, some in Connecticut, some in France. We’re international now. In the best case we’ll get together for a rehearsal beforehand and in the worst case we won’t, but we usually prepare on our own. We’re trying to keep the tours quite close together so nobody forgets what they’re doing!

On your last two albums you worked with some of the best musicians working today: Taylor Swift, Phoebe Bridgers, Justin Vernon. Are you inspired by the new generations of artists and who do you wish to collaborate with next?

Oh gosh. I mean, we’ve done a lot of collaborating lately and obviously all those artists are amazing performers and songwriters; I think we’ve been very fortunate to do that and it’s been fun, a lot of work has come out of it in every way so that has been great. I don’t have, like, a super wishlist.

We always return to this idea of paring it down and making it simpler: I’m always hoping for a little more of that internally. Which I guess we always do – work internally first, and then bring other people. Depending on what we’re doing, sometimes it’s just more elaborate. There’s been a lot of talk about getting together and making maybe a live record next – we’ll see.

Are you working on anything at the moment, or are you focusing on the tour? Granted you put out two albums in 2023!

[laughs] I feel like there’s always something percolating, but we’re not actively recording a new album. We did some recording on tour, though, which has been fun – a cover song [of Heaven by Talking Heads] that’s coming out in May. And we were working on a new song called Bat Child that we played live on the Australian tour four times, to varying degrees of success… We’ll see. We will keep doing stuff like that for a bit and eventually record but we’re touring throughout summer and it’s hard to do both I suppose.

Mike Mills’ short film I Am Easy To Find, which relates to your 2019 album of that name, is so affecting. Is this something you think of doing more perhaps?

I get super teary watching it. The Mike Mills stuff came about [when] we were writing songs around the film, based on this idea that he had, and he was also helping to produce the record. So it wasn’t written for a film but the film was kind of made with the songs, and we made the record during and after that, if that makes sense. So that was cinematic, literally.

I think by nature, our stuff is very melancholic, so it works… It’s not necessarily by intention but it’s definitely the world that we like. Mike is awesome and we enjoy him as a person, so this was a happy collaboration – he was a fan and we were a fan. We would absolutely consider doing more of this type of stuff; Bryce has done a lot of music and film collaboration so he’s more the go-to guy for this. But we’re open to anything.

And other than music and cinema, what else inspires you, be that in art or everyday life?

I mean… other music for sure but just like reading, visual art mainly. And walking in nature. I think it’s very affecting and healing, and almost the opposite of touring actually.

The National, Cardiff Castle, Wed 3 July.

Tickets: £49.50. Info: here

words GOSIA BUZZANCA