Five Sounds With Aaron Dessner

Multiple Grammy Award-winner Aaron Dessner wears many hats in the studio—guitarist, keyboardist, bass player, composer, songwriter, and producer. He moves through each role with ease, and it’s no surprise because he’s spent the better part of the last two decades becoming one of the most prolific artists in contemporary music. He’s released ten studio albums with his band The National and collaborated with artists like Justin Vernon of Bon Iver, Icelandic performance artist Ragnar Kjartansson, and, most recently, Brian Eno & Fred Again. If that wasn’t enough, he co-wrote and produced two history-making records during the pandemic with superstar Taylor Swift. 

Taking time out of his busy schedule, Aaron recently gave us a behind-the-scenes look at some of the incredible records he’s worked on. Read on to find out about the shaping of The National’s early sound, the sonic palette of Taylor Swift’s lockdown albums, exploring vulnerability with Ed Sheeran, shaping the sound of new artist Gracie Abrams’ debut, and why the Sharon Van Etten record "Tramp" is so special to him. 

THE NATIONAL

One of the first pieces of gear we had was a Manley Langevin Dual Vocal Combo—it’s a two-channel preamp and solid-state compressor together and we used it on everything. One of our friends, who had worked with TV On The Radio years ago, had encouraged us to buy it. It was kind of the first thing I really knew how to use and get results out of, so it was probably the biggest influence on The National’s early sound.

In terms of vocals, we've used the Telefunken U47 on Matt Berninger’s vocals for a long time, usually with the combination of the Neve 1064 and Lisson Grove compressor, so that hasn't changed over the years, but his ability, range, and control as a singer has grown a lot. We've also just gotten better at mixing him and being able to feature him in different ways and explore what's right for the song. Kyle Resnick, who tours with us, sings a lot of harmony on the records, and that's been really great, to have that be a part of it as well.

A sound that I associate with the new album, "First Two Pages of Frankenstein," is the 1965 Hofner bass that I bought during the making of the album. A lot of the bass parts that I play on that record were played on that bass so they sound different than our previous records—there’s more definition and it’s more melodic than my early 1971 Fender Precision Bass that I love, but I think the Hofner was more impactful.

I think a song like "New Order T-Shirt," from the new album, has all of the DNA of The National—the way I play guitar and the way my brother intertwines with that; Bryan Devendorf’s mechanical but human way of playing the drums; and Matt Berninger’s voice, his lyricism, and this very, very deeply relatable notion of “I keep what I can of you”—there’s so much loss in human life and we're all just holding on to each other as best we can. The way we recorded it was really a mixture of organic and inorganic—so the big beat drop you hear in the choruses is Bryan but it's also supplemented by samples that he played and it has such a great sound. Musically and lyrically, I just feel like the whole DNA of the band, and what makes it compelling, is contained in that song, so I find it really special. 

ED SHEERAN

Ed and I spent a lot of time together in England writing and recording at the same time, sometimes making five to seven songs a day. We had met, initially, and talked about trying to do something really different than he had done, and maybe moving away from how he would play the guitar, and embracing how I would play the guitar but with him in mind, so a lot of the songs were built on these sketches I had made.

He has such a richness to his voice and we tried to bring that out. He had typically recorded using an SM7 but we almost exclusively used old tube mics, especially a vintage U67 on his voice, which is why I think "Subtract" sounds maybe more warm or more organic.

He’s an incredible songwriter and such a gifted singer, so a lot of it was just about finding the chemistry between us. We were very prolific from the beginning, and I think he was allowing himself to really be vulnerable, write in a different way, embrace chord progressions that he wouldn't normally use, and sort of not really think about the commercial aspects of what we were making at all. The whole process was just about capturing the emotion that he was feeling and making music that we felt was cohesive—"Subtract" does feel like a cohesive, emotionally cathartic journey of someone navigating a lot of emotional trauma and darkness and, hopefully, coming out the other side of it.

Some of the new album, "Autumn Variations," was made at the same time as "Subtract" and it's kind of like the wilder, brighter, more free-flowing cousin to "Subtract;" it's more upbeat and more colorful. Topically, he was writing about friends and about how you feel when the weather turns, and you start to long for spring in the cold weather—just these feelings you have at different times of the year. There is also a lot of imagery related to the landscape in England, where he lives, and it’s beautiful. I think it's a really interesting record—there’s everything from rustic folk songs to very adventurous, experimental songs and it's great, I really like it. I think fans might like it even more than "Subtract," which has become a favorite of theirs. 

When you’re working with an artist for the second time, there’s a familiarity, a comfort, and a lot of trust as you work with them and do more together. You start to have a deeper understanding and you can reach for more together, which feels very rewarding. We were prolific and wrote a lot of songs together and the truth is, you don't know how long that chemistry will last. I make music from a very emotional place, it's almost second nature, so that well doesn't ever really run dry for me. Sometimes I get burned out or tired, but I think in a collaboration, as long as both people are showing up and allowing themselves to take chances, be vulnerable, and hear each other, you can capture that chemistry again. Ed and I made so much music in a concentrated period and it does feel like it was a chapter of my life, in a beautiful way, but I'm sure we'll keep going too.

TAYLOR SWIFT

We used a lot of interesting instruments on "folklore" and "evermore," like the rubber bridge guitar, for example. My friend Reuben Cox from Old Style Guitar Shop buys these old Kay, Harmony, and Stella guitars from the late ‘50s and early ‘60s that were really sort of cheap, Walmart-style, starter guitars back then, but now they're interesting vintage instruments, and he customizes them with a pickup and a rubber bridge. He puts a layer of rubber over the bridge, which deadens the strings, and then puts flatwound strings on them and they just have a wonderfully percussive, detailed sound to them. 

I have written a lot of songs using that instrument and on "folklore" and "evermore," you hear that old, late ‘50s rubber bridge guitar on songs like "willow" and "invisible string," where I’m playing that as the main guitar. It has a texture that Taylor really loved and it fit the aesthetic of those records. I would usually just record it direct into the board, but sometimes I would also mic it with the U 47 or with a 414 or something like that. There are also old instruments that have been reconfigured, where they put the high strings of a 12-string guitar for the Nashville tuning on them and we played those instruments to create a beautiful stereo effect.

We also used the 1965 Gibson J-45 acoustic guitar, which sounds amazing and full-bodied and rich—that was my go-to steel string. The main electric guitar was my 1965 Gibson Non-Reverse Firebird that I would often play through a vintage reverb, or just direct through my WSW/Siemens board. I also have a beautiful 1967 Vox bass that you hear on the song "peace," which has these three harmonized bass lines playing with each other – that's actually the Vox.  

On a song like "cardigan," you hear my Yamaha U1 ­piano—the soft pedal brings a piece of soft fabric down across the piano strings and that almost sounds like an electric piano or a Rhodes.

It just has a beautiful, emotional sound; the way the harmonics come up off that piano is very emotional. The song "hoax" is also a good example of where you hear that. On "exile" and "epiphany," you hear my Steinway grand which is a beautiful, beautiful piano. I would mic it with a pair of AKG 414s and a pair of Coles 4038s, usually simultaneously, and then we would choose what sounded better with that. 

We used these Moog Taurus Bass Pedals, so when you hear the sub bass it's usually the Moog, Teenage Engineering OP-1s, the Juno 106, multiple different Prophets, and a Minimoog, so there are a lot of different things, but it all comes back to the rubber bridge guitar, the J-45, the U1, the grand piano, and my Firebird. [Laughs]

I gravitate to a lot of detail in the low mids in music—I find, harmonically, that a lot of the warmth and magic is in there. Taylor's voice has beautiful bright, high frequencies but there's also this richness that you didn't often hear in some of her other, more pop-oriented, records. For "folklore" and "evermore," we went towards a very natural, warm, rich sound and that was really the U 47 bringing that out, going into the Neve 1064 and the Lisson Grove compressor.

Performing "folklore," with Taylor and Jack Antonoff, for the Long Pond Studio Sessions film was amazing. The world was still shut down, there were no tours, no gigs and it was amazing to actually get to play the whole record, which had been really life-changing for all of us and such a dearly-loved record for so many. We played it before it won the Grammy for Album Of The Year but it just felt really special—those recordings were special and to do that at Long Pond, to hear the sound of the room, and for Taylor to be there… to hear her sing all those songs and to get to play with her and Jack was really meaningful. We had a great time, and on the last night, we stayed up way too late, drank some wine, and felt like we were really living our best lives there for a minute.

SHARON VAN ETTEN

Sharon was one of the first artists to trust me to produce her record. I had played that role in The National, in a way, for a long time, but Sharon’s album "Tramp" was the first time that I got together with an outside artist and started making songs, and it was a major moment for her and for me.

I learned that I can make records outside of The National and really enjoy this, grow from it, learn from other artists, and maybe they could learn from me too; I realized I can explore this and then I started to do it more and more. Sharon is also a great producer in her own right and this was the first time she had gone electric and had a band. She had started to play around with that on the previous EP, but this was the first full-blooded band record that she made, and it was a real moment. I learned a lot with Sharon, and I still love that record. 

GRACIE ABRAMS

Gracie has such an intimate emotional character and beauty in her voice and it was important to create the feeling in the music; we wanted to really bring out her storytelling and lyricism and that deeply emotional way that she relates.

We would make songs in the room together—I would start sketching music while she would write—and we would make a few songs a day in that way. For her debut album "Good Riddance," we wanted to create a cohesive sound that felt like its own unique world and wasn't trying to be anything other than what was right for the song. So there are fragile folk songs like "Amelie" and then there are these more electronic and produced songs like "I Know It Won't Work," or "Where Do We Go Now?" And Gracie is amazing because there’s her voice, the intimacy of her lyrics, and her natural, dynamic delivery which pulls it all together. 

We’ve been making new songs together since then and I think we're shifting towards something that's wider screen with bolder dynamics. It’s just a different time in her life and a different mood, so it's a little bit more forceful, but it all feels really exciting.

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