Pitchfork: Aaron and Bryce, when did you start collaborating?

Aaron Dessner: When we were 12, our first great collaboration was collecting baseball cards. We accumulated a pretty significant collection—this was when baseball cards still meant something, before the internet. Then, one day, we went and traded all our baseball cards for a guitar and a bass. I played the bass, and Bryce played guitar. We started to write songs then, and Bryan [Devendorf] would come over and jam. Our older sister was a senior in high school at the time, and she was dating older guys who were in bands in town.

Bryce Dessner: Then she went up to college, and her boyfriend was still the drummer of a band at home. He was kind of sad, so he would come and teach us fIREHOSE and Minutemen songs; we were still ninth graders, but we basically learned a whole album of post-punk songs. We would also play Neil Young in the backyard with Bryan. We had no ambition about being a successful rock band or having a career in music. It was just fun. There was nothing to do. Our friends were getting stoned and hanging out at keg parties, and we were just playing music in the basement.

Aaron Dessner: It was basically a way to be in high school and not have to talk to people at the parties, because you’d just be playing in the corner. At some point, we started to take these different paths, where I got really interested in songwriting, and Bryce was going deeper into composition and classical guitar. That started to form the basis of the National.

Bryan and Scott, what instruments did you start on?

Bryan Devendorf: Our parents gave us violins when we were really young, and we were a duo of sorts, playing parties and Christmas events and church shit. As teenagers, we also played in the handbell choir, where you stand around a table in gloves and ring bells. It was really cool then. We traveled to Nashville and South Bend, Indiana with that choir.

Scott Devendorf: “Get the handbells in the van!”

Bryan Devendorf: This lady named Diane, who was a total hypochondriac, was the driver on those trips. She wore a neck brace at all times.