On Sunday, the National picked up their very first Grammy award for their latest album, Sleep Well Beast. The band’s seventh LP took home the award for Best Alternative Album, beating out records by Arcade Fire, Gorillaz, Father John Misty, and LCD Soundsystem. Aaron Dessner—the band’s multi-instrumentalist and producer, who built the studio in upstate New York where they recorded the album—spoke with Pitchfork to discuss the victory.

Pitchfork: Congrats on your first Grammy! Where were you when you heard the news?

Aaron Dessner: It was exciting! I was in the shower when my wife was like, “Aaron, you won a Grammy!” And then, my son Robin, who’s 3, started crying because he thought something was wrong. And then my daughter was like, “What’s a Grammy? Is that important?” I had to think for a second how to answer that. But it’s exciting, we’re honored and thankful. It’s not something we ever thought we would get, or set out to get, really.

When we spoke about the album last year, you were saying it felt like your most experimental record. Is it particularly rewarding to have a statement like that get recognized?

AD: Yeah. This record is deeply personal in a lot of ways, and it’s formally more experimental or less concise than records we’ve made in the past. It’s not the one I would have thought would have won a Grammy, but maybe in some way we’re being rewarded for the work that’s been done over the years and getting recognition for that. I don’t think it means that Sleep Well Beast is necessarily better than some other records we made, it’s just kind of like, maybe this is our time or something.

You won in the Best Alternative Album category. Do you know what qualified you for that as opposed to Rock?

AD: I honestly don’t know. Historically, it seems to be the category that bands like us would be in. I think R.E.M. used to be in that category, and a lot of our friends have been in that category before. It’s a bit strange that the War on Drugs are in the Rock category.

What does the “Alternative” tag mean to you?

AD: To be honest, it’s not something I really think about too much. I used to think of “alternative rock” as a radio format, kind of the way “indie rock” used to have more meaning. But it means different things depending on where you are or what country you’re in. The lines are so blurry now that it’s hard to say. And, like I said, if you look at certain categories you could easily put people in different buckets, so it seems somewhat external. Maybe they’re trying to increase everyone’s chances of winning.