Ronboy and Matt Berninger have teamed up on a joint new single, ‘Disaster’. Check out the official video below, along with a Q&A between the two for NME.
Arriving today (August 15), the haunting track marks a bold shift towards a heavier, more intense sound for the LA-based Ronboy (real name Julia Laws). The musician contributed to Berninger’s second album, ‘Get Sunk’, and currently performs as part of his solo live band.
“I’m a disaster,” Ronboy repeatedly states in the hypnotic song, maintaining her signature emotional vulnerability, while the National frontman brings his brooding, unmistakable styling.
“Being hard on myself is usually a conversation I have within the privacy of my own mind,” Ronboy explained. “But now Matt is responding to my thoughts… publicly. It’s emotional in itself having him on this song.”
Berninger added: “Ronboy has a way of blending tenderness and ferocity like no other artist I know. So happy she let me into this incredible song.”
Ronboy is also the opening act on Berninger’s solo headline tour, and debuted ‘Disaster’ live on the recent North American leg. She’ll join him on the upcoming UK and European trek too, which is due to begin in Dublin next Friday (August 22).
Ahead of hitting the road again, the pair sat down for NME to discuss working together on the “unhinged and ferocious” ‘Disaster’, recall injuries from the video shoot, tease some “secrets up our sleeves” for future live shows, and more. Read in full below.
Matt Berninger: “Hi, Julia. We’ve known each other for five-ish years?”
Ronboy: “Do you remember where we officially visually met?”
B: “Yeah, during the lockdown. What game were we playing?”
R: “We were playing Trivia on Zoom.”
B: “We’ve also known each other around [producer] Sean O’Brien and Knobworld studios, where I do so much recording in East LA. Then you, Sterling [Laws, drummer] and Sean were all part of the ‘Serpentine Prison’ TV stuff. And with Garrett Lang now…
“We’ve been a band for all of ‘Get Sunk’ and before. We worked on ‘Disaster’ together, you were writing on the song ‘Silver Jeep’, and we’ve been doing this for a while. I just did my weird spoken word thing [on ‘Disaster’], and it’s one of those great songs that could apply on a personal level, but also on a big global level.
“You could be like Mother Earth or the voice of God… like ‘What a disaster everything is’, but it’s very intimate. There’s something about the intimacy and the warmth of your songs, but also that switch into unhinged and ferocious expressions – it had a lot of that. I was trying to be this voice of a cynical older brother or something.”
R: “I’m a big believer in keeping the interpretation open, because my favourite music is that which gives you space to fill in your own narrative. I think that’s what’s cool about this: the call and response you and I have in this song. It’s personal; it feels like a big brother. Then it also feels like you go off the deep end. We’re all a mess.”
B: “I think it’s a good portrait of just all of our mental chaos.”
R: “Yeah.”
B: “What’s changed between the process and the making of 2022’s ‘Pity To Love’ to this one?”
R: “The biggest change is the instruments that I’ve been writing on. I used to pretty much only write on keys and synths. Now I’ve been starting songs with basslines, which is how ‘Disaster’ happened. I’ve also gotten better at recording things properly when I’m in the mood to write. In writing ‘Pity To Love’, I was just fucking sad. I was really sad. Now, writing all this music, I think I’ve been a little more angry.”
B: “I feel that too. I don’t want to write another sad ballad for a long time. I’m just like, ‘I’ve got to climb out of it’. It’s interesting about how you were writing with the bass and not the piano with this because, since we’ve been operating as a band, we’ve been doing that a lot.”
R: “With you, yeah.”
B: “It’s very different from the way ‘Get Sunk’ was mostly written. You and Sterling sent me stuff that was just drums and bass. I was singing to drums and nothing else. I found that incredibly inspiring and liberating. You feel like you’re free. No chords, nothing. But, just in drums alone, there’s an arrangement to what Sterling was sending. Then you add the bass to it.
“So I’ve been really having fun writing to super minimal versions of stuff, and also fast. Not necessarily the words, but melody. First thought melodies go with it – that’s been really fun.”
R: “Yeah, there’s nothing really informing you of where to go. Not only are you adlibbing words and whatnot, but the melody can be much more off the cuff than when you’re writing to a piano chord that already is telling you if it’s major or minor or whatever.”
B: “Somehow they have those, but the bass and drums kind of sit back in a way that you’re not competing with those melodies.”
R: “Yeah. It’s way more up for interpretation.”
B: “Yeah. As somebody trying to find melody and rhythm in a song, I’m starting to realise it’s – for me, even in The National – that I’m locking in with the drums and bass. I’m often trying to avoid whatever the pianos and guitars are doing.”
R: “Right. Be more of a rhythmic presence.”
B: “Yeah. I can hear that on your new [music] and the songs I’ve heard so far. I’m really into that. Maybe I’m copying you? I don’t know.”
R: “I think we were nodding to each other, and we didn’t even realise we were both doing it. That’s great.”
B: “That’s inspiring. And so, we’re going on tour…”
R: “That’s right. Are you ready?”
B: “No, I’m not ready at all. I’m excited for it because we’re so good. This will be so much fun. The band, the five of us, are just so good, and then our whole skeleton crew is so great too. The venues we’re playing are really awesome. We’ve done a US tour and we’ve done a few things, just as a trio, in Europe. But to do the whole band and the whole show…”
R: “That’s going to be so cool. I think it’s such a rarity to be able to support and open on a tour as my own artist and then also be in your band as well.”
B: “It’s you guys all night long.”
R: “It’s great.”
B: “The whole band is up there.”
R: “Do you get lonely when Ronboy is on stage? Are you sad?”
B: “I just sit in the wings, lubricating and getting psyched up. No. It’s so great because there’s no changeover. You do your set and then we just chill for 20 minutes, and you guys change clothes or whatever.”
R: “Wipe the sweat off, take a deep breath.”
B: “Freshen up. It’s such a good organic night. It’s really good.”
R: “Yeah, it’s so cool. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a show do that before, where it is such a transition. This is a call out: what venue will let us do this? One day, we should just truly go straight through.”
B: “Oh yeah. That’s a great idea. I would join you on ‘Disaster’ and I would stay up there. And then it would just move around. Of course, the lights would get much more dramatic.”
R: “Oh yeah. I would have to lift the keyboard stand.”
B: “Maybe we will do that one day.”
R: “Yeah, we should.”
B: “Remember I was telling you that whole Beacon Theatre idea involving robotics? Yeah, let’s not talk about this.”
R: “Yeah, that’s for future touring. They can’t know yet!”
B: “Zip it up, Ronboy.”
R: “We have some secrets up our sleeves, some plans.”
B: “Yeah. I can’t wait for this tour. I can’t wait to see how you cook the rest of this record because so far, it’s so great.”
R: “We’re about to hit the road running. The song comes out; we should celebrate. We’ll be together in the studio.”
B: “Great. We’ll celebrate it. We’ll go to Musso & Frank’s.”
R: “Perfect. Speaking of food: when you’re on stage, are you thinking about what you’re gonna eat afterwards? ‘Cause sometimes I am.”
B: “No.”
R: “You’re not, ever?”
B: “I never think about food when I’m on stage.”
R: “You’re not thinking, ‘I can’t wait to eat the rest of that burrito after’?”
B: “No, that’s funny. I have to just eat the most nuts and an apple and stuff before a show. I’m trying to learn how to have a decent, healthy dinner before. But from an hour leading up to the show, all through the show, and probably two hours afterwards, my stomach is… food is the last thing on my mind.”
R: “Yeah. Is it nerves?”
B: “Well, yeah. I have a knot in my stomach, butterflies and knots. I’ve done shows and entire tours where I never unknotted my stomach. But now it takes me a song or two to start to loosen up.”
R: “Do you ever plan that? Sometimes I’ve definitely planned what song I start with so the nerves least affect the performance.”
B: “Maybe I should. In The National, I let the other guys decide on the setlist. I don’t like to know. Even here, it’s you and Sean. I’ve carried that practice over. I know generally what we’re going to start with, but no. I never think of it in those terms. Maybe you guys do? Maybe Sean does?”
R: “Yeah, he might.”
B: “Uptight and nervous and croaky for the first two songs, so let’s do…”
R: “Playing my own set before coming out for yours… lucky you, because we all get any nerves out, any flutters…”
B: “No, totally that. I’ve noticed you guys are all oiled up by the time I walk on.”
R: “I love that raw energy though. Depending on the show, I definitely can get nervous leading up to it. But it’s the 10 or 15-minute mark where all of a sudden I’m cold-sweating.”
B: “Yeah, it’ll hit you. You don’t know when it’ll hit you.”
R: “I’ll walk out for Ronboy, pick up the bass and it starts with this mentality of, ‘Well, if you fuck it up it’s over, so you better not fuck it up’. And then like that, it turns into excitement.”
B: “I’ve long believed that when you fuck up, you should cherish and own those moments. They’re the best parts of live shows. It’s when the guy walking on the tightrope at the circus slips and falls, and has to catch himself and climb back up. Best part of the show. You’ll never forget that. I’ve been there. I’ve fallen off the ropes so many times and hit the floor, and had to climb back up the damn thing and shimmy across for another two hours, broken and injured.
“But people talk about those kind of shows. Whether it was nerves or whatever, people remember those shows. I’ve seen disastrous shows by artists I love, and they’re as beloved experiences as their great ones. Just own all that stuff. That stuff’s all on your side.”
R: “Yeah, OK. I’ll work on that because the voice cracking is really a fear of mine.”
B: “Well, I mean, how many times did it take me to do ‘Disaster’ right when we were on tour?”
R: “Well, to your point: my favourite ones are when you’re on all fours looking down at the ground singing.”
B: “My glasses prescription is old, and then my glasses are so scratched up and they change the lights. All of a sudden, all I see is glare, and I forget my own lyrics. I wrote this shit!”
R: “I love that shit.”
B: “I try not to fuck up in your songs.”
R: “Those are my favourite ones, when we have something to laugh about.”
B: “The song wasn’t out yet, so nobody had any idea what I was doing.”
R: “True. Now the pressure’s on. No. We’ll pick moments each night to have our oopsies.”
B: “Yeah.”
R: “Did you ever think you would be a journalist? Did you ever aspire?”
B: “No, until I hung out with David Letterman. We talked for about two hours, and we only put up like 25 minutes of it. But that was so terrifying for me. I went through the ring of fire, you know?
“So now I feel like I’m not half bad at it. I’ve done a bunch of talks with writers and talks that aren’t me being interviewed. This is great. Honestly, I like being interviewed; I don’t mind it at all. But this is kind of fun. It’s a fun thing just to have two band members interview each other.”
R: “I’m excited for the tour shenanigans. Most of the fun of tour is the shows. But then what’s happening off-stage in between the shows with the band and crew is the best.”
B: “I’m back to like 15 years ago where I’ve been doing a whole lot more taking in of these places we are. Maybe just the scale of this tour makes it easier to just go out to a restaurant, you know?”
R: “Totally.”
B: “On our days off or lunch, go for a hike. I’m trying to get 10,000 steps in a day. It isn’t that hard to do, but I can go days with getting under 500. You know how hard it is to get under 500? That’s a couch potato. I really need to stand up more and walk. I’ve had a very leisurely summer.”
R: “I walk so much more on tour, and when I’m in other cities. But you have more energy than all of us combined.”
B: “It’s probably close to 10,000 steps I get in on stage. It’s not about the music, people. That’s one of the bonus side effects from touring: I go to the fanciest restaurants and actually get a lot of exercise.”
R: “Yeah, exactly. Fanciest restaurants and the best hole in the walls.”
B: “Our favourite thing is trying to get a good Martini in Europe. But then I keep ordering it wrong, so… it’ll be fun. Lots of interesting Martinis in restaurants.”
R: “We’ve got it nailed down [now]. I look forward to it. Thanks for singing and writing on my song. You add a joie de vie to it.”
B: “We made the video on our phones. Were you injured? Was anyone injured during the filming of the video on your end? I hit my head pretty hard on the ceiling at one point.”
R: “I did hit my head with a shovel, but it was pretty minimal. How were you near the ceiling?”
B: “I climbed up on the coffee table to try to get closer to the camera and the jellyfish. We’re like Kubrick and Scorsese.”
R: “Yeah! Can’t stop us. I like our video. Thanks for being a part of it, I’m jazzed.”
B: “It’s a great song, I’m so psyched for it. I love this because we’ve all been friends for so long. We’ve been so chomping at the bit to play live, but we couldn’t. We couldn’t for four years.”
R: “Yeah, this has been four or five years in the making. It’s awesome.”
Find any remaining tickets for Matt Berninger and Ronboy’s UK and European tour here.
The post Ronboy and Matt Berninger in conversation about “unhinged” collab ‘Disaster’: “It goes off the deep end – we’re all a mess” appeared first on NME.