Death Cab For Cutie
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Death Cab For Cutie: Indie Rock Pioneers
By: James Buell
When Death Cab For Cutie burst onto the national scene last year, it wasn't just a case of the latest flavor the month. The band has worked on and perfected their craft through eight years and six releases. The Seattle quartet has become the darlings of critics and fans alike. Their spot on last season's OC only cemented their reputation as indie rock pioneers.
Hard Rock recently caught up with singer/guitarist Ben Gibbard to talk about their new album, newfound fame and, of course, Joey. You can catch the group October 30th at Hard Rock Live in Orlando.
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Hard Rock: First off, how is everything going? Are there any major calamities to speak of?
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Ben Gibbard: So far, no. Everything's good. Today is the first day of tour. We crossed the border last night into Canada, which went swimmingly. Not that it would necessarily be a problem for us, but you always get nervous when they run the dogs through the bus, you know? Because you don't know who was on it before you. I mean we're obviously smart enough not to bring weed into Canada and vice versa, but you still get nervous. So outside of that, everything is all right.
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HR: The band is kind of centered around you and you started it back in '97. Is what's happening now - the major label, the television shows, huge venues, etc. - almost surreal?
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BG: If somebody would have told me in '97 where we were going to be eight years from now, I obviously wouldn't have believed him. But I think that for us, it's been a relatively gradual build. Thankfully, everything for this band has happened the way you would hope it would happen for a band... to date, at least. You'd go on tour and play to 15 people. The next time there's 50 people. The time after that there's 150 people. From the minute we started touring, it seemed like every time we went out there were more people the next time we went. That's kind of one of the things that's kept us going and kept us encouraged and excited about getting there and doing this.
It's certainly surreal, you know? I think that I kind of look at it... there's moments that kind of emphasize... there are surreal moments amongst a series of relatively mundane moments. When you're sitting next to Bruce Springsteen on a couch at a press conference, that's a really surreal moment, but those moments are peppered with things that we know. But those are also the moments you kind of realize how far you've come.
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HR: I don't want to harp on this, because I've read other interviews and I know you've had to answer questions about this hundreds of times, but people love to make a big deal out of your connection with the television show The OC. How much do you feel you've gotten out of that relationship?
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BG: I think it's certainly been a factor and it's helped us to a certain extent, but I don't think it's necessarily... the time I feel uncomfortable with it is when people try and say the show has made our band. We were successful in my mind long before the show came into play. It's one of many kind of changing tides in pop culture that's kind of pushed indie rock into a whole other level. For us, it's The OC. For The Shins, it's Garden State. They've been very nice to us, but I certainly don't feel like we owe them anything. As far as I'm concerned, I think we've both kind of benefited from the relationship and I think everybody's kind of ready to move on from there.
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HR: In retrospect, do you wish you had licensed your music to a bad sitcom like Joey?
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BG: (laughs) I don't know. You could argue that we already licensed music to a bad TV show, but that's based on your own aesthetics.
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HR: Speaking of Joey, are you as disappointed as I am with the direction of the show?
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BG: Of Joey? Are you talking about Joey or The OC?
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HR: No, Joey.
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BG: I don't say this in a snobby way, but I just recently got cable and I don't watch a lot of TV. I watch a lot of TV, like I watch a lot of movies and TV on DVD, but I don't really keep up with any current shows except for like Lost and Arrested Development. I don't even know what the direction of the show is. How long has it been on... like a year or something?
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HR: Yeah a year. It just sucks. It's a terrible show. Honestly, I loved Joey on Friends, so I thought it would be a great show. But... you know, you can only play a character up so much and he's just dying.
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BG: Yeah, well to have the like bumbling idiot... like one of the two bumbling idiots be the main character seems kind of a stretch anyway. You know Nick (Harmer), our bass player, had an idea that he jokingly wanted to pitch to Jennifer Aniston that she would have a new spin off called Friend. But she wouldn't have any friends... she'd be kind of flying solo and always trying to get people to come over and nobody would ever come over and it'd be kind of an exercise in the psychosis of loneliness.
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HR: (laughs) That would be a great show actually...
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BG: Yeah, it'd be more of a drama. More like an hour-long drama kind of thing. I think it would be great to spin off from a hit comedy with a really depressing drama.
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HR: (laughs) Okay, back to some semblance of an interview. At what point in the last seven or eight years of doing Death Cab For Cutie did you first realize you guys might be on to something?
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BG: If I can be so bold, I felt like from the first time we all played together in a room and we played the songs that I had made the first tape out of it... it felt really good. I kind of feel that any good band, when those collection of people get in a room and start making music... something happens. And there's a connection that you really can't make happen. I was in bands for years. I was in a band for... God, four years before Death Cab and it never came together. No matter how much we practiced and how much we really tried to make a go of it, it never came together right. It really comes down to the fact... if I can get all hippy... there's something kind of cosmic that happens when you put people in a room and they just do this together. You can get good people who are good players together and they'll play fine, but being able to be creative and click on that level is something that is really rare. I felt like from the first time we launched into "President Of What" in like October of '97 with Chris (Walla), Nick and, at that time, Nathan (Good), it was just like, "Wow, this is... our first run through of the song sounds better than anything I've ever done before with anybody else!" I think since that moment it has just been getting better for me.
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HR: Well, I guess when you started, there was no niche for the style of music you play. The kids myself one of them who listened to you were kind of the not cool kids of the local scene. Now youre the music of choice for the college frat crowd. Do you see that as a blessing or a burden?
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BG: Did you say college frat crowd or college rock crowd?
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HR: I mean... kind of the college frat crowd. I remember I was at your last show at the Social and I was kind of like, "Wow! Where the hell did all these people come from?" I didn't have any problem with it at all. I'm not complaining or anything. (laughs) It was just kind of weird seeing the progression of the last four years... you'd see the people that you'd see at a Lazycain or a Jimmy Eat World show and then all of the sudden you're seeing the guys that you'd see at a Green Day or major arena show at your show...
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BG: Yeah.
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HR: Wow... talk about a terrible question, huh? (laughs) I guess the point I was trying to make is... in your eyes... when did Death Cab become like this hip band?
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BG: (laughs) I think it's weird. For me, I totally understand that frustration from a fan's perspective. You hear that every once in awhile. People are complaining, "There's all these new people at the show." And they don't really know who Death Cab is or they're new fans or whatever. For me it's kind of like... as long as people are being civil to each other in the crowd and not causing problems I kind of like the fact... to me, it's kind of a hoot and that's also different because I'm on the creative end of it and they're my songs and our records and stuff. We're certainly not like a prod-rock band, but the way we kind of construct our songs is certainly kind of atypical to the type of music that mainstream people listen to. I think it's kind of exciting that there's something we're doing and something that I'm writing about that's resonating with people who aren't necessarily part of my social realm.
I think that's also the kind of thing... the earlier you realize it the better, but... part of doing the band or doing anything creative, you can't pick your fans. You kind of have to throw that idea and throw that concern out the window and realize that. Maybe there was a time early on, when we first started touring where there would be 15 people there and they were the only 15 people that got it and we were like, "Wow! We can be friends with these people! They like our band!" And we would. A lot of our friends now are people we met early, early on and came to our shows and brought us cookies or let us stay at their house and that sort of shit. At some point, you have to realize... especially at this point now... people are paying to come see you play and buying the records. Whoever that may be is totally fine with me. I like the fact that people I wouldn't necessarily feel a social connection to are getting into our music. I think that's kind of exciting. We played like a radio, kind of contest winner thing for this station in San Francisco recently. And it was all people who were like 40 years old. And it was like really, really weird. But you know, I'd rather see different people in the crowd every time we play a show than see the same people, the same fashions, the same social strata. It's way more exciting to play to different kinds of people than it is to play to the same people over and over again.
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HR: Your last album, Transatlanticism, is widely considered the seminal work of the band to date. Coming on the heels of that and signing to a major label, did you feel enormous pressure in writing/recording Plans?
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BG: No... not really. I think every record that we make is kind of a function of where we are as people and what we're kind of aesthetically into as a band and as individuals. Obviously with Transatlanticism being our biggest record to date by far and kind of reaching all these new people there's no point in getting hung up on trying to have the same sound. I mean every record is different.
Trying to recreate something that happens with a previous record is just a complete impossibility on so many levels. You start asking, "What is your focus? Do you want it to be successful number-wise or are you looking for the same critical reaction? Are you looking for a song to be a big single?" There's no way to kind of quantify and qualify how to approach that. I think for all of us, it's kind of another year, another record. I think that only after were done making records or when any band is done making records can you really assess where every record falls in the course of the career. I never feel any kind of pressure. I mean the label kind of stayed out of our hair and we just kind of went out to the middle of nowhere and made a record and had a good time with it. People seem to be liking it and people are coming to the shows. So as far as I'm concerned thats a success in my book.
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HR: You're obviously a vital cog in the band, but on the other end of the spectrum, Chris is producing the final product. How would you describe your working relationship in the studio?
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BG: When I'm writing I kind of just bring everything to the band in kind of a raw, demo form. All of us - especially Chris - but we've all been getting really good at kind of visualizing what the best interpretation of that song is. Something like "I Will Follow You Into The Dark," I brought in demos, basically just like that. Just acoustic guitar and a couple vocals. And he said we need to record that with just one guitar, one vocal, do it live that's it. I think that our aesthetics pretty much seem to be in line with each other. It's been a couple of albums since we've had kind of a head butt about anything. Basically, I feel that my work, so to speak, is done when I finish the songs. It's not like I'm not working in the studio or not throwing out ideas, but at a certain point you need to kind of pass the football off to somebody else. And Chris has been doing an incredible job doing what is best for the songs. I kind of stay out of his hair most of the time in the studio. If we need drum parts, we can do some arrangement work and sit down and work on stuff together. But a lot of the time I'm in charge of the song writing element and a certain part of the arrangement and then Chris kind of takes over for the most part. He's kind of steering the ship.
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HR: Speaking of Chris, what was life like for him back during that six-month span when Dishwalla was big?
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BG: (laughs) I wouldn't even know. I didn't know that they were even big. In fact, I'm not sure he did either.
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Links
Death Cab For Cutie MP3's courtesy of Barsuk Records
Death Cab For Cutie's Official Website
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