Ben Gibbard

31:29Those fucking guys? Those guys? No, not those guys, right? I mean, there were haters, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, you know, people were hating on Nirvana or Pearl Jam or whatever it might have been when they got popular, right? But as a teenager, you know, and as a kid who's growing up on the other side of the water from Seattle, I was able to just be in awe of them and have no context of like I'm not in a band that's also trying to make it at the same time as Nirvana I'm not we're not an I'm not an older person who like whose band kind of petered out and I see these young kids coming along and they get famous and I'm jealous I'm just in the perfect place to be in awe to be a fan and to be in awe you know and I I think that's such an important part of being a fan of music is to have that period and and try to hold on to as long as you can.

32:18Yeah. Where you can just be a fan of people. And then also final point on it at 46. Now there are people that I grew up being in awe of that are in, in bands that were so formative for me that now I'm might be acquaintances with might be friends with, but I always let them know that I'm a huge fan. Yeah. You know, I'm still asking them questions about that one record they made 30 years ago. Like when you, so, you know, I know you guys recorded it here, but like, what was the hand, what kind of, what was the mic on the thing? and what kind of guitar you did. I think that I'm proud of still being a fan of stuff.

32:51I still want to look at my favorite bands and my favorite records with wonder and have them hold some air of mystery. And if I have the ability to discuss the record or the songs with the people who made them, I want them to know how much those things mean to me. Do you mind playing a few songs from Transatlanticism? Yeah, of course. What would you like to hear? Oh, man, I get to pick. How about title and registration? Yeah, let's do that one. That one works well in this format.

33:47The glove compartment is inaccurately named Everybody knows it, so I'm proposing A swift orderly change behind its door there's nothing to keep my fingers warm all I find are souvenirs from better times before the gleam of your taillights fading to find yourself a better life

34:49I was searching for some legal documents As the rain beat down on the hood When I stumbled upon pictures I tried to forget And that's how this idea Is drilled into my head

35:25It's too important To stay the way it's been There's no blame for how our love did slowly fade And now that it's gone, it's like it wasn't there at all And here I rest with disappointment and regret Collide, blind awake at night

36:15And there's no blame For how our love did slowly fade And now that it's gone It's like it wasn't there at all Here I rest Disappointment and regret Collide Lying away at night All night When I'm lying away at night

37:08That was Ben Gibbard performing Death Cab for Cutie's title and registration. We're going to take a quick break and then come back with more of my conversation with Ben Gibbard. This episode of Broken Record is brought to you by Chase Sapphire Reserve. Everybody loves to travel, right? We can get away as a once-in-a-lifetime vacation, all of it. And no matter where you're going, Chase Sapphire Reserve is your gateway to the world's most captivating destinations. Travel is its own reward, you know. You're out there having experiences you can't have any other way, and with your Chase Sapphire Reserve card, you're also being rewarded.

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40:29This December, start a new tradition by taking care of you. Our listeners get 10 % off at betterhelp.com slash broken. That's betterhelp.com slash broken. We're back with more from my interview with Ben Gibbard. We pick up our conversation talking about albums that were foundational for him. What are some of those records for you that are just like touchstones? You know, for me, when I was in high school, kind of finding music that kind of became my music, it was Something Vicious for Tomorrow, which was Tree People, for those who might not know, was a band that, it was Doug Marsh, who now is known mostly for Built to Spill.

41:08It was a band that he was in before Built to Spill or when he was doing kind of the early Built to Spill recordings. And that record made a huge impact on me because, you know, growing up in like the suburbs of Seattle, or I guess across the water from Seattle, I was of an age where everybody was starting to get into punk and hardcore and straight edge and stuff like that. And there were elements of that music that appealed to me, but I'd always been a lot more moved by pop music and melodic music. And so for me, hearing Something Vicious for Tomorrow, that was a record that was this kind of beautiful melding of like very aggressive kind of an interesting guitar work but with just really great pop songs like uh super chunk was another huge band for me i mean records like on the mouth and foolish huge records for me there was a lot going on in the northwest at that point that i i really you know tree people was from boise but like you know there's a band called hazel from portland that i was really i loved there was a band called pond from portland that i really loved and i found myself gravitating towards a lot of this music from the american underground that you know i guess i guess indie rock was the term was being used to a certain extent in the early 90s yeah but uh it was really just kind of like underground american music being made by people who came up on hardcore but that had abandoned it or had decided like you know what i want to make something a little bit more dynamic or something a little bit more has a little bit more to say or whatever yeah and so that was a lot of that music was the kind of music that was really formative to me in high school because it when you're a young person and again coming back to it insecure you you know you feel you want to like cool things you like what you like but you also want those things to be cool right and i really did genuinely love these records but it also kind of filled a place in my mind where i could be like oh and also it's kind of punk so you know but also i mean teenage fan club is my favorite band and when i first heard bandwagon-esque when i was 15 you know i i was not i had not heard much of the source material or influence of that band i hadn't heard big star or much from the birds or or any of the kind of 70s power pops out there pulling from but that record just felt so familiar to me and it felt like it was this wonderful kind of extension of the music that was on in the house when i was a kid but it was kind of like filtered through kind of the jay mascus you know influence of kind of just like really kind of dirty guitars and i wouldn't music was not aggressive by any stretch of the imagination but it had like a had a grit to it that i as a teenager really appealed to me it's funny that like i guess with all those bands happening there grunge right nirvana um mud honey like all those all those groups and it's like coming of age in san francisco i'm like 67 or something so i'm kind of shocked that you were kind of did though gravitate more towards a softer more pop sound.

44:03I mean, it's evident, obviously, and I think if you listen to Death Cab Records that you write pop songs, but it's interesting that you gravitated more towards a softer, less aggressive sound, you know? Yeah, and to be clear, I loved all that stuff too. Like, the first real show I ever saw was the Sub Pop Ultra Lame Fest in 91 or 92. Like, Mudhoney was headlining and it was like Super Suckers and Seaweed. I loved Seaweed. Still love Seaweed. Loved Seaweed. earth pond played so i mean i was definitely into that music as well and it wasn't as if i thought that nirvana or soundgarden or pearl jam or alice and chains were like not cool you know i love those bands too but i think what i found really appealing was that i could go to shows in seattle at this small all-ages venue called the okay hotel which at the time in seattle there was this law in the books called the Teen Dance Ordinance, which basically legislated that any venue over, I believe, 200 or 250 capacity needed to have a million dollar insurance policy.

45:05So that basically meant if you wanted to see an all age show in Seattle, it was either going to be at a very small place or it was going to be at the arena. Those are the two or a theater. Right. So so many bands came through and would play clubs because we as minors were not allowed in there. So I spent so much of my time as a kid going to the OK Hotel to see a lot of these bands that I've been talking about. And what made a huge impression on me was that you'd see them set their gear up on stage, then play the show, then break the gear down, then go to the merch table and sell their records and T-shirts.

45:42And then you'd see them load the gear into the van and drive away. Yeah. And it might sound a little trite to have to consider that a, you know, a mind blowing thing to see. But I'm a product of the 80s and MTV. And if you didn't live in a big city or you didn't have access to a college radio station, I legitimately thought when I was 12 or 13 years old that the only way to be in a band would be if you could play like ripping guitar solos and look like you were in Slaughter or something. Right. I mean, that was because that was what was on TV. You're just seeing it. You're like, OK, well, I don't look like that.

46:17I don't play like that. I'll never play like that. I don't actually like this music. I guess I can't do it because if I can't do it like that, it can't be done. But then you have this experience where you see people doing it themselves. Real people. Real people. And they just they're they're not they're not changing into a costume to go on stage. They're wearing like jeans and a T-shirt at the time, probably a flannel or a thrift store kind of shirt or whatever and what seemed entirely unobtainable immediately snaps into focus is something that is like yeah i could do that i could do that that could be me do you ever do postal service songs in your solo shows oh yeah all the time yeah yeah yeah i mean you wrote the words and you wrote to the track but because you didn't like craft the the track and you weren't like you didn't write the chords or anything i mean is it was it weird when you first transposed it from the record to like a guitar to do a solo you know some of them work better than others but you know at the end of the day it there's no way to say this without sounding self-aggrandizing so forgive me um but if you think you've written a good to a great song or whatever if you can play it on a piano or a guitar or a single instrument with a voice can still kind of convey that kind of emotion and power then you know you might really have something um but that's also a function of maybe how records were made in the past and not so much how records are made today i mean there are or it's a sign that there's less good songs today i mean that's it you know i don't know i i you know i i'm not i'm not gonna be the one to say that but i do think that the toolbox that young people are using to make music today maybe does not lend itself as often to picking up an acoustic guitar and playing a song that has been created in this kind of in a computer with a lot of interesting kind of tricks and not tricks, but just production techniques that are don't lend themselves well to playing a song on acoustic guitar.

48:14Like, you know, like there's a band called Hunter Gex that I think is fucking fascinating. Yeah. I think they're really interesting and I like a lot of their songs, but not many of their songs. And, you know, this isn't meant as a slight, not many of their songs that I've heard feel like they could be, you know, I'm not expecting that, you know, an acoustic set coming from them. You know, it's not, I mean, I guess when I say there's no good songs, it's not that it's not necessarily the music's bad. I think there's plenty of great music now, but I think even some of the great, a lot of the great music I hear, they're not great songs.

48:40And I don't, I think that's fine. It's just, it just kind of is what it is. It's just like how a lot of the great music I hear now doesn't have like a guitar solo. Like it's just, it's just, I don't know what I mean. It's almost like, it's just like a fact. It's like, well, this isn't a song, but it's great. I love it. You know, it's cool. Well, and I think also what constitutes the song has changed dramatically since over the years, right? And again, I'm doing my best to not sound like back in my day old man but you know yeah no not all it's it's it's it's really interesting that you know a lot of songs that are very popular these days are like under two minutes long yeah and they might just be like a verse and a chorus and maybe a verse and maybe another chorus and then we're done yeah and then on the other side of you have like good vibrations right or something that's just like unbelievably sophisticated and complicated with multiple changes i mean i recently i i was i i we were on tour and i picked up a copy of seeds of love by tears for fears and which is you know i'd love tears for fears love that record but you put on you know sowing the seeds of love and you're like holy shit this is a fucking complicated song man there's like bridges after bridges key changes modulations i mean it is it's they they they They spared no expense on that one, right?

49:52I mean, but a good song is a good song. If it's, you know, a great song is a minute long that just punches you right in the face and then a great song can be a 20-minute song cycle. You know, it's really just a matter of conveying emotion and telling a story, you know? Yeah, yeah. Do you have a different relationship to the Postal Service songs? Do they feel wholly like your song? Like, I know, like, in Death Cab, you were saying you felt very much like the songwriter. And so I imagine those feel like, like the way John or Paul or George feel like, their Beatles songs, like those are their songs.

50:21But like, do you feel that way about the Postal Service songs or do those feel different? They are, you know, legally and spiritually both Jimmy and my songs. But I've been playing some of them for so long. I've played a lot of these songs more on acoustic guitar than I have with Jimmy. Yeah. So a lot of the versions of these songs have become, they've taken on a life of their own in this kind of stripped down format. I think at some point in the No Direction Home, I think the Bob Dylan documentary, he says something along the lines of, you know, yeah, the best versions of my songs were never recorded.

50:56Ah, yeah, yeah. You know, you go into a studio and you make a, you know, you record Like a Rolling Stone. And, you know, that's just like, he probably wrote that the week before. And they went in with a guy who had never played organ on a record before. Right. And they just, and they knock it out in a couple of takes and like, all right, that is the definitive version of Like a Rolling Stone. and that's what it is from now until the end of time. But as a performer, as a touring musician, as it pertains to our songs, I'm sure Dylan probably feels the same way because he literally said it, we've gotten a lot better at playing all of these songs because we've played them hundreds, if not thousands of times.

51:36And there's little kind of variations and little tweaks have kind of, kind of like bubbled up over the years. So I'm very much a firm believer in that notion that, yeah, the best versions of anything I've ever recorded has not been recorded. I like that. It's like, you know, the best version of an acoustic pulse of a song probably existed somewhere in a solo show somewhere in the world, and maybe, you know, these days everything seems to be recorded in some capacity, but maybe it happened in 2007 right before the iPhone came out or something, you know? Yeah, yeah. Or maybe it's Iron and Wine. Could be.

52:11I mean, yeah, I mean, I think when we heard Iron and Wine's version of Satchjard Heights, we were kind of like, well, I guess that's how I'm playing that now. You know what I mean? It's just, you know, it's like there's that, I don't know if you might be too young to remember this bit, but there was like an old SNL bit with Eddie Murphy playing Buckwheat and he's like singing all these songs and the whole thing is like, Buckwheat has a record of him doing standards, you know? And at some point the announcer said something along the lines of like, you know, when Buckwheat sings a song, it's eternally his, you know?

52:39And I feel that way about Sam Beam, you know? When Sam Beam decides to sing a song, it kind of becomes eternally his. It's like now, Such Great Heights belongs to Sam Beam, at least spiritually at this point. It's a really good version. Yeah, it's so good. It's a really good version. That era of music, I felt special having heard the Postal Service record, in my mind, what I considered early. And then by the time that record starts blowing up, you started to feel like, oh, but this was my music. This was my group. point is, you know, there was, because I think in that time and a little later, people were starving for like kind of real people that could connect to.

53:17There was also the sense of like, you wanted to keep things small and for yourself. And, and sometimes that, that could be, I guess, you know, in hindsight, I'm sure that was limiting both to the fans and the artists, but was it weird for you when, when the postal service record took off the way that it did? Oh, of course. Absolutely. I mean, I feel like I can speak from experience because I was also once a young person getting into music, right? I think when you're young, you're finding out who you are. You're kind of creating your identity. We haven't really done a lot of stuff yet, right? So how we define ourselves tends to be through the things that we like.

53:57So if you like something super obscure, that telegraphs to somebody that you are a very interesting person. because I'm the only one who likes this really obscure thing that not a lot of people know about. But then when the captain of the football team is like singing Nirvana songs, suddenly, you know, the definition of your individuality through being a Nirvana fan doesn't seem that unique anymore, right? As I've gotten older, I've been really able to parse that out for myself. And it's been interesting to see how that phenomenon kind of works, how it exists in people, right? Yeah. But, you know - I never connected though that it was related to that we haven't had many experiences.

54:40I mean, it's obvious to everyone that that's how we define ourselves is by the things we're into at that age. But I really never connected it to that. It's like, you can't define yourself by your job at that age or - Yeah, you have no job. You're going to high school. And so, you know, you haven't probably written anything or built anything or done anything or gone anywhere. So, you know, so much of our identity, certainly when we're into the arts or music, tend to revolve around the things that we like. And the more obscure those things are, the more interesting we are as people. But to kind of come back around to the response to Give Up, I believe when Sub Pop was kind of making its calculations as to how many records, the projections on what we thought this thing could sell or what they thought it could sell, I think at that point Death Cab's biggest record had sold 50 ,000 copies or something like that it would have been the photo album and you know Jimmy's records had done what they had done I don't know what they had done and I think they determined you know between we'll be we'll be in really great shape if we sell between like 15 and 20 ,000 copies because that's like slightly less than half the Death Cab record and you know this seems like this might be a good good kind of goal.

55:54And, you know, we went out in the spring of 2003 and did a five-week tour of the States playing to, you know, not many people. You know, when we get to New York, we were playing one Bowery Ballroom and now we're playing two. That's exciting. And the LA show got moved from, I think, The Smell and then it eventually ended up at the Palace Theater on Vine. So, you know, by the time the tour was ending, things were starting to pick up and it felt like the record was starting to have legs but there was no kind of sense that it would kind of take off the way that it did and what is still so interesting to me about that record is that you know sub pop was trying to promote it but they weren't you know it wasn't getting played on the radio it wasn't we didn't have like a video and rotation on mtv it was kind of like the record was kind of selling itself what was the promotional effort around that because i don't really remember one until i guess a video gets made and that video was made a couple of years later yeah i mean you know it was it kind of got sent through the pretty standard sub-pop promotional machine, which was, you know, we'll get our publicists on trying to get interviews and try to get college-rated to play it for a couple of months, and then we'll move on to whatever the next record is.

57:03And it really became, the record just took on a life of its own to the extent where Jimmy and I might be the authors of the record.

57:40and subpop might have been the label, singer from a band puts out a solo record like nobody expects the solo record to be you know dave girl puts out a solo record nobody's expecting it to do as well as a foo fire record yeah right so yeah so we just kind of and we kind of we wrapped up that tour and we kind of thought well that's that that was fun and then we just get these calls from tony at subpop like hey the record just sold 50 000 copies hey the record's 80 000 copies guys we just went over 100 000 copies we're at 200 000 copies it just it just snowballed and to this day i don't i don't have i don't have a good explanation as to why that happened aside from the fact that we obviously thought the record was good the music was really good but there's a lot of great music in the world that doesn't sell a million copies exceptionally good i mean and that's kind of what i was trying to get at the top is like people had made of course people i mean there's nine inch nails right like he's right he's a songwriter and he does it in like kind of an electronic idiom and and there's a human league to all that but it's like i don't know it's so into this day it doesn't sound the record doesn't sound dated.

58:39And there's like radiohead records that sound dated to me at this point, you know? And you listen to that, you're like, oh my God, like it's still, there's something about it that is exceptionally well-crafted. And same with Translanticism too, which I revisited recently. And I think it has to do with the songwriting and the production, both. Yeah, I appreciate you saying that. I mean, I have had exceptional timing in my career and I don't know who to thank for that. You know, I think that it's been said a million times that if you could kind of, if you could manufacture a hit, that's all we would have, right?

59:13But, you know, I don't know. I feel like certainly myself in relation to both transatlanticism and give up. I feel confident in my abilities as a songwriter. I feel confident and proud of my collaborators. And I think the things we made were really good. but you know there were a lot of records coming out in that same time frame you know that were as good if not better and you know i'm not saying this to be overly self-effacing i'm just saying like we just found ourselves making we had these two records come out that for whatever series of reasons really hit in the culture and we were there and able to capitalize on it and be out on tour yeah and be promoting the records and you know what was also happening at that time was this massive cultural shift where indie rock went from being this underground medium to being i wouldn't i would never say so much mainstream but certainly like larger than that it had ever been you know and certainly kind of started kind of like you know it was into the mainstream for sure yeah and in a similar way that you know quote-unquote alternative broken in the mainstream post-nirvana where there are bands that bands are playing theaters that a couple years ago were just playing clubs right so i think that we were also both records were kind of spurred on by this larger kind of cultural shift you know i mean there's that famous sonic youth documentary 1991 the year the punk broke yeah right which was a very apt title in hindsight and i feel like a similar piece could be made about 2004 yeah and that like 2004 was the year that indie rock broke like it went from being this underground thing to to like a year or two later it's like the killers are everywhere or whatever.

1:00:58Yeah, and Arcade Fire. Yeah, and Arcade Fire. And the Shins and, you know, it's like bands that if they had come out five years earlier would have been playing basements and small clubs are now headlining Lollapalooza. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Really crazy, really insane time. What did the guys from Death Cab, what was their reaction to both the music of the Postal Service and also the success of Give Up? Was it tough? Everyone was very supportive while I was making the record. And Chris actually plays some piano on the record on Give Up. Chris played piano on the song Nothing Better, and he helped record some of the guitars and vocals and stuff.

1:01:37So he was kind of helping me make some of the record. I did some of it at my little home studio, but Chris was integral in helping make the record. And Death Cab had come off a pretty grueling period of touring between We Have the Facts and We're Voting Yes and Photo Album. and it was a real grind and we had you know almost broken up and thankfully kind of pulled back from the edge of the cliff and said like we need to take some time off like we we need we need to take some time away from this it was that time away which ended up being eight or nine months uh that allowed me to really kind of wander creatively and write songs for both transatlanticism and do this project with jimmy so everybody in the band was really supportive of it and when it came out, you know, everybody was cool with it.

1:02:24I think there was a very awkward period between when Give Up eclipsed the sales of the photo album and when transatlanticism came out. You know, I started Death Cab for Cutie. This was my band. It started as a solo project. So, you know, I didn't think that anybody in the band needed reassurance that I wasn't going to, like, jump ship to this new thing that because it was starting to blow up. I mean, that never crossed my mind. But, you know, there was a little bit of awkwardness when all of a sudden, you know, I'm sitting on a side project that has sold 250 ,000 copies or whatever. And, you know, we're just about to put transatlanticism out.

1:03:05And there's this kind of like, and it wasn't happening a lot, but it was starting to happen a little bit where people would come to our shows and they'd be screaming for postal service songs. They didn't understand the distinction. They didn't get that we weren't just going to go into a postal service song. Yeah. And so, you know, there was a period of time in which I think some of, you know, there were some bruised egos in the band around. Understandably. I mean, I think that makes sense. Understandably, of course. I mean, you know, it's like we as Death Cab had joked about selling 50 ,000 records being indie rock gold.

1:03:34Right. Like we were a we were a huge band in quotes like we're as big as you could be. You know, and then to find out that not only was there another level, but then I was experiencing that other level with my side project. You know, there was some awkward moments there. But back to timing, you know, if we would have put out photo album in 2003 instead of transatlanticism, Death Cab would not have become what it became. Right. And the profile of the band would not have risen the way it did after transatlanticism came out. So we just were very fortunate to be putting out, you know, what I think a lot of people would consider to this day our best record.

1:04:09Yeah. As a follow up of sorts to give up. earlier you were talking about how like before you were averse in a way to like faster songs like kind of this like kind of slow malaise kind of a would become known as kind of like a shoegazy thing maybe but you know transatlanticism i don't know how much of that is down to also getting a new drummer uh around that time yeah i feel like um mccur added a lot to that record was one feeding the other in a way in terms of the just the production do you think i i'm not i wouldn't say that you know there might be some similarities uh in the some slight similarities just because of my voice and how i kind of stack vocals and stuff like that but chris was very much doing his own thing with transatlanticism and you know the give up was was like a jimmy and ben production so we were just kind of doing it ourselves having never really produced a record before just kind of flying by the seat of of my pants yeah um but you know i think when when jason joined the band, I think we all, we had tried to get Jason to join the band, I believe, two previous times.

1:05:13Our first drummer, Nathan Good, who is a phenomenal drummer. And, you know, when we first started the band and had Nathan playing drums, I was convinced that I'd never, like this, it was like your first love, right? Like this guy plays, he hits so hard and the parts he writes are so cool and like, oh, this guy's great. But, you know, we just found ourselves in a position where we were driving around, playing to nobody, making no money, and he was just out of college and he wanted to get married and kind of get a job. And I think there might have been a little familial pressure there as well because, I mean, look at us.

1:05:48We're these four idiots in a van driving around, stinky, making no money. Why would there be a future in that? And I can see that now as an adult. If you were outside of this culture, you wouldn't see that and go like, no, that's a dead end, buddy yeah yeah so when nathan quit we had this uh gentleman named michael shore joined the band and he was a phenomenal drummer great drummer great dude but uh him he and chris really kind of butted heads in the studio they didn't play well together in that in that capacity so when jason joined the band it really felt like we you know and this might i don't mean this is a slight to michael or nathan but it really felt like we really had we really had somebody that was like on board all the way.

1:06:30Yeah. And for me, as someone who fancies himself at least a little bit of a drummer, I was writing a lot of parts, a lot of drum parts, especially in the early records. And, you know, Jason is one of the greatest drummers I've ever heard, but he also would have no issue with, oh yeah, is that how you want the drums? Okay, cool, I'll play it like that. Yeah. But he'd also be like, but I could also do it like this. And he's like, oh, that's cool. Or like, no, I think I like it like this. Okay, I'll do it like that. So he was very malleable and he was very opinionated but without ever being overbearing.

1:06:59Like, you know, when Jason had a strong... Jason wouldn't just... Jason's not the kind of guy who will just chime in with every opinion that he has, but if he feels strongly about something, he will voice that opinion. And for the first time in a long time, I would see when he was pushing back on something that Chris was trying to have him do, I would see Chris really focusing and really listening to Jason and be like, okay, let's do it that way. And that was a new experience for us. Wow. Primarily because Michael and Chris had butted heads so much there were there's so much adversarial kind of moments in the studio that it was difficult to parse out who was being unreasonable right it was just they weren't they just weren't agreeing so once we had jason it was like there was no audition we were just like all right let's let's just get in and start working on these songs you had the demos for the transatlanticism some of them at least before yeah before yeah okay yeah and we just immediately jumped in the studio and started experimenting and playing around with the songs and in this case with a drummer who was more than willing to like you know kneel pert all over the song or to just sit out and not play at all yeah there was you know he didn't have any ego about his i mean we all have an ego about our playing but he had very very little ego about his playing in relation to what what it did in the song he just wanted the songs to shine and it's not to say that nathan nor michael didn't want that either but i think that mcgur was very he was very confident in who he was and his abilities and felt comfortable saying like, all right, cool.

1:08:22I'll sit down in this one or get behind the kit. Show me what you want me to play. Like he was very cool. And it feels like as much as this, like you were hitting your stride as a songwriter at that point, maybe Chris was hitting his stride as a, as a producer at that point. It definitely felt like you two were kind of peaking or kind of finally coming into your own at that point in your respective ways. And then like this new drummer comes in with his energy and it really helped create the sound that is death cab in a way, you know, which is weird to say because I came into death cab, like photo album smattering of stuff from like, we have the facts we're voting.

1:08:54Yes. But like, when you, I remember when I heard transatlanticism was like, holy shit, like you wanted to listen to it. It felt like a whole experience from front to back. Same with give up. Well, yeah, I definitely think that, you know, I've, I've gone on record a number of times saying that, well, I think there's some great songs in the photo album. It's, it's one of my least favorite albums that we've made primarily because of the climate in which we were making it. I didn't think we had enough songs, but we had to make a record because we had to be on the road. We weren't getting along. And transatlanticism, and give up as well, but certainly transatlanticism, is the sound of four people who are all on the same page, enjoying each other's company, getting along all with a common goal.

1:09:37I'm sure there, of course, are wonderful, amazing, genre-defining records that were made under duress or with addicts or people fist-fighting in the studio or whatever. But it's been my experience that, at least for me, the best stuff that I've ever been involved with has been the product of free and easy communication, love and respect, and the focus on a common goal. And transatlanticism, and give up for that matter, But again, very much Trans-Alanicism is a product of that. It's a record made with love and respect. And we would make records. We have made records since then that were not necessarily made under those circumstances.

1:10:21but, you know, I think it was getting close to breaking up and then pulling back and being like, no, we all love each other. We really want to do this. We're just a bunch of dipshits in our mid-20s who don't know how to communicate with each other. Let's kind of, let's take a step back and take some time away and then come back at this and, you know, do the best we can. We're going to take one last break and then come back with more from Ben Gibbard. This episode of Broken Record is brought to you by Chase Sapphire Reserve. Everybody loves to travel, right? We can getaways, a once-in-a-lifetime vacation, all of it.

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1:12:06There's something about a voice you love singing that familiar opening phrase. Maybe it's Donny Hathaway. Maybe it's Mariah Carey. That just flips a switch and you're instantly back into that warm and cozy headspace only the holidays can bring. For me, that feeling pairs perfectly with a cup of Starbucks caramel brulee latte. That's their signature espresso with steamed milk and a rich caramel brulee flavor topped with whipped cream and a crunchy caramel brulee topping. It's like the sound of the season, but in drink form. And that's really what this season's about. Little moments of pairing, little moments of connection.

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1:13:45Before we hear the rest of my conversation with Ben Gibbard, let's hear him play Death Cab's song, Tiny Vessels.

1:13:54This is the moment that you know That you told her that you loved her but you don't You touch her skin and then you think That she is beautiful but she don't mean a thing to me Yeah, she is beautiful, but she don't mean a thing to me

1:14:30I spent two weeks in Silver Lake The California sun cascading down my face There was a girl with light brown streaks And she was beautiful, but she didn't mean a thing to me Yeah, she was beautiful, but she didn't mean a thing to me

1:15:06I wanted to believe in all the words that I was speaking As we moved together in the dark And all the friends that I was telling All the playful misspellings And every pint I gave that left a mark When tiny vessels oozed into your neck And formed the bruises That you said you didn't want to fade But they did and so did I that day

1:16:05All I see are dark gray clouds In the distance moving closer with every hour So when you'd ask, is something wrong? I'd think you're damn right there is But we can't talk about it now No, we can't talk about it now

1:16:43So one last touch and then you'll go And we'll pretend that it meant something so much more But it was vile and it was cheap And you are beautiful but you don't mean a thing to me Yeah, you are beautiful, but you don't mean a thing to me Yeah, you are beautiful, but you don't mean a thing to me

1:17:31That's a beautiful song. Thank you. There's a level of that song that's biographical. you were living in Silver Lake at some point during the writing of that record, right? The story takes place, kind of bringing it around to give up. I was down in Silver Lake working on the Post Service record at Jimmy's house. So I'd been seeing this woman for a period of time who I had been obsessed with for a long time. And we were finally dating. And we just kind of weren't good together. It just didn't work. and yet you know i kind of internalized a lot of the failures of the relationship on my inability to see from a very early point that we were not compatible because i was completely i was uh what's the word it was somebody that i had been just i had lusted over for so long yeah yeah and and then you kind of realize that like sex with beautiful people is a lot of fun but it's not without at least for me certainly at that time in my life in this particular relationship without a really kind of strong connection it started to feel very empty and i started to feel as if i was in it for the wrong reasons and um when the person who's the subject of the song first heard it they were really upset understandably what i hope comes through in the song is not so much that it's it's not an indictment of the person that i'm singing to it's an indictment of myself yeah and to me and the real kind of core of the song is in the bridge where it's like you know i wanted to believe in the words i was speaking i wanted to like you know i was i was over committing i was trying to convince myself that i had stronger feelings that that this was more than what it was which was just an extension of my desire for this person physical desire yeah rather than a sense of connection away from that you know and you know years later we have we're on very good terms we're friends it's fine i wrote a lot of songs about her in fact um you know the song such great heights is about her as well really so yeah so you know she she kind of she exists throughout these records in a very interesting way same with lightness the song lightness is about her as well um so there's kind of a there's an interesting kind of arc between these records about this person where in a song like lightness it's this like it's the desire it's the yearning and then such great heights is the culmination of like all the feelings and then tiny vessels is the letdown you know it's it's the realization that oh i never actually felt this way i just got swept up you know and 20 years later she must feel pretty flattered in a way or be you know i would feel that way you know i mean if you wrote a song i mean we're friends we're friends now so it's yeah i mean i think that you know like any as as a lot of things you know it's like so funny we were just talking a couple days ago and we were both commenting about what dipshits we were when we were 25 you know it's really easy to forgive things yeah and like we're yeah i'm such i think i'm a lot better person at 46 than i was at 25 you know um is it hard like a song like that now like i don't know i mean you're gonna go on a tour i don't know if you'll play that song or not hopefully you do it's great i want to hear it oh of course yeah well we're yeah we well the tour that we're doing in the fall with these records were um you know we're playing them start to finish you're gonna play i didn't realize you're gonna play both start to finish yeah that's the plan yeah so yeah so it's start it's the show will be ostensibly like translinicism start to finish short break give up start to finish that's going to be great experience you know it's kind of a product of uh i think these this kind of format is a product of a streaming era in that i don't remember who was the first one to do these shows i believe it was some promoters in england like 15 years ago that started doing these like invited a band to play their seminal album and it's kind of yeah it's kind of taken off and from a you know you know a concert goers perspective it's really kind of a nice experience to go and pretty much know what you're going to get yeah you know i mean obviously sometimes you go see a band and you're with your friends like i hope they play that song from the third record you know we've all done that right and sometimes like they played everything i wanted them to hear like they didn't play fucking anything i wanted them to hear fuck those guys right but in this case you know if what you're looking for is hearing these records you will want you will hopefully not go home disappointed so yeah we'll definitely be playing that one i mean a song like that that's obviously highly personal and you it's it's by so biographical is it hard to access the emotion of it again?

1:21:47Is it almost too easy and you try not to? Or how do you perform it in a way that honors the song, but without almost going back to that place you were 20 years ago writing it? I guess I wrote Tiny Vessels when I was 26, I think. I'm 46 now, so it's been 20 years since I wrote the song. And, you know, there's a part of me that has to exist in that headspace for the three or four minutes that we're playing that song. But it's not to the extent of like, have you seen Walk Hard, the Dewey Cox story, where it's like, you know, Dewey has to, you know, he's sitting in a corner by himself and somebody's like, don't bother me.

1:22:23He has to relive every moment of his life before he goes on stage, you know. It's not quite that dramatic. But I do find that when I'm performing a song, I do try to place myself back in reconnecting with the imagery that made me want to write that song in the first place. So it's like it's as if, you know, it's kind of a slightly pretentious thing to call songs like little movies. But there is there's a collection of imagery that was in my mind when I wrote that song. And I find myself accessing that again. I don't place I don't place the narrative in my mind in a contemporary context or in my life now.

1:22:59So it can be a little bit of a head fuck to it. certainly with a lot of my songs be kind of reintroducing yourself to all of your failings every night. But at the same time, I think it's also a really wonderful way to gain perspective on where you are in your life today. I play a song I wrote when I was 20 and the lyrics are by a 20 year old. That's not to say that they're good or bad, but that's just who they were written by. And there are very few things, thankfully, that resonate in that song that I wrote when I 20 with my 46 year old self you know i'm an emotionally hopefully slightly developed person at least since then so yeah you know i i do find myself i do place myself in the song i remember who the songs were about i kind of pay i have to honor the honor them for giving me the song by kind of thinking about them when i'm performing them you know you you mentioned the imagery involved with writing a song the the songs particularly on transatlanticism i feel are so and was one of the things that struck me from the very first time hearing it.

1:23:58They are really visual. Like, I mean, just even that theme, tiny vessels and the bruise and the leaves and then it goes, you know, it's like title and registration, same thing. And I noticed with title and registration though, on the demo version, the lyrics were a little different. The album version was much more leaned into the imagery of the glove compartment, going for the documentation. There's a lot of beautiful imagery in that record. and I love the way that it's all weaved together. It all kind of wraps up. Thank you. Yeah, I mean, I think the first three records, be it not by design, but just by default, I think the lyrics ended up being a little bit more obtuse and a little bit more like Stipe-ian than, you know, than Gibbardian in the sense where I was writing these, I think when you, like, when I call through the lyrics of the first three records, you know, there are some songs that are kind of relatively straight narratives.

1:24:48There's a lot of songs that are kind of, they're a little more obtuse, a little more impressionistic. And I think by the time I was writing stuff for Transatlanticism, I started to really lean into this idea of I want people to hear the song one time and be able to see it. Yeah. To see something. Yeah. Rather than like, you know, like I was listening to like R.E.M.'s Reckoning not that long ago, which is a record I've been listening to for 35 years or whatever. And I still don't know what the fuck he's talking about in a lot of the songs, right? You know, and I haven't, and I've never actually delved into the lyrics and tried to decipher them, you know.

1:25:21But then again, you put on songs from Out of Time and you're right there. You're like, oh, it's like you put on Losing My Religion or Low or any of the songs and you're just like, wow, yeah, no, I get it, I'm here. Like, you know, Me and Honey, fucking amazing song. And, you know, I wouldn't say that the lyrics got better for myself or for Michael Stipe as much as, you know, the obtuseness, the abstractness started to kind of become a little bit more literal and a little bit more observational and so I guess when I'm writing a song now or or certainly around transatlanticism you know the idea would be you listen to it once you understand what the song's about but there are turns of phrase that you go like oh what did you just say uh that was fucking cool I like that but I think on some of the earlier records there are so many kind of obscure turns of phrases that in the less effective moments it's kind of a word salad it's a much more eloquent way of saying what I was trying to say Yeah, it's like that.

1:26:17But that's kind of the idea, right? You want to kind of like I the hope is not to tip too far into bland writing, you know, where you're just kind of writing. I'm happy. I'm sad. This thing happened. Yeah. So that the goal is to kind of virtually everything I've written since has been like, I want people to be able to put it on and they hear it once and they get it. But then there's things to go back to and kind of like, oh, what did you say there? I like that. Yeah. And, you know, sometimes I pull it off. Sometimes I don't. Yeah, it's incredible. I don't want to keep you too long. Can we do a Postal Service song?

1:26:46Yeah, for sure. I think I know which one would be good here.

1:27:05I'll be the grapes fermented, bottled and served with the table set in my finest soup. like a perfect gentleman i'll be the fire escape that's bolted to the ancient brick where you will sit and contemplate your day

1:27:36I'll be the water wings that save you if you start drowning in an open tap and your judgment's on the brink I'll be the phonograph that plays your favorite albums back as you're lying there drifting off to sleep I'll be the platform shoes undo what heredity's done to you you won't have to strain to look into my eyes I'll be your winter coat button and zip straight to the throat with the collar so you won't catch cold I want to take you far From the cynics in this town And kiss you on the mouth We'll cut our bodies free From the tethers of this scene Start a brand new colony Where everything will change We'll give ourselves new names Identities erased The sun will heat the ground Under our bare feet in this brand new colony This brand new colony

1:29:09And everything will change

1:29:34And everything will change

1:30:00And everything will change

1:30:14That was really beautiful. Thanks, man. Thank you. It occurred to me listening to that, brought up Arcade Fire earlier, and not for nothing, I mean, I feel like give up Translanticism, a year later, Arcade Fire's funeral, kind of felt like indie rock growing up, finally, in a weird way, you know? It's like, to your point of, it sort of started to permeate into popular culture at that time. The songwriting on these two records are incredible, and what a great time for music. Yeah, I mean, obviously being a part of it, it's in my vested interest to kind of take that position as well. But yeah, it just felt like none of us would have had the careers we have had or the popularity or success that we had without all of the artists that kind of laid the groundwork for us in the 90s and even before that.

1:31:03So there's a lot of bands that, as we talked about earlier, I grew up with that I felt to this day still deserve more lip service. But I suppose that sometimes is the blessing and the curse of being a cult influence. It's fair enough. But I'm sure, I don't know, it feels like decade by decade, so many cult influences are kind of getting their due and um i'm sure i'm sure it'll it'll get there at some point yeah well you see the work that numero's doing on behalf of you know a lot of a lot of bands favorite music a lot that's coming from like stuff you know from like the stuff like numero's putting out or whatever and you're like like jesus yeah they're doing a phenomenal job and there's a band called rex uh that was really influential and important to me uh and numero you know there was one a couple of their records that were not available on vinyl and then lo and behold coming out in numero so i like pre-ordered that shit immediately i was like gotta have that our friends in this uh a band called the american analog set who are from austin numero is doing a re-releasing their first three records which are wonderful albums so yeah i mean i it's it's it's really it's it's really kind of heartening to see a lot of this music kind of have a second life and it's also been just incredibly interesting to see what stuff has kind of been hitting in the culture in a way that i never would have imagined it doing i mean like you know i love unwound i think they're really important to me i never in a million years thought that unwound would be a popular band in 2023 i think that's fucking awesome it's amazing you know but it's it's a testament to like yeah you make great shit it might not hit like in the in it might be before it's time you know there you know a lot of this music a lot of this books film culture whatever is being kind of is resurfacing and finding a new audience and i think that's just absolutely wonderful with you man my biggest fear isn't dying my biggest fear is dying before like my next favorite record gets you know uncovered from the 60s or some shit you know yeah exactly i'm still waiting for somebody to put out like a a retrospective of this band called the dovers like who that i loved in the 60s so maybe i don't know if it's good for numero but somebody somebody out there listening hopefully someone hears it they do it um speaking of american analog set too always i always loved Diversional Choir Vandals.

1:33:15It was on that home EP you guys did. That split EP. Yeah, those guys, we became friends with those guys. I think we met them at South by Southwest in 99. It was the first band that we had become friends with outside of our immediate circle in Seattle or Bellingham. And, you know, yeah, we did some early touring with them. And, you know, they're friends to this day. I literally saw, you know, I saw a couple of them in Austin and saw when we were in Berlin, one of the guys lives in Berlin now. So we've maintained a friendship over the years. That's great. yeah they're wonderful people great band it's amazing it's wild it's wild to be in a place in my life now where i'm saying shit like now you gotta understand this was 1998 you know we didn't have a fucking iphone you couldn't just dial up a whole foods you couldn't get uber to eats to bring you food you know it's like i i've been working with some younger artists i'm working on music here and there and it's like you know it's like i think one of the things that's weird about getting older is that you're seeing the world through you know in your mind you look through your eyes you're still like 25 or whatever you know you're still like but then you're around young people and you think like i'm one of you i'm a young person and then you start talking at them and you see them glaze over and you're like oh no i'm like they're dead yeah yeah like i'm talking about some i'm on some shit that like they have no fucking idea and it's like why should they they don't it's like they shouldn't know who slint is they don't why would they fucking know you know they got their own they got you know they got their own bands you know they don't need our You know, the fucked up thing is like, I'm not even, I'm 33.

1:34:39And so I should still feel a little young, but I think because I grew up for a fair amount of time and maybe it's just because my family was poor. You know, we had the internet much later and like, we didn't even have like, we didn't have cable and stuff. So like there was, there was a bit of a fair amount of my life that was like tethered to the real world. You know, I teach a college course and it's like, it's like, fuck, I'm, I am a fucking dinosaur to these people, you know? yeah man dude i i i know the feeling but you know what like with age comes wisdom you know i don't know if anybody if anybody wants it but like yeah it's it's it's been a trip man uh ben gibber thank you so much man i appreciate you taking the time it's i mean and thank you for the music most of all more than anything oh i i really appreciate you having me on i mean i'm a fan of what you guys do on this pod so it's it's nice to be a guest thanks to ben gibber for playing live for us and going deep on his writing and album creation process.

1:35:37You can hear all of our favorite Ben Gibbard songs on a playlist at brokenrecordpodcast.com. You can subscribe to our YouTube channel at youtube.com slash brokenrecordpodcast, where you can find all of our new episodes. Broken Record is produced with help from Leah Rose, Jason Gambrell, Ben Taladay, Nisha Vencutt, Jordan McMillan, and Eric Sandler. Our editor is Sophie Crane. Broken Record is a production of Pushkin Industries. If you love this show and others from Pushkin, consider subscribing to Pushkin Plus. Pushkin Plus is a podcast subscription service that offers bonus content and uninterrupted ad-free listening for only$4.99 a month.

1:36:20Look for Pushkin Plus on Apple Podcast subscriptions. And if you like this show, remember to share, rate, and review us on your podcast app. Our theme music is by Kenny Beats. I'm Justin Richmond.

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