Death Cab For Cutie

Mon 23rd Feb, 2009 in Features

Since their most recent album, Narrow Stairs, found its way into the world, Death Cab For Cutie have been on a seemingly never-ending wave of adulation. While their previous album, Plans, found them debuting on a major label after four successful independent releases, it’d be hard to top their year in 2008.

The band’s sixth album continued to be musically adventurous, earned critical acclaim, debuted atop the American charts, won a couple of Grammy nominations, and gained them even more fans. Oh, plus frontman Ben Gibbard became a vegan, lost a lot of weight, and got engaged to actress/the voice of She & Him, Zooey Deschanel.

“You know, I can’t complain,” admits drummer Jason McGerr. “No complaints.” For the first time in over a year, the band had some time off to rest and recuperate before their forthcoming Australian tour. This month, the band is playing the biggest venues of their many sojourns into the Southern hemisphere. It was on the back of Transatlanticism, when they toured with Something For Kate, that they first gained real traction in Australia, and since then they’ve been on the up-and-up. Touring has become a vital necessity for the band to reach even more people, with word-of-mouth of their live prowess spreading quickly.

“Correct me if I’m wrong,” McGerr begins, “but our shows seem to sell out very quickly. If people want to see us play then hopefully this will continue to happen, and coming back will allow the people who didn’t get a chance to see us play will get a chance to do so. If it makes sense to go to a country then we’ll definitely go there.”

McGerr imagines that the band will continue to press on for at least half of 2009, taking themselves wherever they’re wanted by fans. After that, the writing process for the seventh Death Cab album will take place. There’s no set plans for recording, however.

“It might be at the end of 2009; it might be at the beginning of 2010. We tend to work really hard for eighteen months behind an album, and then head back in [to the studio].”

It must be a tremendous advantage for the group to have someone like Chris Walla to call upon, with the guitarist and muilti-instrumentalist in the band also doubling as their producer. “He knows when we’re playing our best; he knows when he need a break. He stands right next to me on stage ever time that we play, so of course I can trust a guy like that to commit my sound to a record.”

Having that close relationship with the producer must lead to some interesting times though, particularly if – with his producer’s hat on – he’s eager to go in one direction in terms of the sound of the drums when McGerr has different ideas. “We figured out how to make that work,” he says of the dichotomy in the relationship. “We’re all really good at speaking our mind, and if that means really fighting for something then everyone is really cool with that. Everyone gets a trump card and we get to play that hand whenever we need to.

“It’s like they say – the couples that communicate stay together and the couples that fight stay together. It’s all out of pure love and a true investment with each other. There’s been so many hours and so many miles that we’ve clocked in together that it just fuels the music. It allows us to continue to make records.”

Narrow Stairs seems – especially in comparison with predecessor Plans – to be very much an album played by a band together as one. It has a very – œlive’ feel to it, with all fat cut out and the sound pared down to the basic sound of Death Cab For Cutie.

“We went for tracks that were complete tracks from beginning to end,” McGerr explains. “We played the song until we got it right, and that made for a really simple transition to [performing the songs] live. It gave us a real leg-up and an energy behind the material. We had to learn how to play Plans before we went out on tour with it, but with Stairs everything was down-pat, and still the songs have evolved more live.

“Sometimes the songs are recorded and then it becomes something entirely different after six months of touring it, and I wish we could go back and re-record the entire song. But so far with Narrow Stairs it hasn’t done that. It feels exactly like it does on the album, but with more energy and muscle behind it just from being on the road.”

A song such as Cath has certainly had that happen to it, becoming something of an anthem when performed live. “Things morph,” he says. “That’s what makes going and seeing a live band timeless. Without a doubt it’s a different experience to a record.”

Death Cab For Cutie has begun its Australian tour. There are a handful of shows still left to go.

Monday 23 Feb – Forum Theatre, Melbourne
Tuesday 24 Feb – Forum Theatre, Melbourne
Thursday 26 Feb – Enmore Theatre, Sydney
Saturday 28 Feb – The Tivoli, Brisbane