Interviews -Death Cab For Cutie-

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OK, now that Chris and Ben left the room, can you tell me what do you think of those two guys?

Nick：What do we think about Ben and Chris? They are fire and ice of this band; the yin and the yang of Death Cab for Cutie. They are a great team. They compliment each other and balance each other in good ways. Well at times, they may argue back and forth about things but in the long run they pull the best out of each other because they have so much respect and trust for each other. And that's why I think as a band we all make really unique and special. It's great to be friends with them and be in a band with them.

Now let me ask you about your home town. After the grunge era, everybody said "Seattle is dead", but what is the music scene really like in Seattle for these past few years?

Nick：I think there's a vibrant scene still left in Seattle. I think that a lot of journalists and a lot of press doesn't pay attention to what's going on in Seattle but there's still a great community of bands. There're still a lot of bands that are making very interesting music and doing very well in the States. Modest Mouse, Built to Spill, Sleater-Kinney, The Blood Brothers, Birch and Juno, there's a lot of different styles now. There's not a sound and frankly, there really never was in Seattle. A lot of people think of Seattle in the 90's, every band sounded like grunge. That wasn't true. There's a very small group of people that were making music, and there's a lot of bands and people are doing other things. It's still a very inspiring place to create music in and be around because the city is very small and there's not a lot of competitions to get shows at venues so everybody is very supportive of each other. I don't think Seattle is through. It's not dead yet. There's a cycle in the world and soon there will be another big group of people from Chicago, or there will be more from New York and then L.A.. Then there'll be maybe Seattle and then Kansas City and maybe Tokyo... it just goes around the world. It takes years to come around.

Right. I remember when I interviewed Janet from Sleater-Kinney, she told me that the Seattle scene and the Olympia Scene use to hate each other. Is it still the same now?

Nick：It's changed some from Olympia to Seattle. I still think that most of the cities that are as big as Seattle, they are jealous of Seattle because it gets a lot of attention and there's a lot more resources there. So we noticed a bit when we started the band in Bellingham, we went to Seattle. All the press in Bellingham loved us but as soon as we went to Seattle, they were like, "oh, they went to Seattle. They've changed. They're not so good any more." I think Olympia is the same way. I really feel Olympia has some great bands and some good things going on but they're Seattle's little brother or sister. There's always a bit of rivalry between the two. But because of the population and the economy and everything else, Seattle will always be the city that everyone recognizes and knows. It's hard but I think it's unavoidable.

Indie bands use to only make connections with other bands inside the city or area where they live. But now it seems like many bands are making relations with scenes everywhere, no matter where they are based, be it LA or Seattle or DC. What do you think about this new way of growing a scene?

Nick：I think that's the result of the internet. A lot of music fans are finding out about music online. It's much easier to make connections across an entire country and now it's across the globe. I think we'd find so many things in common with bands from Glasgow as we do with bands from Tallahassee, FL. The web has provided a great place for all of those people with similar philosophies and ideas to come to meet and talk. It's made journalist's job much more difficult [laughs] because they just can't say, "oh here is one little area..." But I think it's opened up the possibility of global movements now rather than regional movements. There're still a lot of appeals about regional movements, but I think there's something much more exciting and prolific about a global movement happening. I love seeing DIY bands in Japan or DC or London. You're starting to see places you'd never thought there would even be a chance for things to show like Africa... you know very small places that you'd wonder if music's happening at all. But now we can understand it together and it's very inspiring. For instance, Russia is very brand-new and now there's a punk band from China. It's very strange for me. China's so oppressive and there is nothing happening. But you realize that there's bands from these places. I think the internet is very instrumental like in sharing music. So I can email you a song and you can email me a song. We don't have to use the mail system. It's doesn't take weeks to talk and it's great.

That's true. OK, then can you tell me your favorite band or the record you are listening to recently?

Nick：I still have my favorite bands that I grew up listening to. But I think now as I've played music longer and met a lot of people, I'm just interested in meeting people who are intelligent and who are interested in pushing themselves into a new territory to keep making better and better music. I think I'm more interested in not necessarily the style of music as much as I'm interested in the kind of people that are making the music. So that can be a punk band to some strange experimental music you've never heard of, to a band that's making Hip Hop, to a band that's making all dance music. I'm more interested in finding the people behind the music and knowing what's going on with them. I'm making connections that way. I think it's much more fulfilling than, at the end of the day, the style of music has been performed. But that being said, I still have my favorites. There's still a style of music I prefer to listen to when I'm at home.

Jason：I've done a lot of session work with different bands and styles. It's kind of tied into a lot of things that we've talked about different scenes and regional scenes. Seattle being dead or alive whatever. Whether the media is focused on or not, there's constantly scenes going on in Seattle. You get caught Acid Jazz or underground Hip Hop group type of stuff. There is this famous place called the Loft in Seattle and people that you read about in Jazz Times magazine who live in New York or even in Paris, they tour, find out about this circuit in these scenes, and they go to this Loft and play after their shows - after hours until the sun comes up. A lot of people come to Death Cab shows and they would give us demos, and they would be sort of into the same music as we are. Just as much as we would go to see a band that's coming through the town we found out about through the internet or friends. We'd make sure that we made some introduction to those bands. And then that's how Nick's talking about how we become more interested in people themselves. Death Cab has opened for so many other bands, I would've never gone out and bought that music necessarily until I met those people. In turn, meeting those people creates a greater interest in their scene and what they are doing. It really is a tight net community and that has way more to do with the people who are making music than the kind of publicity they get if you will.

Nick：I like bands from Mogwai and Belle and Sebastian to... I have old favorites that I still listen to today like The Cure and The American Analog Set, and a lot of Dischord bands like Fugazi, Bluetip and Lungfish is still pretty good. And I really like Juno. I've been lucky enough to record with them but I really like their music as well. It's hard to say. There's bands all over. And I'm starting to find out about Japanese music and what's happening in Japan. I'm a life-long music fan. I can't imagine being like my parents who sometime in their early 20's they stop buying records. They just stop listening to music. I'll be 80 years old and I'll still be going out to punk shows.

Jason：I love reading an interview with great pop stars of a period before me. Like knowing that Robert Plant's listening to the same bands that I am just discovering [laughs].

Nick：And there are big artists, too. You can't get away from Led Zeppelin, Rolling Stones, the Beatles and the Who. List goes on and on forever [laughs].

All right. Just now you mentioned the band Juno, which played in Japan last year but you weren't with them. So you aren't playing with them any more?

Nick：Juno right now is hard to know. I recorded that record with them, and Jason and I were playing with them. We're starting to write some material with them and we're practicing. Actually we're gonna come to Japan with Juno, but then Death Cab came up and we needed to work on "Transatlanticism" and ended up recording that during that time. So we had to choose to do one thing over the other which was unfortunate. But Juno is in that state of flux always. They don't know what they wanna do [smiles].

Jason：They are great guys though.

Nick：Yeah, great guys. I'd love to play with them more. I'd love to come to Japan with Juno. I'd love to make another record with them if they needed to. But I don't know what their plans are. It's been very difficult for them right now financially to keep continuing music. So I really don't know what's going on with them.

I see. By the way, Television is playing in Shibuya tonight at 7 PM and the Chemical Brothers are DJing in Shinjuku. Which show would you prefer to see?

Nick：Television is playing in Tokyo tonight? Really?

Jason：Television.

Nick：You know what? I would see Television but I have some friends who went to see their show recently and I heard they're not so good. They played a lot of bluesy kind of jamming stuff. Both would be different experiences.

Jason：So we have Television, the Chemical Brothers and Whitesnake all in Tokyo tonight?

Nick：Which three? I don't know they would all give you something different. If I went to Whitesnake, I would laugh. Their hair and everything? Anyway, then I'd go the Chemical Brothers just to see what the digital stuff is happening because they've always been on the cutting edge of those stuff.

Jason：I think the most intriguing thing would be the Chemical Brothers show sonically. I think it'll be the most appealing to me. Visually, probably Whitesnake. Television, just for the historical admiration.

Here's the last question. Your new album is coming out in the states very soon and it's a promising situation for Death Cab For Cutie. Can you tell me your future plans and goals?

Nick：We're gonna tour like crazy. We're touring for two months in the States starting October 1st. December is kind of hard to tour because it's cold. January is the same a bit. But in February or March, hopefully we will come back to Japan. In April and May, we have to do a lot of touring in Europe. For the next 18 months when the record comes out, there's gonna be a lot of touring and press. There'll be a lot of shows and we're very excited about it. It feels like this is the best record we've ever made so nothing makes you happier than talking about something that you're proud of. It's gonna be a lot of hard work but hopefully it will pay off and it will allow us to spend some more time and money on recording next record. As for the visions, we'll just continue to take more risks as a band. Sonically, I think we are gonna try and keep being as collaborative as possible. We'll write stuff together... Our visions are basically that we wanna be in the band for the rest of my life. I mean who doesn't? I wanna be able to play bass in bands until I decide to retire. But I don't know if that's possible because playing music is very... entertainers are very difficult business to be involved in. Some people get very lucky and some people don't, and it's hard to know where the lightening will strike. But I think we're in the great spot right now as a band. We have a lot of ideas that we have yet to explore. I would just wanna be able to continue to make the best record that we know how to make. I don't know if anybody will like those records and buy them but that doesn't matter. It's more about being happier.

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