Ben Gibbard on Divorce, Fame, Leaving the Majors, and Ultra-Marathons

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OK here's what is going down today: I'm a thick-and-thin fan of Death Cab For Cutie, and by estimation (and many others as well!) their new album I Built You a Tower is their strongest album in a minute, maybe even their most out-and-out satisfying record since 2008's Narrow Stairs. I interviewed Ben Gibbard during COVID for Stereogum (you'll be able to find the link as you read), but I was extremely honored to get 45 minutes of digital face time with him again to talk all things this new album, as well as the scope of his career in general. He was extremely candid and I very much appreciated the convo, and I think you will too—check it out:

Let's talk about this new record and what it took to put it together.
As of December 2027, we'll have been a band for 30 years, which is an absolutely mind-boggling thing to say out loud. I've been feeling in recent years that I'd rather our band put out one record slightly less frequently and make sure that we are putting everything we've got into that one record—and not only that, but that the record isn't a sprawling, hour-plus "Here's what we've been up to for the last three or four years" kind of record, just a really concise statement.

I've been a believer in the position that, the longer you're a band ,people don't actually need more of you. They actually need less, and they need curated statements—not Dropbox dumps of 50 unreleased songs. The longer you're a band, the high watermarks in your catalog—the calling cards 15, 20 years ago—you run the risk of watering down the stuff that people really enjoy, drowning people in new material. One could say that it's a little bit of a cop-out to frame it that way, but I feel like I'd rather get one great record from my favorite band every five years than five mediocre records in the same period.

It's funny you mention all that. I was talking to Carl Newman right when streaming was really taking hold, and he was like, "I'm going to have to start pumping out music, because that's what the industry wants at this point." He ended up not doing that, and I do feel like people would rather have that gap of time in between if it means that everybody's happier with the output— which goes against so called industry wisdom.
Well, I guess it depends on whose industry wisdom you're speaking of. If you're speaking to the person who has a vested interest in there being some kind of intellectual property or physical product put in the store, then yeah. But if you're talking to someone who has a vested interest in the staying power and legacy of an artist or band, that's a different conversation altogether.

I would not want to go this long between records, but the Cure put out one of their best records ever last year. I didn't stop being a Cure fan in those years [in between]. I kept hearing that they were working on a record and being excited about hearing it whenever it came out. I saw The Cure during that time, and they were putting on great shows. You knew a record was coming at some point, and thankfully you had 15 other records to enjoy while you waited for that one to come out—and it was well worth the wait.

This is the first record on Anti, which makes for an extremely good fit in terms of how you guys slot alongside other bands on the label. Talk to me about making that move.
As you might imagine, we were talking to a bunch of different labels. We'd actually re-signed for one more record with Atlantic, and after the shakeup happened over there and Julie Greenwald was fired, we got out of there as soon as we could. Julie was was integral in helping us get out. She saw the writing on the wall for us, which was another testament to what a great steward she was of our band while she was there.

We definitely knew we didn't want to go to another major label. Even though, by pretty much any metric, our time on Atlantic had been a success—we don't owe them any money, the records did pretty well—but we figured that, based on how the last couple records went there, and I don't mean this as a as a huge slight, but I don't know if another major label is going to necessarily know what to do with a bunch of dudes in their late 40s-to-early 50s. Major labels aren't usually in the business of signing people our age.

So we talked to a couple different labels, and through an odd series of events, I ended up at a wedding with Alison Crutchfield, who at the time was doing A&R at Anti. We started talking—and, she's married to Mike Krol, and I really like his records a lot—and I was like, "Oh yeah, Anti." We took Slow Pulp on tour—we loved that band—and we've known Fleet Foxes and [Neko Case] for a long time. I'd gone home after the wedding and talked to our manager Jordan, and I was like, "Hey, what about Anti?" And he was like, "Yeah, sure, I didn't think about Anti." So we met with them and talked about how they approach putting out records and marketing bands like us, and we left the meeting being like, "Alright, so we're signing to Anti." There was no other consideration at that point.

Epitaph specifically, they've been 100% independent their entire existence, but they've also sold a lot of fucking records. I really like how they operate. Aesthetically, they have all the elements of an indie label that we like, but they haven't been shy about putting resources into the band. It feels like the best of both worlds for us.

It's interesting to me how you guys are coming out with a record on an indie label a year and a half after the Decemberists also went independent. Both of you also signed to major labels around the same time., and both of you also enjoyed quite a bit of success during your major-label eras. I saw a lot of bands in the 2010s attempt similar moves, and their fates were definitely a lot more mixed. What kind of went into making it work when it came to that period of Death Cab's career ? What were the challenges as well?
For us and the Decemberists, who we've been friends with since 2001, our careers have existed in parallel. We have a couple years of a head start, but not many. One of the main reasons we were successful at Atlantic—and the same with the Decemberists—is that we both had a pretty good amount of success on Barsuk and Kill Rock Stars. When we signed with Atlantic, I don't think Transatlanticism was Gold by that point, but it sold around 400,000 copies. I'm going to have to check my work, but it had done really well. I'm sure the Decemberists were selling a lot of records too—certainly in comparison to our greater genre of music. It's been said by people in the industry that the hardest number of records to sell is that first hundred thousand at a major label, to let people know that this band exists and get that groundswell of support going. It's the hardest part of marketing an act—and, well, that was already done for us on Barsuk before we signed the contract.

It felt as if, when we made Plans, we were coming off of this critically acclaimed and relatively well-selling album, and one of the many reasons we signed to Atlantic was the promise—which turned out to be fulfilled—that they'd stay out of our way and let us do what we were doing. They had suggestions at times. When we finished Plans and turned it in, they were like, "Would you guys mind doing a full band version of 'I Will Follow You into the Dark?' That would be really successful." And we were like, "No, absolutely not. And they were like, "Okay, no problem"—and that's our biggest song to this day.

I think that we also got caught up in a cultural wave that was starting to build—and, eventually, crest—where there were all the bands that had been inspired by '90s indie rock, and a lot of the people who were programming music for TV shows and movies had the levers of culture and were like, " I want to put my favorite music in this show, movie, or commercial." We were in the right place at the right time, and we just happened to have made what was arguably our best record right at that fulcrum point when the wave was starting to really break.

The last time I interviewed you for Stereogum, we talked about the notion of diminished enthusiasm for new Death Cab music against something like an anniversary tour. That was while you guys were writing Asphalt Meadows, and I'd sensed some uncertainty as to whether you thought people would be interested in the new record when it came time to tour again. How did that experience end up being? From my point of view, it seemed like Asphalt Meadows was pretty successful on several levels.
Those worries had been informed by Kintsugi and Thank You for Today—which, I think, are decent records. They have some good songs on them. But those records were an interesting chapter [for us]. I now look back on those records, which are kind of bigger, the production is a little more robust, Rich Costey produced both of them...as with everything we've done, I'm proud of [them]. I don't want to sit here and knock something we did. But those were a couple records that were not necessarily tonally in keeping with what people expected and loved about the band.

When we started touring Asphalt Meadows, so many more of the songs just seemed to hit with the audiences. When we started to get the response, both in the reviews and from fans, it felt like that record was the beginning of a return to reconnecting and picking the thread back up that we'd set aside after Narrow Stairs. I love playing those songs, and people seem to really enjoy them. When I was going into writing songs for this record, I was like, "Well, I'd rather do that."

The fans are always right, you know? Whenever you're sitting there trying to explain why your new record is good to a fan, you've already lost. It's like, "Bro, maybe this is not as good as you think it is." I just really wanted to get back to writing songs in a fashion that made me want to write them in the first place, using the same simple elements that I was using in the early days. The drums are doing a hook. the guitar is spindly and doing a hook, and the bass is playing against that guitar—and then there's allowing space for the other members to either make that stuff their own, or add to it.

For what it's worth, Kintsugi and Thank You for Today have two of my favorite songs of yours, which is "No Room in Frame" and "Your Hurricane."
Oh, thanks, man. Wow, that's cool. I mean, I do like those records. But they relate less to the first five or six records.

I bring up "No Room in Frame" specifically because, even though this new record does remind me a lot of Narrow Stairs, in terms of what you were dealing with in your personal life, you're back in the Kintsugi headspace as well.
Kintsugi was written after Zooey and I split, when I was really hurt and angry. There are there are certainly some songs on there that are little indictments—finger-pointing songs, "set the record straight" bitter breakup songs. I went through a separation and divorce about three years ago, and while there were certainly reasons to be angry or bitter, I just felt sad.

I didn't want to write a record that was like, "You did this to me." There's a time and a place for that, and I've already written that—and, also, that's not how I felt. Even if there were things that were done to me, I didn't want to do that. Living in a post-pandemic, post-getting into therapy world, I was really—"enjoying" might be not the right word, but I was finding a lot of solace in the internal, and wanting to write about that.

As I'm sure you're aware as a writer, whenever there's a record coming out, somebody like me is talking to some people whose job it is to sell this thing to people. Some people in my team were initially like, "We really want to protect the fact that you went through this divorce." I was like, "Guys, let's just say I went through a divorce. There's no point trying to hide this." But my hope is that when people hear this record, there's something universal in some of these songs—"I've gone through something painful, and I find solace and something to relate to in some of this material." That's the hope.

In general, you're also a bit more of a publicly known figure than most of your peers. I have to imagine that's provided its own difficulties over the years.
Well, being known is only difficult if you choose to make it so. I don't Google myself. I live in Seattle, which is a city that has long had an attitude and ethic around being a public figure in which you're just a person in the city. Going back to the '90s, you'd see Chris Cornell at a show or the Pearl Jam guys out at a restaurant. There's just not a select culture of celebrity here.

I live on Capitol Hill, which was at one time the gayborhood—I guess it still is—but it's also a bohemian corner of town. I chose to move through my life without being weird about it, which is the direct inverse of how I felt when I lived in L.A. I was married to a famous person, and I lived my life like a secret service agent. You come out of a restaurant, and there's paparazzi out there. You had to be really careful about who you told where you lived, because there were legit scary people out there. That was my life for a while. When I moved back to Seattle, I was like, "I'm not going to be like this again."

I've always felt like the way that I write, the songs that are successes are successes because there's something universal in them—but I'm also bringing something very personal to it, and that's something that people really appreciate. People who are fans of what I do have grown to expect this from me, and I've grown to expect it from myself—and the effect it's had on my life as I move through the world is that people are very cool with me. We don't have the kind of fans that, like, Jack White has—and I don't mean that as a diss. He's a celebrity, a rock star. I'm not. And there's nothing wrong with being a rock star! But that relatability is part of my currency, and it's something that I feel is important that I maintain in my work. Not only because it's what I do best, but because it's something that people expect from me—and I have a responsibility to those people to make sure that I'm being as transparent, honest, and earnest with people as is healthy for me to be .

I saw you guys on the Plans tour, and I also caught the first Postal Service reunion when you guys played Primavera back in 2014. You are clearly having a very good time when you're onstage! Being a showman is not something that comes naturally to most indie rock acts in general.
Well, I didn't always enjoy it. There was a long time—a decade or more—where, it wasn't that I wasn't comfortable on stage, but I had a scorching case of indie rock-itis. We all grew up on Pavement, and I was programmed to think, "Don't look like you're having a good time up there. It's uncool to look like you're having a good time up there." I was probably having a pretty good time playing music—otherwise, I wouldn't have done it. But when the band was starting out and on our ascent, there were a lot of people coming to the shows that were curiosity-seekers. "I heard this band's good. I'm going to check them out." I'm going to say this is 80% in my head, 20% in reality, but you sometimes look out and you couldn't tell if people were enjoying it or not.

Two things really changed for me. Number one, I got older, and I saw virtually all of my contemporaries fall off or break up or go to law school—most people who start in indie rock bands in the late '90s are not still in indie rock bands, unless they got back together in the last two years because Numero reissued their record. We've been consistently doing this the whole time. and I had this realization that I'm so lucky to still be doing this. Even if I'm having a bad day, I need to find it within myself to make sure that I'm putting on the best show that I possibly can. It took a long time to get to that place. I didn't come out of the gates like Bruce Springsteen. I'd get up there, go "Hey," not talk, play the songs, and leave.

The second realization was that—and I don't know when this point was, it was probably earlier than I think it was—people are coming because they really want to see us. No one's coming to the Death Cab and Postal Service show because they just want to check it out, you know? I'd blinked, and seemingly overnight, we'd gone from a band that people were just going to see on a Tuesday for $8 at Cat's Cradle to playing this amphitheater where people are paying really good money for these seats, and you know they're the kind of people who maybe go to three or four shows a year. They're gonna go get dinner beforehand, they're gonna meet up with their friends, they're probably gonna listen to records on the way into the parking lot. Doing a show had become an event for the audience, not just something that people in their early 20s want to do to see if they like something.

We walk out there, and people are excited—and I'm not saying that to sound egotistical. That's just what it is now, and honestly, that's what it is for most bands when people go on stage. People are excited. I had to get there in my own mind. You have to act like you care—which, I do—and people will leave being like, "That was a great show. It's gotten so easy that there's no convincing anymore, and when there's no convincing, it's so much more fun, which makes me a better performer.

You did the Western States Endurance Run last year.
I did.

That's crazy. What was that like for you physically?
We'll need another hour to talk about that. I've been running ultra-marathons since 2013. I don't know if you're familiar with our sport, but one of the interesting things about running in general, is that it's one of the only sports where the best people in the world line up against people like me—complete amateurs. We're on the same start line. Western States is to ultra-running what Wimbledon is to tennis. I've been trying to get in this race for 10 years. Through my small modicum of celebrity, I've never tried to get in on that end, because I thought that was really uncool to do. I was like, "No, I'm running qualifier races and getting into the lottery." I got in on the wait list last year—I was, like, #40, and I was like, "Whoa, that's rough." But I got in two weeks for the race, and I'd been training for it.

The race is typically very hot. The temperature is usually between like 90 and 105 in the middle of the day. If you're in the middle of the pack like I was, you're hitting the canyons at the hottest point of day. There was a 2,000-foot climb up to mile 49 at Devil's Thumb, and by the time I got there, my vision was impaired. I was suffering from an electrolyte imbalance, like early heat stroke. I laid on my back for 45 minutes on a stretcher, aid station people were giving me four or five cups of chicken broth, and I started to feel like a human being again.

But there was no way I wasn't finishing this race. It took me a lot longer than I'd hoped, and I spent the last 20 miles like throwing up every couple miles—which is not actually as bad as it sounds. It actually makes you feel better. It was just hot. I was running through the night, it's still 85 degrees. But at a certain point, you've thrown up so much that it's just funny. You're like, "Alright, you know what? I'm gonna get this thing done and I'm never coming back here." But as soon as I finished, within 48 hours I was like, "Man, I really want another go at that."