Perth Music

After spending much of 2006 in the midst of a turbulent tour cycle surrounding their Grammy-nominated album Plans, US Indie rockers Death Cab For Cutie took a well-deserved break during the first part of 2007. Each member of the band did their own thing; frontman Ben Gibbard embarked on his first-ever solo tour, guitarist Chris Walla released a solo album and produced records for acts like Tegan And Sara, drummer Jason McGerr constructed his own recording studio, Two Sticks, and bassist Nick Harmer worked on various projects. Plans was a collection of firsts for the band – Death Cab’s first album for a major label; the first disc to feature songwriting contributions from someone other than Gibbard; the first Death Cab disc recorded with the same drummer as the one before – but now in 2008 their new album, Narrow Stairs, feels more like home. Getting ready to tour Australia, guitarist Chis Walla caught up with Justin Middleton for this exclusive interview.

“It didn’t really feel that different coming into writing and recording the new album as it has other albums. I guess the band now has a grip on the process of making music. Ben (Gibbard) writes the skeleton of the songs and brings them into the studio where each of us pull apart different parts of the song, kind of deconstruct each part and then reconstruct it and the end result is something we are all happy with” Chris explained.

I asked Chris how the band felt coming into writing and recording this album after the great success of their last album, Plans. “After the success of Plans we each took about seven months off and just kind of did solitary things. I don’t think we even saw each other in that seven months so it was a pleasure to get back together for this album. We are a band and great friends but after touring and touring and living in each other’s pockets it was good to take a break from each other. When we got back into the swing of things it seemed we had a yearning to almost explode and I think that created the rockier side of things on this album. When we finished recording there was particular power to the music and something we weren’t conscious of was the rock side we were capable of.”

“A third of the album was recorded at Two Sticks, a third at Alberta Court and a third at Tiny Telephone Studios. We recorded at the different studios on purpose for a few reasons. Two Sticks is not a huge studio, in fact it is more like half a house than a studio, and that does not lead to huge sounds. We concentrated more on rhythms and getting the detail right in that session where as at Tiny Telephone we were able to rock out and that studio allowed us to get everything out of our system. In a way the songs on the album contain themselves individually but the album as a whole also contains itself” Chris said, explaining the recording process of Narrow Stairs.

When asked how the band handled the great reception of the new album and how much of a surprise it was when Narrow Stairs debuted at number 1 on the US Charts, Chris replied “It was definitely a surprise but we don’t really care about that sort of stuff. I don’t want to sound ungrateful or anything, it was really nice but it’s not like a cultural marker or anything. It’s not 1986 and we are not Bon Jovi. We create music for music’s sake and not to rise up the charts.”

I asked Chris how well the album has come out sounding in the live show and what we can expect when they tour Australia in August. “It was very easy transferring these songs to the live show. It was great and something we were conscious of while recording. With Plans we spent about two weeks after recording just scratching our heads trying to figure out how we were going to convert the album into the live show. With Narrow Stairs there is a live feel to the recording so it was perfect for playing the songs live as well. We recorded on two inch tapes so there isn’t room for a lot of overdubs or tracks, we forced ourselves to record almost like we were playing a live show. We are really looking forward to coming to Australia, we have loved touring there in the past and it feels almost like a holiday when we are there.”

Tour Dates:
Sun 17th August - The Palace, Melbourne VIC - SOLD OUT
Mon 18th August - The Enmore, Newtown NSW - SOLD OUT
Wed 20th August - Metropolis, Fremantle WA - SOLD OUT
Fri 22nd August - The Tivoli, Fortitude Valley QLD - SOLD OUT

Narrow Stairs is out now. For more info on Death Cab For Cutie visit www.deathcabforcutie.com

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 19th, 2008 at 4:40 pm and is filed under Touring, Interviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.