Ben Gibbard is talking religion. And the cuddliest guy in indie rock isn’t pulling any punches.
“There’s something about people who have a Catholic upbringing – you can spot another Catholic a mile away,” Death Cab for Cutie’s front man offers. “It’s obviously not genetic – I’d never say anything that ignorant. But there’s something that’s kind of indoctrinated in you from an early age.
“I’m not a practicing Catholic; I don’t feel like an overtly spiritual person,” he says. “I have real respect for people of faith – more because I have such a hard time having any myself. I find an arrogance in the idea that anybody knows what happens to us after we die, that anybody of any religious set can claim that they know more about the workings of the universe than I can or a five-year-old kid can. Really, the Pope knows about as much about what happens to us after we die as a five-year-old kid.”
Seth, we’re not in the O.C. anymore. We are, however, firmly on Gibbard’s turf.
The ample media attention Death Cab for Cutie has received this year has tended to focus on the Seattle-based band’s rise from cult favourites to a mainstream success story – the shift to a major label, the challenges of maintaining their integrity, and the major boost given by a certain teen soap opera. Less space, however, has been devoted to how and why Death Cab – playing a sold out show tomorrow at the Kool Haus - has connected so well with teens and 20-somethings audiences in particular.
Granted, a big part of that is simply Gibbard’s accessible (if slightly nasal) vocals, guitarist/producer Chris Walla’s ability to turn relatively simple melodies into lush pop oeuvres and the sensitive, big-hearted quality that appeals to female audiences in particular. But what’s lent Death Cab a degree of gravitas and helped them connect with North America’s most secular generation – or at least some of its more inquisitive members – is its singer/songwriter’s willingness to tackle the Big Questions.
On their previous releases, including 2003’s breakthrough Transatlanticism, Death Cab had flirted with issues of mortality. On Plans, their major-label debut, they plunge right into them.
On stripped-down standout I Will Follow You Into the Dark, Gibbard ponders the prospect of no afterlife, finding romance in the notion of two lovers entering the great nothingness together. The epic, piano-driven What Sarah Said finds Gibbard witnessing a loved one’s final hours in the ICU, its final, haunting refrain questioning “who’s gonna watch you die.” Other tracks touch on similar subjects in less direct ways, and Gibbard says he wrote several more songs tackling spirituality and mortality – including one about a cathedral destroyed in an earthquake – that didn’t make the cut.
Treating death as a romantic concept, Gibbard says, was prompted by returning from extended sojourns on the road and realizing it was time to “take stock in” those closest to him.
“When I think about the people that I want to have around for the rest of my life, the next thought is, someday that person’s going to die,” he says. “I think it’s a rather tender sentiment, because it’s the expectation that you’ll be with these people for the rest of your life - that you’ll have so much invested in your relationship with that person that you will be there to bury that person. To me, that’s a beautiful thought … It’s nothing about being afraid to die or anything like that.”
Whether that’s a sentiment the O.C. crowd will have any interest in wrapping its head around, of course, is an open question.
“I’ve been asked if people who are younger are going to get the songs on this record, because some of it has to do with these themes of mortality,” Gibbard says. “I don’t really know. I would hope that there’s something universal in the songs that people will gravitate to regardless of what age they are, but I guess that’s to be determined.”
