Ben Gibbard, singer for Death Cab for Cutie, might be one of the leading exponents of nerd chic, but just because he is sincere doesn't mean he is reticent. Even during a day with phone interviews backed up like planes circling and waiting their turn to land at a busy airport, he has more to say than can be covered in the 15-minute blocks of time allotted by his publicist. "We're leaving next week and I am trying to get as many of these things done as possible," he says, after answering the phone. "I am just finishing up a point with this guy on the other line. Can I have you call me back in five minutes?"
It has been nothing but phone interviews and tours since Death Cab for Cutie released their breakthrough Transatlanticism over a year ago. "It's really strange to have the record still selling really well and getting picked up on radio stations like a year after it has come out. So, it has been a weird holding pattern, but it's been exciting."
For the years previous to that, Death Cab recorded and toured regularly, gaining a loyal audience and critical respect like many of the bands Gibbard had admired growing up. So being a cult band was no problem for Gibbard. "It's probably better to fall into a category where the people who are supposed to know what they are talking about like the band. I had my favorites that nobody ever heard of. I loved a band called Hazel from Portland, Oregon. They were always one of my favorites."
These days, Death Cab for Cutie have a much higher profile, and the group is just about to release an unprecedented third single off Transatlanticism: "Title and Registration." Mixing typically moody music, Gibbard offers among the more unlikely lyrical opening observations to ever grace a single: "The glove compartment is inaccurately named / and everybody knows it."
According to Gibbard, the first line in this song—as in many others—is usually where things begin for him. "Usually I start songs with a first line. I usually write a song after I know what the first line is. I don't think I ever had a conversation about that specifically, but I always thought in a sort of Jerry Seinfeld way: 'What's the deal with the glove compartment? There's no gloves in there.' I then tied the song back around because I did find a photo of someone I used to date in my glove compartment. When you find a photo after not seeing someone for years, there is a flood of memories."
No matter how odd the beginning, "Title and Registration" ends with Gibbard's familiar subject of love lost.
"I think love and loss is the subject of 95 percent of the songs ever written. You can never go wrong with a love song. It is a subject that still really fascinates me. It is a classic subject. Stephen Merritt wrote 69 of them. It is a subject that will always be prominent in my song writing, and in song writing in general."
Even the happier sounding songs have the darkness of failed romance lurking not far beneath the surface, as in "The Sound of Settling:"
"I wrote it in 10 minutes. Every once in a while, a song gets written so fast you don't even know what it is. I wrote the thing really fast. When I presented the demos to everyone, that was one Chris (Walla) really liked, and I was embarrassed because it was so poppy. And Chris was like, 'We should do it with a "Walking on Sunshine" kind of beat.'"
While the sound may be joyous, the message of "The Sound of Settling" couldn't be less about walking on sunshine. "It is a song about getting older and having fewer opportunities, specifically in the love department. You try to go back over everybody you once were with and wonder if you missed one or f--cked up too bad with somebody you should have held on to."
Has writing so many songs about love made Gibbard any more skilled than the rest of us at handling the romantic relationships in his life?
"In a weird way, it hasn't made me any better at it. But it has made me aware of how simple it can be. For me, in the last couple of years, I have somebody who all of the problems you have with someone of the opposite sex just faded away."
Gibbard is looking forward to this return to Vegas, though he admits some apprehension as his first trip took an off turn:
"Vegas in general kind of freaks me out. I'm not much of a gambler, and once you take the gambling out, it doesn't leave you many things to do that are legal. I've only been to Vegas once—I am going to sound like the most stereotypical stoner—and the band we were with thought it would be good to experience Vegas on a ... let's call it a controlled substance. Maybe I will have a better experience this time out. I really am fascinated with Las Vegas. You have the audacity to take the wonders of the world, make them smaller and then display them along a single street and get the world to come look."