Death Cab for Cutie (often shortened to Death Cab or DCFC) is an American indie pop rock band formed in Bellingham, Washington in 1997. The band takes its name from a satirical song of the same name, written by Vivian Stanshall and performed by the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band on their 1967 album Gorilla and in The Beatles experimental movie, Magical Mystery Tour.
Band history
Early years: Elsinor and Barsuk
Death Cab for Cutie began as a solo project of Ben Gibbard while he was the guitar player for the band Pinwheel and was recording under the name All-Time Quarterback. As Death Cab for Cutie Gibbard released a cassette titled You Can Play These Songs with Chords; the release was surprisingly successful, and Gibbard decided to expand the band into a complete project. He recruited Christopher Walla (who had also worked on the cassette) as an electric guitarist, Nick Harmer as bass guitarist, and Nathan Good to play drums. Death Cab for Cutie was officially formed at Western Washington University in Bellingham, Washington, and lyrics from many of the early songs include local references that were important to the band's development. Many of the early songs were recorded in the basement of an Ellis Street home Ben lived in with several roommates in Bellingham.The four released the LP Something About Airplanes on August 18th 1998. The album was favorably reviewed in the independent music scene, and in 2000 the band released We Have the Facts and We're Voting Yes. Nathan Good left the band at some point during this album's production. His playing on “The Employment Pages” and “Company Calls Epilogue” were kept, but Gibbard played drums on all other songs. Good's replacement Michael Schorr would first appear on The Forbidden Love E.P., released on October 24, 2000. In 2001, another LP was released, entitled The Photo Album. Limited editions of this album contained three bonus tracks, which were later released separately as The Stability E.P.
In 2003, there was another change of drummer, with Jason McGerr of Eureka Farm replacing Schorr. McGerr would play drums on the next release, Transatlanticism.
Transatlanticism was released in October of 2003. Tracks from the album appeared in the soundtracks of television shows The O.C., Six Feet Under, CSI: Miami, and Californication, Lost in Transition, the 2005 movies Wedding Crashers and Mean Creek. In spring of 2004, the band recorded a live E.P. titled The John Byrd E.P., named for their sound engineer. The E.P. was released on Barsuk Records in March 2004.
Signing to Atlantic
In November of 2004, Death Cab for Cutie signed a “long-term worldwide deal” with Atlantic Records, leaving their long-time label Barsuk Records. Gibbard stated on the official website that nothing would change except that “Next to the picture of Barsuk holding a 7", there will be the letter "A" on both the spine and back of our upcoming albums.” This was a marked change from Gibbard's earlier views on major-label relations, which he said “are set up to fuck you and take all your money.” After signing to Atlantic, the band was still nervous about corporate economics, and encouraged fans to download its songs from the Internet.The first and second singles off the band's Atlantic Record release Plans were “Soul Meets Body” and “Crooked Teeth”, respectively (which they performed on Saturday Night Live on January 14, 2006). The full album was released in August of 2005. Plans was somewhat well-acclaimed by critics and fans, and received a nomination for the Grammy Award for Best Alternative Album of 2005. It achieved Gold Status in 2006 after charting on Billboard for 47 consecutive weeks.
The band released a touring DVD titled Drive Well, Sleep Carefully in 2005. Known for their contributions to animal rights, the band is supporting the activist group PETA in giving away copies of the DVD to promote animal rights.
In early 2006, the band announced the upcoming release of Directions, eleven short films inspired by songs from the Plans album, each directed by a different person. The videos were posted one at a time at the band's website and the DVD went on sale April 11, 2006. The iTunes Store began selling the videos (formatted for iPod) early on March 28, 2006. Lance Bangs, P.R. Brown, Ace Norton, Jeffrey Brown, Lightborne, Autumn de Wilde, Rob Schrab, Laurent Briet and Monkmus, as well as Aaron Stewart-Ahn are among directors that have contributed to the project. An episode of MTV2's Subterranean played these videos for the whole hour plus discussion with members of the band. In 2006, the band made their first appearance at Neil Young's annual Bridge School Benefit. The band completed their lengthy 2006 tour of the USA on December 9, 2006, finishing with a show at the Key Arena in Seattle, Washington.
Narrow Stairs
According to a recent blog posting on the Hall Of Justice website, Walla claims that their new album is "in full swing" and that they already have six songs completed. The posting went on to call the new music "weird", "spectacular", and "creepy", saying that it contains "lots of blood". The album has a "can jam" that lasts 10 minutes, which Walla said that he would have never imagined doing in 1998. The new album, titled Narrow Stairs, will be released on May 13th, 2008. In a recent Billboard piece, the band promised a "curve ball", and, though it will have a number of slower songs, they are promising some surprises. "I'm really excited about it. It's really got some teeth. The landscape of the thing is way, way more lunar than the urban meadow sort of thing that has been happening for the last couple of records." Gibbard claims that they have nothing to prove and that the band simply wants to make a record that they like. The album is "louder and more dissonant and... abrasive." They claim that they were influenced by heavy metal music and "synth-punk band Brainiac."Side projects
Ben Gibbard
Ben Gibbard formed the side project The Postal Service, with Dntel's Jimmy Tamborello after he provided lead vocals on Dntel's “(This is) the Dream of Evan and Chan”. They released the album Give Up in 2003, with the help of Chris Walla and guest vocals from Jenny Lewis of Rilo Kiley and Jen Wood. Gibbard and Tamborello have confirmed that they are working on a new Postal Service album, albeit slowly, having recorded two songs as of June 2006. They have said they will begin more serious work once Death Cab returns from their summer 2006 tour. Recently, the band has also announced that Gibbard will go on a short solo tour starting in May 2007.Outside of Death Cab for Cutie, Ben Gibbard has released solo work under the name All-Time Quarterback. Before Death Cab For Cutie, Ben was in a band called Pinwheel. Ben Gibbard has also been involved in Ben Barnett's musical endeavor, Kind of Like Spitting. Gibbard plays drums and sings harmonies on KOLS's album, Bridges Worth Burning. In 2003, Gibbard also released an EP for the Home EP series, alongside Andrew Kenny of the American Analog Set.
Chris Walla
Chris Walla has released solo work under the moniker Martin Youth Auxiliary. He released a self-titled cassette on the Bellingham, Washington-based Elsinor Records in 1999; fewer than 100 copies were pressed, and as a result it is extremely rare. Following this release, he also played a number of live shows as a solo act and founded his own studio in Seattle, named the Hall of Justice. In 2005, Walla launched his own website, the Hall of Justice Recording, on which he has since made a number of blog posts; however, the main draw of the site is in a few dozen mp3 files of Walla's solo songs; the songs were recorded at various times and in various studios but have a distinctively finished sound, likely due to Walla's production skill.Walla announced on his site that he would be releasing a new solo album in 2007 titled . Barsuk Records agreed to release the album, which was initially set for March 2007 but since has been delayed until 29 January 2008. The album will not be released under the Martin Youth Auxiliary moniker, instead being under his name. In late September, while a courier was shipping the finished Master tracks and mixed tapes across the Canadian border, the Department of Homeland Security confiscated the hard drive containing the masters. Chris Walla believed it was a random confiscation, while others believed it had more political reasons.
Filmography
DVDs
- Drive Well, Sleep Carefully - On the Road with Death Cab for Cutie (2005 · Plexifilm)
- Directions: The Plans Video Album (2006 · Atlantic Records)
Music videos
- A Movie Script Ending (2001) (UK Video)
- The New Year (2003) (UK Video)
- The Sound of Settling (2004)
- Title and Registration (2005) (UK Video)
- Soul Meets Body (2005)
- Crooked Teeth (2005)
- I Will Follow You into the Dark (2006)