Nick Harmer (Death Cab for Cutie) interview transcript

hey there: just to let you know, this is being presented just as i typed it into the old laptop in preparation to write the article, so you don't get to know what i asked, and i can almost guarantee there are mistakes. but here it is:

Nick Harmer Transcript

I’m in Los Angeles, Calif.; we’re going to be heading to the airport soon because we’re going to try to fly into Austin, Tex., today. We’re supposed to play Austin City Limits tomorrow. I don’t know, though: the weather … we can’t afford to get stuck there. We’ll be able to get in, but we might not be able to get out. It’s going to be an interesting next 24 hours.

It’s pretty much song by song; there’s not a set sort of pattern that we fall into. I mean, it’s a pattern in the sense that Ben will bring a batch of demos in, you know a good 20 or 25 of ‘em, and then we just sort of sit down as a band and start going through them song by song. You know, talking about ‘em, playing some of ‘em, figuring out which ones we like and which ones sound good. The collaboration kind of starts then when we just weed out which ones we want to start working on. And then from there, some songs get deconstructed pretty far and rebuilt. Some songs don’t change at all. But we always say it’s less like politics and chemistry and more like farming, if that makes any sense. Ben brings in a bunch of seeds and we all till the earth and plant them and kind of nurse them along and see what grows.

Ben had written the lyric and the melody and the beginning part (the piano stuff on it) and we as a band started going over it and came up with the outro part, which was more my collaboration on it. Instead of making it a big rock ending, I thought it would be fun to try bringing it down really simply and just kind of letting it be somber. I just did a lot of the stuff that went into the arrangement of it. That’s what I added to the process. We all chip in along the way; Chris, as producer, makes executive decisions within that context, too.

The Elektra thing was hilarious. They were obviously on the outs as a company and their president at the time wasn’t a very honest person. It’s just so funny because we’re friends with Spoon, we’re friends with Nada Surf: we just wanted to ask them to really confirm or deny anything that [those bands] are telling us and get some real truth, so I don’t know why they would think that they could pull one over on us. But you know, they still tried and it was horribly embarassing for everyone concerned because sitting in the room felt just really not cool. I’m glad we went through it because it just made the conversations that were good and great with Atlantic that much better because you just knew: The Elektra stuff was what we expected it to go like, and the Atlantic thing, well, we wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t great.

People just started approaching us. For a long time, we just believed that we would never go to a major, not because we never would want to be on one but because no major would have ever given us the kind of contract that we wanted to have. It was more of a ‘If you’re not give us what we want then we don’t want it anyway” kind of thing. And then people started coming around again, so we would just send out this long list of bullet points of things that we would look for in a contract and things that we would want [in order] to protect ourselves. It was completely generated by having conversations with friends of ours who had gone through the situation, gone through major label situations that were just awful, and you know, living and learning and passing on their wisdom to us. Saying, ‘Be careful of this and don’t do that and make sure that you watch this ‘cause this is a lie,’ and that kind of stuff. So we just put it all together in a big list of things and that list was so laughable ten years ago or five years ago, 1.) because we weren’t a band that had any kind of clout or muscle to move around in negotiations but 2.) just because the industry wasn’t willing to take any risks on bands like us for whatever reason. So this time when people came around we thought it was going to be more of the same: we sent out the list and you know, predictably, there were a few labels that were just like, ‘Ha ha ha, yeah right; have a good day,’ but surprisingly we sent it to Atlantic and they called back and said, ‘Looks great!’ And we were like, ‘OK, but which part of it?’ ‘Oh no, the whole list looks good; let’s get it done.’ And at that point, that’s where you have to decide. We always said that if they gave us these things that we’d do it and now they’re giving us these things? I guess we do it…? You know, we definitely wanted to take the risk and go for it and so far things have been way better than we expected them to be and that feels great.

We had a really good time out in Massachusetts. Our experience in Massachusetts was great; it was really kind of refreshing and nice to be isolated. And we were there for a month: four solid weeks. I think maybe in hindsight the last week we went a little bit crazy, you know, the isolation really sort of set in and we started getting pretty stir crazy—a few of us did anyway. It’s funny how isolation does different things to different people and for the most part, we’re used to operating on our own schedule and our own clock and we’re really disciplined as a band so that’s not any of the issue—it’s more of the social aspect of forgetting how to talk about things with people. And some people went more crazy than others. Chris--our guitar player and producer—he sort of embraced it like a madman really. He never left the barn of the studio the entire month. It was almost like being under house arrest or something. He just got focused in on it and he never wanted to leave. Ben and I, though, would go through these periods where we were just like, ‘We gotta go someplace. Just take us to a shopping mall! I don’t care!” We just wanted to know that human beings exist.

It was an extraordinarily productive time, though. We desperately needed to be away from the din of our normal crazy hectic lives. It was nice to be out there and have only music to focus on and only music to make and that was the concern of the day. Sometimes in normal life it’s easy to wake up and [find that] there’s a new priority like, ‘God, my toilet’s overflooding, I’ve got to fix that before I focus on something else.’ It was nice to get up every day and the only thing on your brain was making music.

He’s [Chris] a mad scientist, it’s true.

I really like the version we’re doing live of ‘Marching Bands of Manhattan.’ It’s just a real fun song. That’ll change in a few days, I’m sure, it’s just kind of that way right now. We’re just about to go on tour and play a whole bunch of these songs for people so as we get feedback and response, that kind of changes how you’re feeling about certain things. I’m really excited to share the album.

There’re classic ones: I love playing ‘New Year.’ The song ‘Transatlanticism’ has always been a real cathartic songs for us to play live so I look forward to playing that song a lot, too. We used to play it late in the set if not at the very end and that’s the song where you just put everything into it, whatever you got left in the reserves and just get it all out and leave the set happily exhausted.

Are you kidding me? Minneapolis rules! We’ve always had a good time in Minneapolis. I’ll be honest: the first time I went there I wasn’t expecting very much. Minneapolis? What goes on in Minneapolis? We played some coffeehouse … Foxfire? The woman that ran that place—Elizabeth []—was really nice and we had a great time. The first time we were there we played with a band called Smattering and they were really good. Since then we’ve moved to the Seventh St. Entry and First Avenue. All the people that are there have just been so fantastic over the years. We’ve always had a great time. We’ve actually been a band long enough and toured through Minneapolis a lot that we’ve seen a lot of changes downtown there. When we were first coming to Minneapolis it was a little desolate across from the Target Center there and now it’s like the Hard Rock Café and stuff—it looks like a shopping mall! I don’t even recognize that part of town anymore.

It’s funny to have such an authentic, grounded rock club right next to this sort of fake, postured restaurant. Like, one of these things actually lives it and breathes it and the other thing just looks like it. I’m imagining tourists coming into town, sitting across in the Hard Rock Café and look over at the dingy club with all the silver stars painted on the side of it and going, ‘I wonder what goes on in there; probably a lot of bad stuff.’ They’re looking at the Prince gold record on the wall going, ‘Ooh, I like that Prince record.’ You don’t understand! [First Ave] is where people cut their teeth! That’s where it happens!

I love being on the road, I really do. It’s like anything, though; it has its moments where you’re just like give me the same shower twice or I want to not move for a day. There’s something in there that’s like a metaphor for life: every day really truly is a new day. You can start every day by carrying a whole lot of crappy baggage into it and wreck it from the start or you can realize [it’s a fresh start]. And we try to live like that when we’re not on tour and waking up in Seattle every day. Just wake up every day and pretend like it’s a new city and new people and not to carry any of the crap over from yesterday. That’s the great aspect of it.

And you know, there are moments when you’re tired, just like anything you do in your life. Even when you’re eating the best chocolate sundae of your entire life, you get to the point where you’re like, ‘I can’t eat another bite.’

Unfortunately, we just hang out with each other all the time. We tour with each other all the time, and you’d think that we’d get real sick of each other, but we usually get off tour and we have these lofty goals like, ‘I’m done with touring and when we get home I’m just gonna disappear!’ And you go home and maybe for about 20 hours you’re like, ‘I’m not calling anybody; I’m not doing anything,’ and then at hour 20 you’re like, ‘God! I wonder what Ben’s doing? I wonder what Jason’s watching? I gotta call these guys,’ and then we all just end up hanging out. it’s like a weird family.

Right now I’m listening to this band Okkervill River, Feist, the band we’re touring with, Stars, their record Set Yourself on Fire is incredible; John Vanderslice’s new record Pixel Revolt. New Nada Surf.

We’re pretty much touring until Christmas and then, what I’m really excited for—one of the things about signing to Atlantic that was important to us was that being on one major label through the whole world has really opened up a lot of opportunity for us overseas in Europe and in Japan and Australia; places we’ve been casually before but never really had a chance to have a concerted effort [behind us]—and so I’m looking forward to having some extensive tours in Europe and playing some places we’ve never been to as a band and I couldn’t be more excited about that opportunity. That was one of the big reasons that we ended up signing to Atlantic in the first place, that we could consolidate our overseas picture.

Like those old Journey shirts with the huge graphic that goes over the whole front of the shirt.