Playing like the first time
Death Cab for Cutie’s evolution continues on Narrow Stairs, out May 13.
Published May 7, 2008
The members of Death Cab for Cutie certainly know how to play like beginners. Just ask drummer Jason McGerr. After years of teaching percussion lessons to young, first-time musicians, McGerr learned that the key to success was never to lose sight of why he started playing.
“A lot of musicians get jaded after a while,” McGerr says. “They get these goals that are all about success or playing the greatest show of their lives and forget what it was like the first time they picked up an instrument. When you see a first-time drummer, and he or she puts all of their pieces together, they get this giant smile on their face and just start playing.”
By constantly playing as if every time is their first, vocalist Ben Gibbard, guitarist Chris Walla, bassist Nicholas Harmer and drummer McGerr have maintained passion and love for their instruments and music and, consequently, created an intense connection with audiences.
“Even if it seems like shit’s going south, and it’s a bad night, and the PA’s being weird, all I have to do is look out in the audience and see someone smiling because they’re having that revelation that music is fun,” McGerr says. “I don’t think I’d enjoy making and playing music as much as I do if I hadn’t been around so many people playing for the first time. You get to watch them evolve, and you learn that the evolution of a musician is never done.”
Death Cab’s evolution as a group will continue with the band’s latest album, Narrow Stairs, which debuts on May 13 and offers 11 tracks, including the eight-minute single “I Will Possess Your Heart.” McGerr says the group took a different approach to the recording than with albums past. This time, the group decided to play all songs start-to-finish as a group, rather than recording individually and combining their different instrumental and vocal tracks.
“If you can’t play together as a band, you don’t have any business recording,” McGerr says.
The group also chose to record on tape rather than digitally, and as a result, McGerr says the album has a significantly more live and organic feel.
“Things are loose, and nothing is perfect,” McGerr says. “When you close your eyes and listen, it’s just four individuals in a room, and you can hear the squeak of the base pedal. There was a lot of room for discovery.”
The group made it a priority to maintain a natural, collaborative attitude throughout all aspects of the creative process. McGerr says the songwriting procedure has always been pretty standard: Gibbard typically writes a lyrical melody, a musical melody and some lyrics, and the rest of the band decides what to keep and what to change.
“He’s like an architect who brings in blueprints,” McGerr says. “Some of his drawings are completely colored in, and others are more like skeletons where we fill in the blanks.”
While the majority of tracks undergo additions and revisions, McGerr says there are some instances, as with the acoustic “I Will Follow You into the Dark,” where the band decides to keep Gibbard’s blueprint, changing nothing at all. McGerr says adding a drum part to the track would have taken away from the sense of intoxication created by the combination of the voice and acoustic guitar.
“It helps that Ben doesn’t ever attach himself so much to a song that he doesn’t want to change it,” McGerr says. “He knows the best ideas come when we put all of our minds together and talk about the song and where it’s going to go.”
The members’ open, teamwork-driven system ensures that the flow of song ideas never runs dry. McGerr says that when selecting songs for an album, the men usually have an A list, a B list and a C list worth of songs to choose from.
One of the reasons the group works together so naturally could be that the members have grown together over the past few years. Death Cab has had a difficult time keeping a solid drummer on board, and Narrow Stairs will mark the first time in a while that a drummer has stayed with the quartet for more than one album.
And McGerr isn’t planning to leave anytime soon. The drummer says he’s most excited to revisit Japan for Death Cab’s overseas dates this summer.
“There’s a whole different crowd out there and a whole different mentality,” McGerr says. “I think it’s really important for people to get out of the U.S. and see what it’s like overseas. It’s really a whole different world.”
The group has played at festivals as large as Lollapalooza and at small clubs in southern Europe with crowds of 350.
“Once we played on a stage that was actually shaped like a pirate ship, and we weren’t sure we’d fit,” McGerr said. “People were leaning over the stage, right over Chris’ pedal. It’s a challenge, but it’s fun and important to make the experience meaningful and memorable for whatever size audience.”