A lot has happened to Death Cab For Cutie during the past 18 months.
In November 2004, the band left Seattle indie label Barsuk and inked a deal with Atlantic Records. Since the signing, the band released “Plans,” its fifth studio record and first major-label release. The touring and publicity blitz behind the record have given this little band from Bellingham more exposure than it could have imagined.
“A lot of things have happened that are going to take a lot of time to process,” said Death Cab bass player Nick Harmer.
From being on the cover of magazines such as Spin and Paste to appearing as musical guests on “Saturday Night Live” Harmer said he and his bandmates are enjoying every minute of it, especially the time the band performed alongside Elvis Costello in Atlantic City.
“When you want to talk about highlights of the last year or so, that was definitely one. That was an incredible moment for all of us,” he said. “It was one of those really special moments where you can’t believe it’s going on. We were blinking and wide eyed the whole time.”
After “Plans” was released last year and the group began the usual routine of touring and publicity Harmer thought of a way to generate content for the band’s Web site. He wanted to direct a video for one of the album’s deeper cuts and he brought up the idea over a casual business dinner. That idea to generate Web site content evolved into something a little bigger than planned.
What was initially to be one video became 11 separate videos, one for each track on “Plans,” released on the DVD titled “Directions.” Each video was directed by a different independent director and the band barely appears on the disc, giving the release Death Cab’s magical indie touch.
However, getting to the point of privilege to being Elvis Costello’s backing band and releasing a DVD of videos by unknown directors didn’t come easily. Rewind a few years back into Death Cab’s career and you’ll find a band that thought long and hard before deciding to make the move to a major label. The result is Death Cab being one of the few bands that managed to get exactly what it wanted in a record deal down to exact details.
“We made a laundry list of what we wanted and lots of labels thought it was a good starting point for negotiations and we were like “No, this is exactly what we want.”
Part of that laundry list included retaining creative control over its material and how the band is promoted and even the type of card stock CD liner notes would be printed on. Death Cab also wanted to make sure its original home, Barsuk, was compensated financially for the band leaving. The Barsuk logo is on the back of both “Plans” and “Directions.”
Rewind a bit further back into Death Cab’s career and you’ll find a band that gained a national following after being referenced on popular TV show “The OC.” In the show the character played by actor Adam Brody references Death Cab several times as being his favorite band. Coincidentally, Brody is in the band Big Japan, which will be performing at Sasquatch! Sunday on the Yeti Stage. However, think twice before you assume Death Cab had anything to do with Brody’s band getting to play the festival.
“Adam Brody has a band?” Harmer asked with a surprised chuckle. “Oh boy, now the conspiracy theorists are really going to go crazy about this. I saw Adam Brody and Death Cab at a show on the same day. They’re in cahoots.”
