Despite moving from the Black Cat to the 9:30 Club, selling out at both venues, and having their television debut on CBS this January, Death Cab for Cutie doesn’t like to think of itself as a big deal. When asked about the band’s increasing popularity, new drummer Jason McGerr explained, “It’s cool. I would rather make a record and have a couple hundred thousand people have the option to get the music rather than not … But we haven’t changed the business formula, we haven’t sought out a huge, new audience.”
Death Cab did perform at the 9:30 Club in 2002, with the now-disbanded Dismemberment Plan, as a stop on the cleverly-titled “Death and Dismemberment Tour.” This time, Dismemberment Plan’s lead singer Travis Morrison surprised fans of the Plan at the venue by cheering on Death Cab from his perch on the small left balcony. Unfortunately, Morrison was powerless to save showgoers from hearing Death Cab rehash their show at the Black Cat last October. He must have grimaced when lead singer Ben Gibbard had the nerve to make the wishful joke of “Thanks, we’re the Dismemberment Plan from Seattle, Washington.”
While Death Cab succeeded at mixing old and new numbers, the formula was disappointingly similar to the one used at the show last Fall. With a reliance on enjoyable staples like “A Movie Script Ending,” from 2001’s The Photo Album, and “Company Calls” from 2000’s We Have the Facts and We’re Voting Yes, Death Cab added in songs from their 2003 release, Transatlanticism. The close of the set was an uninspired repeat of October’s, transitioning from the new album’s “Tiny Vessels” into the title track with better lighting but less intimacy.
For this leg of their 2004 tour, Death Cab is on the road with Aveo and Ben Kweller. Playing before Kweller caused Death Cab to shorten its set significantly compared to when they performed with openers Mates of State at the Black Cat this past October. While having Dismemberment Plan headline the 2002 tour was appropriate, having Kweller play last just didn’t seem right. Kweller’s first solo LP Sha Sha was just being released in 2002, by which time Death Cab had already put out a total of nine EPs and LPs.
Death Cab doesn’t mind the attention Kweller is getting. McGerr says that they have “really lucked out [in touring] with him; not only do we love the music, but the people [him and his band] too.” McGerr laughs, “We go play catch all the time. Nick, the bass player, is teaching Ben Kweller how to count cards so that they can go and hit up some casinos and play some poker.”
Shaggy-haired and reminiscent of David Cassidy, Kweller, who is promoting his second album, On My Way, released April 6, drew a crowd composed considerably of young females. As McGerr, himself 29, pointed out, “[Ben Kweller] is 22, he wears tight jeans, he wears cute little red high tops—he’s a little rock and roll kid. He’s being pimped out, everywhere you look. [The throng of female fans] is new for us, so it can’t be us.”
McGerr noted that the band has enjoyed the shift to bigger venues that comes with bigger crowds, personally preferring the 9:30 Club to the Black Cat because “the PA’s bigger, the light’s are cooler, it’s more of a big show environment.” One drawback can be higher prices for fans, but McGerr added that they always try to keep ticket prices low.
Despite criticism that the new album sounds overproduced, McGerr doesn’t feel that Death Cab has changed in any way that is different from a band’s usual progress. He notes that much of Transatlanticism was recorded in the same studio as The Photo Album, with Chris Walla still recording and engineering, and even a lot of the same instruments. He said, “It maybe sounds a little slicker, not so lo-fi. A lot of that is just the fact that everyone in the band has become a better and better musician.”
As the newest addition to Death Cab but a long-time friend of the band members, McGerr particularly enjoys performing tracks from Transatlanticism. Otherwise, he said, “Because I’m the newest member of the band, and the only new member of the band, I’m still playing a lot of other people’s parts.”
When not touring or recording, the members of Death Cab often return home to Bellingham, Wa. McGerr adds that, in their downtime, “Nick is really into film, Ben is really into documentaries and Chris is really into recording.” McGerr himself has been teaching drumming classes at the Seattle Drum School off and on for about 10 years. He also visits his mom, who still lives there. Sweet guy.
