Ben Gibbard
Noah Cyrus Gets an Assist From Benjamin Gibbard on ‘Every Beginning Ends’
Noah Cyrus gets a hand from Death Cab For Cutie frontman Benjamin Gibbard on her latest single, “Every Beginning Ends,” which is accompanied by a video directed by Lance Bangs (Nirvana, Pavement). “Every Beginning Ends” comes from Cyrus’ upcoming debut studio album, The Hardest Part, due out on Sept. 16. The new song was recorded at Gibbard’s Seattle studio. “I’ve always been such a huge fan, so it was pretty daunting to get in the room with him, but once we got to work it all came very naturally,” Cyrus says of the experience. “We talked about past relationships, failed relationships, our parents’ relationships and relationships that have lasted forever. He told me his dad has a saying: ‘you have to wake up and choose to love someone every day,’ and it sparked this conversational song abo...
Death Cab for Cutie Sets Off ‘Roman Candles’ Ahead of New Album
Death Cab for Cutie has unveiled “Roman Candles,” the first taste of music from its next studio album, Asphalt Meadows, due out on September 16 from Atlantic. The track is a bit discordant (and brief) by Death Cab standards, as it rides a variety of loud and distorted noises underneath frontman Ben Gibbard’s signature vocals in a succinct 2:10 running time. Gibbard says the song “is about the crippling, existential dread that goes hand in hand with living in a nervous city on a dying planet, and that the only way to be in the moment is to let it all go. The lyrics were cobbled from a couple of different songs dealing with my general sense of anxiety — the feeling that the fabric that weaves a functioning society together was crumbling during the pandemic.” [embedded content][embedded ...
106 Musicians Predict the 2022 Baseball Season
The powers-that-be did their best to prevent this year’s Major League Baseball season from happening, but, alas, we’re back. By we, I mean the annual SPIN baseball preview. As usual, everyone (or almost everyone) is optimistic about their team’s chances in 2022. In 2021, a good chunk of the season was played with minimal fans in attendance, but things should be mostly back to normal this year. As I said last year about the season: Will it be weird? Probably. But aren’t they all? If it wasn’t a weird season with bizarre injuries, what kind of season would it be? Not baseball, Suzyn. Somehow, we almost doubled the number of participants from 62 to 105. Maybe we go for a cool 162 next year? If nothing else, we know that musicians love America’s Pastime (even if many feel that it doesn’t love ...
Artist x Artist: Ben Gibbard and Japanese Breakfast Discuss Their Appreciation of Yoko Ono
For the past year and change, Ben Gibbard has been busy working on his passion project: a Yoko Ono tribute album. Paying respect to one of the most misunderstood artists of the past half-century, Gibbard enlisted high-profile artists like David Byrne, Yo La Tengo, his bandmates in Death Cab for Cutie and Japanese Breakfast to record Ono covers. Japanese Breakfast’s tender piano-driven take on Ono’s “Nobody Sees Me Like You Do” showcases a depth of knowledge for her catalog. Ahead of that album’s release, Gibbard and Michelle Zauner of Japanese Breakfast sat down to chat about all things Yoko Ono. The duo discussed the project’s formation, their mutual respect for Ono and digging in to her vast catalog. They spoke about their takeaways of Ono as an artist and what they appreciate about her ...
Ben Gibbard Honors Michael Nesmith With Livestream Tribute
Michael Nesmith passed away yesterday at the age of 78, and while musicians flooded social media to pay tribute to the Monkees star, Ben Gibbard took a different approach. The Death Cab For Cutie frontman hosted an impromptu livestream on Instagram to play some of his favorite songs written by (or for) Nesmith. “Mike Nesmith passed today and I feel completely gutted. I also feel so fortunate to have called him a friend,” he captioned the most. “I believe the best way to mourn the loss of a musician is to play their music. When we do so we keep the beauty of their spirit alive in our hearts. With that said, please enjoy this selection of some of my favorite Nez songs.” “Rest In Peace, Papa Nez,” he concluded his message. “I am so grateful to have known you.” Wearing a blue beanie in honor o...
Death Cab for Cutie Detail ‘Powerful’ File-Swap Sessions That Kick-Started Next LP
Early in the pandemic, Death Cab for Cutie‘s Ben Gibbard seemed to be ahead of the curve. In March, he launched a solo performance stream, Live From Home, helping blueprint a detour for musicians swept off the road. But with the camera switched off, he was just as confused as anyone else — and it took him a while to find his artistic footing. “The first couple months, especially when I was doing the livestreams — well, we all were there. There was this feeling of, ‘This is gonna last a month, and then we’ll get back to real life,’” Gibbard tells SPIN. “Then there was the panic of every day: ‘You can’t touch this; don’t do that; you’ll die if you do that.’ With the amount of anxiety, and also the thought that this would be a short-term thing, I did hardly any writing.” There were a lo...
Death Cab for Cutie: How Dysfunction and Desire Fueled The Photo Album
“It was kind of a treacherous gamble to make,” says Death Cab for Cutie bassist Nick Harmer, reflecting on their third LP, 2001’s The Photo Album. “Making it, touring it — all of that felt really charged.” That’s putting it mildly. After the mild indie-rock breakthrough of 2000’s We Have the Facts and We’re Voting Yes, Death Cab suddenly had to meet an array of expectations: critics, their label, a rapidly expanding fan base, even themselves. “I was very stressed going into that record,” adds singer-songwriter Ben Gibbard. “I didn’t feel like I had enough songs. We were really burned out on each other from touring a lot. And we’d never found ourselves in a situation where we were pressured to get a record done. We Have the Facts didn’t sell super great at the time, but people definite...
Tycho and Death Cab for Cutie’s Ben Gibbard Drop Indietronica Jam, “Only Love”
Tycho and Death Cab for Cutie frontman Benjamin Gibbard have joined forces on a new single called “Only Love,” a tender and uplifting indietronica jam. The two prove to be a match made in heaven, with Tycho’s radiant production serving as the perfect vessel for Gibbard’s distinctive voice. Bubbly guitar riffs and synthwave influences permeate the track, which has a psychedelic feel and cultivates the perfect ambiance for one of Tycho’s famous sunrise performances. Tycho shared that “Only Love” originally went in a different sonic direction until he teamed up with Gibbard. “I had been a fan of Ben’s work for a long time when, in 2016, I had the chance to do a remix for Death Cab for Cutie’s track ‘The Ghost...
Tycho and Benjamin Gibbard Join Forces on ‘Only Love’
The two Grammy-nominated artists, Tycho and Benjamin Gibbard, best known as the frontman of Death Cab for Cutie, have teamed for the new song “Only Love.” The track is out now via Mom + Pop/Ninja Tune. This is the first major electronic collaboration Gibbard has done since his RIAA platinum-certified work with The Postal Service more than a decade ago. Combining Tycho’s production style and Gibbard’s lyricism is a solid match and worth the wait. The song dropped with a visualizer by Scott Hansen, the creator behind Tycho. Listen to “Only Love” below. [embedded content] “Ben’s voice was a very inspiring element to work with from a production standpoint, I felt it really meshed well with the kinds of sounds and instrumentation I gravitate towards,” Tycho said in a release. He states that “On...
Death Cab for Cutie to Release Live At The Showbox Benefit Album
Death Cab for Cutie will release a new live album, Live At The Showbox, for just 24 hours as a Bandcamp Friday exclusive on May 7. A portion of the proceeds will benefit NIVA, the National Independent Venue Association. The 17-song set will have an official release later this year. Live At The Showbox was recorded just before the COVID lockdown over a sold-out three-night-stand from Feb. 24-26, 2020, at The Showbox in Seattle. Songs on the live set include “Company Calls,” “I Will Follow You Into The Dark,” “I Will Possess Your Heart,” “Tiny Vessels,” “We Looked Like Giants,” “Black Sun” and more. Death Cab shared a statement about the Showbox set: Like so many other artists, we expected to play a lot of shows in 2020. To gear up for the year ahead, we decid...
Death Cab for Cutie Frontman Ben Gibbard Wants to Work With ODESZA
Have you ever wondered what a collaboration between ODESZA and Death Cab for Cutie would sound like? Neither have we. Iconic Death Cab frontman Ben Gibbard recently appeared on Audacy’s New Arrivals with Bryce Segall to chat about his livestreaming ventures during the global lockdown period and his recent philanthropical endeavors, among other topics. It was his comments on a potential collaboration with ODESZA, however, that sent ripples through the electronic music community. ODESZA and Gibbard have crossed paths in the Seattle area many times, including at a co-headlining concert at Bellingham’s Civic Stadium in May 2019. It turns out that Gibbard, who called the duo “great, wonderful dudes” and “really talented,” has been kicking the tires on a po...
Ben Gibbard Covers Kirsty MacColl in Livestream, Says Death Cab for Cutie Is Recording a New Album
For the first few weeks of quarantine, Death Cab for Cutie frontman Ben Gibbard did his best to entertain fans by performing livestreams, sometimes with different themes. After stepping away, he returned on Wednesday to mark the year-anniversary of COVID by returning to the internet waves. If you recall, last year’s streams saw Gibbard coughing quite a bit and he said he may or may not have had COVID at the time. Later in the show, he said that Death Cab is currently recording a new album and are aiming to have it done soon. Gibbard added that the songs sound better with his bandmates by his side. He did joke that he doesn’t want to do these anymore and is excited to perform in person again and implored viewers to get vaccinated. <!– // Brid Player Singles. var _bp = _bp||[]; _bp....
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