Death Cab for Cutie

Ben Gibbard is one of Indie Rock’s darlings…one of the faces of the movement, so to say. Gibbard, one time guitar player for the band Pinwheel, also recorded songs under the name All Time Quarterback before he began creating music under the now-well known moniker Death Cab For Cutie.

In 1997, Gibbard recorded and released the first Death Cab For Cutie album entitled “You Can Play These Songs With Chords”, which caught on quickly around his native Washington and quickly spread across the U.S. Shortly afterwards, Gibbard rounded out his vision by creating a full-fledged band to support the project…including guitarist Chris Walla who had played guitar for some of the songs on “Chords”. Nicholas Harmer joined on bass, and Nathan Good completed the lineup on drums. Good would be one of several drummers to leave the band over the course of its evolution.

Another LP, entitled “Something About Airplanes”, was released an 1998. The success of this album paved the way for the band’s 2000 hit “We Have the Fact and We’re Voting Yes.” The band would release another E.P. that year before releasing “The Photo Album” in 2001.

In 2003 the band released “Transatlanticism”, which would become their biggest album to date, selling well over 200,000 copies in it’s first year alone. It was also in this year that the band came into its current lineup of Gibbard, Walla, Harmer and now Jason McGerr on drums. The album would soon edge its way into the mainstream and make “emo” a household word. It was during this same year that Gibbard, and Chris Walla, joined Jimmy Tamborello to release the album “Give Up” under the name The Postal Service.

Death Cab’s songs were soon showing up on TV shows, commercials, and movie soundtracks. Their videos were starting to make their way into rotation on MTV and the band was poised to break through the indie scene. In late 2004, the band announced that they had signed a deal with the major label Atlantic and had left indie label Barsuk. The band claimed however, that nothing would change after signing to a more recognizable label and released the album “Plans” in 2005…which earned them a 2005 Grammy nomination. The band also released a “tour” DVD, “Drive Well, Sleep Carefully” that same year.

In 2006, the band announced a film project entitled “Directions” that would feature 11 short films that had been inspired by the songs on “Plans”. Most notably, each short film would be directed by a different director and were not considered “videos” for the singles. The videos would later be posted on the bands website for a short while, and then eventually sold over to iTunes.