I'm a war of head versus heart, it's always this way. My head is weak, my heart always speaks, before I know what it will say.
Ben GibbardTo set the record straight for the God knows millionth time, we certainly didnt sign to Atlantic just for the money.
Ben GibbardKeeping fans loyal is a delicate balance. Therein lies the challenge for any band that's more than a couple albums deep. It's like, how do you continue to make records that are representative of who you are that your fans will recognize as your band, while still trying to push things forward and present new sounds for people.
Ben GibbardThere's a cinematic quality that happens in my mind when I hear something that really lands. An album is just a journal of a life moving through time.
Ben GibbardEvery record we do there are always two camps. There's the camp that's like, "I love it. It sounds different than the last one." There are the people that are like, "I want it to sound like the last one." You can't please everybody all the time, but I think for the most part we tend to maintain a healthy level of self-reference to kind of make sure we continue to push things forward.
Ben GibbardYou look back at a time you idealize now and you only remember the good stuff. You tell the stories about the hard stuff and just laugh about it now. You don't remember how difficult it was to be stranded in Austin after driving 52 hours from Seattle in a rainstorm and having nowhere to stay for five hours. You remember that stuff and laugh about it now. You don't feel it the way you did back then when you were so scared and nervous and tired and hungry. We always idealize the past because we don't feel the painful stuff the way we used to.
Ben Gibbard