I can remember how I sang - a little more nasal-y back then. Listening to those old recordings is like seeing a photograph of yourself from 10 years ago. You're wearing what you thought looked cool at the time. You had your hair styled the particular way you thought looked cool. It's an accurate depiction of who you were and what you looked and sounded like at that point in your life. It doesn't necessarily mean that it aged in a way that it feels as cool or sounds as good to you, or says what you thought it said, 10 years later. That's just the nature of growing older.
Ben GibbardThere were two recording studios in Bellingham. One was really expensive, a "nice studio." We were at the point where we were young and irreverent. We would scoff at the idea of a nice studio. "Why would you want to go to a nice studio? Oh wow, they have really expensive gear. Ooh, that's really fancy. Well we've got an eight-track. We've got it going on here." Now that we have the resources, we're like, "Oh wow, a nice studio is pretty nice! They do have nice outboards here. It's actually a pretty good place." It's funny how much changes so quickly.
Ben GibbardI kind of dropped a lot of bad habits about three years ago and became kind of accidentally straight-edge. I don't have Xs on my hands, but I guess if I wanted to go back to calling myself straight-edge, I could. Around that same time I started running. I never saw myself as the kind of person who would become a runner. It seemed unfathomable to me that I would ever run three miles, let alone 26.2.
Ben Gibbard