As a songwriter, I'm not necessarily writing about myself or my life.

Death Cab is a militantly analog band. We'll continue moving forward with our sound, but there will be no crossover.

Nada Surf and Harvey Danger are good bands. I think they've just stayed true to why they play music in the first place, it's just because they love doing it and they love each other and that's the impetus for doing it, not trying to keep singles on the radio and on MTV.

I have always been very open and earnest about some things in my life, some things that are not directly in my life, but they're twirling around me at the time.

Bands who are in their early 20s today, they are living in their own time and they have a series of parameters they have to work around. Ten years ago, our reality was spending a lot more time in obscurity before anyone really knew who we were. I don't feel like I have any real advice to give anybody who is starting a band today. As Mike Watt said, "You know, not everyone has the ability to be born at the same time." We wanted to be like R.E.M., but the reality is that 15 years after R.E.M. was putting out those records, the playing field had changed drastically as well.

I'm not like a 90-mph fastball kind of guy, but I can hit 70 on radar gun.

I was literally just going and applying for jobs, and I couldn't get a job, and I was getting more and more broke, and you find yourself groveling for jobs you don't even want.