Casual Death Cab For Cutie fans probably didn't understand what Chris Walla's departure meant for the band in mid-September.
He was just the secondary guitarist, right?
Make that guitarist slash producer of Death Cab's entire catalog. Frontman Ben Gibbard made sure to accentuate the weight of the subtraction in a recent interview with Rolling Stone.
"Oh, there is undoubtedly a line in the sand here," he said. "The position we're in — it's a blessing and a curse — is that people feel very strongly about the period of this band in which they got into us. We're fighting against people who say 'Why can't you make a record like the one I heard when I was 20 years old?' And the answer is we can't. We can just move forward, and create a new period."
There are plenty of groups that have survived losing primary members — and a whole graveyard of acts that did not.
"I make no comparisons as far as cultural significance with this band, but I think about Wilco, and the changes they've gone through over the years, and how there have been moments in that band where people have left and you've thought 'How are they ever going to continue?'" Gibbard said. "I look at them and I think 'We've lost a very talented musician, but there are other very talented musicians with new perspectives and new ways of looking at creating music.' It's on us to make this a good period."
He later reiterated that thought, and made it clear the band is ready to move past the loss of Walla.
"If this has done anything, it's galvanized the relationship between the three of us, and changed the dynamic of the band," Gibbard says. "And I would hope that our reputation is a function of the work we do moving forward. Chris was a huge part of this band for years, but a lot of bands have lost members and evolved in ways that are exciting and new. And we want to be one of them."
Walla plays bass on the new album, but Rich Costey (Muse, Interpol, Jane's Addiction) took over the production reins.
"I'm really proud of how Rich captured us playing together," Gibbard said. "Everything has an attack and a punch to it; the right things are crisp, and the right things are ugly, and he's done such a wonderful job of making high-fidelity sounds and low-fidelity ugly sounds exist together. There are keyboard elements on it, but this is more of a rock record than the last one."
Gibbard mentioned there would be 11 tracks on the new record, but didn't offer up a title or a release date.
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