With their last Australian tour over three years ago celebrating their Grammy nominated album Codes and Keys, Death Cab for Cutie are finally heading back down under to play not just Splendour in the Grass, but their own headline tour showcasing their newest album Kintsugi. Ahead of their tour, we caught up with drummer Jason McGerr to chat about the tour, the new album, and the art of musicianship.
With founding member Chris Walla stepping away from the band, McGerr chatted about the process of moving forward. “We kind of toyed with the idea of having a fifth person on stage just to help fill out the songs… Before with Chris we always had to make a decision about, well this song on the record has two guitar parts and a bunch of keys, and something has to go so what’s it going to be, so it would either end up being a one guitar song, or a little bit of piano, but now that we have an extra set of hands we can fiddle everything out much like it is on the album.”
The new touring members are Dave Depper and Zac Rae who will be adding keys and guitars to the line-up, and who receive the highest praise from McGerr: “They’re both consummate musicians I mean really outstanding.”
With the new hands in the mix, the headline tour here is sure to be a phenomenal experience, “Australia is going to see a much more diverse list of songs, spanning the full catalogue of our albums.”
When asked about what it feels like to headline festivals where some artists are still in their teens, McGerr was adamant: “We’re not the youngest ones on the festival stage anymore, but we’re also not the oldest.” Adding, “There are days when I remember what it was like to be playing the festival for the first time, and almost having this feverish energy to prove something, and kind of playing wild and abandoned and sloppily, and I’m glad that we’re not longer at that place anymore, it feels like where we’re coming from at this point, is a place of maturity and experience.”
[include_post id=”446866″]As Death Cab for Cutie near twenty years of playing and touring together, they begin to join career bands, where original fans are joined by youngsters just discovering their music. “We have a lot of young fans, but we also see generational fans, so there could be someone in the front row that brought their kid, and both father and son or mother and daughter are singing along, which feels great.
Talking about the future, and how long they see themselves together, McGerr said “We say this all the time to each other, almost nightly before we go on stage, let’s just make it fun, as long as it’s fun… I’d like to make it to ten records, and we have eight, and I guess once you make it to ten you keep going, but why not, I hope this is the last job I ever have.”
McGerr chatted about the story of the band, saying, “People talk about chapters, each album is a chapter in a band, well I like to think of this band as having books within the book, and I feel like we’re beginning to write, or we’re about to write another book, a new set of chapters… We have not made a record without Chris Walla yet, so I don’t know what that book is going to be or how it’s going to sound, or what it’s going to look like.” Despite stepping out of the band early in the process, Walla still had a huge hand in making Kintsugi the album it is.
“Australia is going to see a much more diverse list of songs, spanning the full catalogue of our albums.”Whilst music in the pop world is almost mathematical in its formula for success, McGerr is believes Death Cab for Cutie sits a little left of all of that, and when it comes to writing new material, don’t stick to any ‘usual’ method of turning out hits. “Ben [Gibbard] writes from a pretty personal space, it’s not dictated by ‘alright we need four radio hits and they all have to be three and a half minutes and they all need to have verse-chorus-verse-double chorus-bridge-double chorus-out, it’s not mapped out like that at all.”
[include_post id=”441724″] McGerr, somewhat a romantic when it comes to the idea of physical media (especially if it involves a vinyl record), very much believes in a place for physical media over instant downloads and streaming services. “We still want an album experience for somebody as much as we still like to go to a record store and pick out a physical album – preferably on vinyl – of something we cannot wait to sit down and listen to from start to finish… The more physical contact you have with something, the greater the experience.”
Finally McGerr chatted about the near future of the band, sharing their plans for touring and their newest album cycle. “Next time around we’ll be looking at once again, who we might want to produce the next record, and whether or not Dave and Zac who have been touring with us, whether or not they’re going to be on the next record which I certainly hope they are.”
Death Cab for Cutie play Splendour in the Grass, July 25, and hit the road on their headline tour from July 26. Their new album Kintsugi is out now.
Upcoming Shows
Sunday 26 July
170 Russell – Melbourne, VIC
Buy tickets here or www.170russell.com
Thursday 30 July
ANU Bar – Canberra, ACT
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Friday 31 July
UoW Unibar – Wollongong, NSW
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Saturday 1 August
Presented by Sydney Opera House
Sydney Opera House – Sydney, NSW
Tickets available here from 10:00am on Thursday 14 May
www.sydneyoperahouse.com
Tuesday 4 August
HQ – Adelaide, SA
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Thursday 6 August
Metro City – Perth, WA
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