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20 August 2024

Press/Jimmy Fontaine

Ben Gibbard spoke to NME about Death Cab For Cutie and The Postal Service’s joint tour, which stops in the UK this week to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the albums. Transatlanticism And Give up.

Gibbard, the frontman of both bands, remembers what it felt like to return to the old material. “Once we got going, it was like riding a bicycle,” he says. “Because Death Cab is an active band, we’ve been incorporating all the Transatlanticism material into our sets for 20 years, but getting the Postal Service machine up and running was quite a lot of work beforehand.”

“I never really had any idea what Give up And Transatlanticism for the general public, particularly in the UK.”

Gibbard also compared the current tour to the last tour he did with The Postal Service in 2013. “It’s been more pronounced this time. There are certainly people who were too young to see the 2013 shows who are seeing The Postal Service for the very first time. When you look at the audience – obviously younger people tend to be in the front rows – there are some people in the front row singing along who 100 percent weren’t alive when this record came out. The rapid-fire excitement of these different people who have built a relationship with them is another reason they’re not getting onstage. Give up made these shows completely crazy.”

He further explained why there was never a follow-up to The Postal Service’s popular – and only – album. Give up. “I think the main reason why a second Postal Service album never happened – and never will happen – is the amount of time that Death Cab ultimately took, which really started with ‘Transatlanticism’ and never let up. There just isn’t enough time, let alone creativity, to make a proper follow-up (to ‘Give Up’). I think anything we would try at this point would be thoroughly disappointing.

“With Death Cab, there’s just less at stake when you put out an album every two or three years. If people don’t like that one, another one comes later. But after 20 years, there’s no way we can continue this in a way that will satisfy people. I’d rather focus entirely on Death Cab than dilute both projects. I just don’t have the capacity to do both. Some would say I barely have the capacity to do one!”