Bonus Quotes from Ben Gibbard on The Postal Service

Interview by John Srebalus

You can read the full article on The Postal Service on page 21 of Issue 4 of Under the Radar. Below are a few quotes from our interview with The Postal Service’s Ben Gibbard (also of Death Cab For Cutie of course) that didn’t make it in the interview.

John Srebalus: [Ben disses L.A. on Death Cab’s ‘Why You’d Want To Live Here.’] Has Jimmy changed your mind about our fair city?
Ben Gibbard: No, not necessarily. Jimmy’s there, and I don’t think he enjoys it much either. I’ve spent a bunch of time down there working with him, and I still really don’t care for it very much. But at the same time, after spending a couple days in Vegas on this tour, I decided that maybe the song should have been more directed toward Vegas than Los Angeles. I like Silver Lake. There are a lot of good kids down there. I think that as with every city, you have to have a guide to show you where the good places are.

Any thoughts on the war?
I do and I don’t. I almost feel like I haven’t been following world politics enough to make an educated statement on the matter. War saddens me in general, but I feel like the one thing I don’t want to be is one of these musicians or actors who is protesting a war that they really probably have no fuckin’ idea what’s goin’ on. I feel that there’s probably a good reason, but at the same time, I don’t feel educated enough in the matter to make a statement for myself yay or nay on a war.

What are you doing on a Saturday night if you’re not working?
I don’t have a job, so every night is Saturday night for me. Usually if I’m gonna go out and see shows or go and have a drink I usually try to do it on the weekdays when it’s not packed out. Especially when I get home from tour, it’s more the idea of sitting at home watching movies or just kickin’ it, havin’ a couple drinks with friends rather than goin’ out and gettin’ crazy.

Has the Postal thing affected what you do in Death Cab For Cutie?
It was more of a songwriting experiment rather than actual songwriting. But it’s kind of weird, at the end of the experiment you get a record out of the deal. I’m still very much writing songs. I feel like Death Cab is definitely in this position where we’re working together more than we have before, and it’s real exciting.

You ever get burned out?
It’s a little early in the touring cycle for this year to be burned out. The last real tour that Death Cab did was with the Dismemberment Plan about this time last year. And we did a short two-week trip to the U.K. for some festivals in August. So it’s been pretty inactive as far as touring goes for the last year or so. We’re on our way back to San Francisco right now to finish the record, and it doesn’t even feel like I’ve even been out on tour yet. So if you ask me that question again in October, I think I’d probably be in a different head space about it after being on tour for four or five months altogether. As of right now, everything’s totally easy.