Aug 14, 2014 By Benjamin Plotkin Death Cab for Cutie

For this Throwback Thursday we revisit our 2002 article on Death Cab For Cutie. It was our first interview with the band and appeared all the way back in issue #2 of the magazine. We are posting it in honor of yesterday’s announcement that guitarist Chris Walla is leaving the band. Death Cab For Cutie were one of the bands we knew we had to interview when we started Under the Radar. The interview was conducted in honor of the band’s third full-length album, 2001’sThe Photo Album, and 2002’s The Stability EP. The lineup at the time was Walla, singer Benjamin Gibbard, bassist Nick Harmer, and drummer Michael Schorr (current drummer Jason McGerr took over in 2003 in time for their next album,Transatlanticism). Under the Radar’s co-publisher and co-founder Wendy Lynch Redfern did a photo shoot with the band at the El Rey Theater in Los Angeles around the time of their soundcheck. Walla was happy enough with the article that he wrote us a letter to thank us, which we ran in the following issue. Later Walla would write a regular column for us for many years titled “Chris Walla Explains It All.” Read on as Benjamin Gibbard and Chris Walla discusses never taking a sick day, avoiding day jobs, the emo tag, their early recordings, and hints of The Postal Service. More

Aug 12, 2014 By Austin Trunick Issue #50 - June/July 2014 - Future Islands

While Slowdive‘s early singles rode in on waves of distortion that saw the band lumped in with the rest of the shoegaze pack, by the time they released their 1991 debut album, Just For A Day, they had delved into a more ambient territory that set them apart from their peers. We asked founding members Neil Halstead and Rachel Goswell—who share guitar and vocal duties in the recently reformed band—to tell us about the artists and albums that helped shape Slowdive’s sound. While they acknowledged the influence that classic rock groups such as The Velvet Underground, Pink Floyd, and The Byrds had on their music, the bands that most heavily informed their sound were practically their contemporaries. More

Aug 11, 2014 By Austin Trunick Slowdive

Slowdive‘s reformation after decades of silence is a moment that many of its fans—and, at points, the band itself—never saw coming. The reunion was spurred by an offer from Primavera Sound, the annual music festival in Barcelona, Spain. More

Aug 07, 2014 By John Motley School of Seven Bells

For this Throwback Thursday we revisit our 2007 article on School of Seven Bells, our first interview with the band and what may have been the band’s first ever print magazine interview. At the time the band was still a four-piece and had just released their debut EP. By the time their debut album, Alpinisms (referred to by its working title Wired for Light here), was released the band had pared down to a three-piece, losing early member James Elliott. The three-piece lineup of Benjamin Curtis, Alejandra Deheza, and Claudia Deheza continued through their sophomore album, Disconnect from Desire, after which Claudia left. A year after Benjamin and Alejandra released 2012’s third full-length, Ghostory, it was announced in February 2013 that Benjamin had been diagnosed with T-cell lymphoblastic lymphoma. Benjamin tragically passed away in December 2013, aged only 35. This past June School of Seven Bells released a cover of Joey Ramone’s “I Got Knocked Down (But I’ll Get Up),” recorded while Benjamin was in the hospital. And Alejandra has since announced that she is working on a new School of Seven Bells album containing material she recorded with Benjamin before his passing.

Read on as Benjamin discusses the early days of School of Seven Bells: how they formed, where they got their name, their early influences, and how their sound came together. More