Disco During Transatlanticism Ft. Death Cab for Cutie

Samuel, we've got some enormous guests on the show today. We do indeed, Maxwell. We are joined by Emo Royalty. We've got Nick from Deathcab for Cutie on the show. And unfortunately, while we're working on your education of the band, you didn't make this chat. So it's just me and Nick shooting the shit.

I was too busy at the library. Just reading up. Reading up and listening to the Twilight soundtrack. Obviously, Deathcab are coming to Australia in early November for the I Built You a Tower tour. And it was really interesting to chat to Nick about, I guess, just the lifespan of Deathcab and how they've evolved through the years.

And then I also chat to Nick about the the blessing or the burden of being the soundtrack for really formative um times in people's lives. You think of Deathcab and you think of really happy moments, you think of really sad moments, you think of breakups, bar mitzvah's birthdays, whatever you want to do.

All the bees. All the bees. But it's really interesting to hear his perspective on that as well and how they manage, I guess, that weight that comes with being the soundtrack for so many pivotal moments in people's lives. But don't take my word for it, Maxwell. Take my word for it. Sambo, you're about to be the cutie talking to Death Cat for Cutie.

Here we go. Joining us ahead of their upcoming Australian tour, we are on the line with Nick from Deathcat for Cutie. Mate, welcome to the show. Thanks, thanks for having me. It's a privilege to have you on the show. And we have so much to dissect and talk about. But first, we start the same way with every artist we speak to, and that's just to understand what's spinning in your playlist lately.

Oh my gosh, what have I been listening to? You want let me, I'm gonna look at my phone right now at my most recent. I mean, we were just in tour on tour in Europe, and so I had a lot of time to uh to pull things up. Um let's see. I have been listening to um I I've really got a uh I've been listening to this record called Love Child by Diana Ross and the Supremes, uh James Jamerson, bass player, uh just ripping on that record.

Um there's a duo. They're I they're from someplace in South America, but they're by way of Austria. Um they are called Hermanus Gutierrez. Um that they kind of play like um it's instrumental music, but it's just I don't know, every time I listen to they've got a new record that just dropped, and their their music just to me sounds like a soundtrack for some dusty western film that hasn't been made yet, you know, and I just it's very transportive.

It takes me to different places, which when I'm touring, I really try I look for kind of escapist things to listen to uh to take me uh to other places. Um listening to Harry Nilsson's Nilsson Schmilsen. Um there's uh uh the end of uh movie Goodfellas uh when he's running around doing all a million things before he gets arrested and he's the the helicopter's following him.

There's a song called uh Jump Into the Fire that's playing, and that we watched good uh we watched Goodfellas on tour in Europe on the bus, and I was like, oh, that's such a great song. And then it's sent me right down the the listening of that record. Um been listening to uh oh my gosh, there's uh I have a Westside Cowboy.

Uh they've got a new record, uh, and they've kind of been making a go at it, UK band. Uh really just really cool swap meet uh we've been playing uh or playing some shows with. Yeah, love that record. That's um that one's on rotation in my in my list right now. Um uh and let's see what else. I'll throw one more in there just for fun.

Uh I found this uh jazz record uh by a woman named Julia Hulsman. Uh it's on the ECM label, it's called Under the Surface. Uh, and that's really uh really uh again just kind of moving the needle for me in the jazz department. So yeah, pretty wide range of stuff, but uh uh those are just what's right on the top of my playlists uh coming off of tour in Europe where we had a lot of time looking out of windows of buses and you know airplanes and things.

So uh it was nice to I I I liked a lot of variety that way.

No, I love that. I feel like the spread's important. Um I'm gonna jump ahead because I do have a question in here way down the line. We're gonna jump into the album and um tour very soon. But I mean, as a musician, with the catalog that you and Deathcap have, where do you look for inspiration sonically?

Is it within that spread or yeah, I mean it's kind of everywhere.

I try to just leave myself open. We talk a lot in the band around, you know, kind of periods of input and output, you know, when we're when we're writing and we're recording and we're touring, that's a lot of output where we're putting stuff out into the world. Uh, and then when we kind of wind those things down and retreat back to our homes and our personal spaces, it's sort of input time.

And that that that kind of creative well, that input time can be kind of refilled by lots of things, whether it's film, it's art, it's other music, it's photography, it's just kind of just being out and curious about the world. You know, I think that one thing that um you know I've noticed in in people as they start to grow older, I think one thing to really hold on to that seems to be harder and harder to hold on to is just curiosity.

You know, a lot of people find the things they like when they're young uh in a certain period of their life, uh, and they just sort of lock it down, like this is the these are the bands I like, this is the things that I like, and that's enough, you know, and it carries them for their whole life. That's totally fine.

But I I really think that I try and preserve that sort of curious uh curiosity that was sort of in place, allowed you to discover all of that stuff in the beginning and and really keep listening and seeking and searching for the next thing that's going to move you powerfully. Um and it's you know, it's definitely harder, I'll say that you know, the the older you get, the more narratives that you're exposed to, the more movies you've seen, the more books you've read, you you kind of you see how it all how it all works, how the sausage gets made, and so you're less the the horror movies are less scary, the action movies are less thrilling, that like there's a kind of a roll-off of all of that dopamine

that comes when you're young and you're discovering all that stuff, but you still have to keep pressing for it. You know, you still, even though you you know, you know where the the the the tricks are coming in the story or in the song or in the movie or whatever, you gotta you gotta be able to suspend that uh and and really allow it to hit you.

So that that's the challenge these days. That's where I go to try and and refill for for music anyway.

I love it. I mean you mentioned photography in that. Um I wanted to ask about it because it's something that you're clearly passionate about as well. Um what is it that drew you to photography in the first place? And what have you found that it's brought that music maybe hasn't? You know, I I I don't know.

I mean, I I was drawn to photography mainly because um I have a terrible memory, uh, and I'm really not that great at journaling. And as much as I like to think of myself as a writer, I don't just journal write a lot and capture kind of the everyday uh of what's going on. And I've I've just found that in my life that uh a photo here and a photo there just helps me remember my life and journey in a way that um nothing else kind of does.

And so I've always kept uh uh I've always thought of photography as really just um a way of of journaling, uh of living and and experiencing life and kind of you know, I uh the things that I want to take photos of, the things and how I frame them and how I you know take photos of and what what subjects I decide to take photos of.

And if I look back over all my you know my life in photography at this point, there's just a uh I can see phases of my life. I can see the things that interested me more when I was in my 20s versus the things that are interesting me, you know, more interesting to my my eye these days. And um that's just sort of important to me.

I um it's funny that I really like taking a lot of photos, but I'm not as prolific or active posting photos or or being like I I have an Instagram account and I upload a photo here and there now and again. Um I use it to you know kind of repost band, you know, band announcements and band stuff, but my personal photos are kind of few and far between.

Even though I take dozens of photos every day, I just I never go that extra step of like, oh, I bet someone else wants to see this. It's really this weird thing where I go back through and look at it and I'm like able to sort of remind myself of of moments that I experienced and go, oh yes, I remember being there and doing that thing and seeing this.

So that that's that's what photography is for me. Um uh personally, anyway.

Yeah, it's an outlet for like just for you. I like that. Let's talk music. That's our our listeners are gonna get at me if I don't ask you about the album. So I built I built you a tower, it's a new album. Congratulations on it, first of all. It encapsulates so many sounds that are both familiar and new to Deathcab, and listening through it, I kind of perceived it as this perfect blend of asphalt meadows with a bit of hint from like the roots of the Deathcab sound.

But from you personally, what were you guys sort of looking for in the studio through that process?

I mean, I you know, for us, I think that what going into this record, the thing that we were very focused on uh internally was to really approach these songs and approach the recording experience with as little of uh a little as little um adornment as possible, of really trying to draw the straightest line between our instrument and the song as possible.

And not, you know, in in in albums previous to this, even before Asphalt Meadows, we've always used the the studio um uh as sort of this you know extra member of the band, where you know being in the studio allowed us some some creative flexibility to explore layers and textures and other sounds that you know we couldn't necessarily make if we were all playing our one instrument in a room together.

And and we we definitely, to um some great effect, and maybe we've missed the mark sometimes, we we definitely explored with a lot, you know, explored the studio as a as a space in that way. And I think when we got to this record, we were like, let's go in and really not use the extra room that the studio can bring to a record.

Let's not take advantage of the fact that we could infinitely overdub ideas and parts into songs and add layers and textures. Let's just let the song be the song and really try our best to capture that energy that happens when the five of us are playing music on a stage or in a room together and let that and let let ourselves be okay with that being enough, you know.

Um I think that there's you know that that sense of like when we finish, we would finish tracking a song and we'd be like, okay, so is that it? You know, and trying to really resist the uh temptation to reach up and put just one more dab of paint on the canvas, you know. Um I think that was the exercise on this record.

And I really feel like, you know, lyrically and and a lot of the themes in the record lyrically were were very direct and very kind of immediate. And and I and I and in every sense Ben demoed and you know, we tried to capture in the studio the the music that kind of supported that directness and that rawness.

Um and that was it as important to kind of support the energy in each song as as anything. Um but yeah, and we had a lot of we had a lot of conversations about um of doing less uh you know on this record. And you know, I give a lot of credit uh to how this record turned out, to our producer to John Congleton.

You know, he he works as a producer, he works very quickly. Um he gets good sounds fast, um, and he has this ability to, you know, of course we went into the studio prepared, we knew what we were gonna do, we had our parts under our hands, um, but he definitely was uh able to capture those quickly to keep the process moving uh and really kind of keep us from second guessing ourselves along the way.

Um and I think he really understood, like on a primal level, what what we were attempting to do with this record and really helped uh make sure we stayed on track with that. Um so he, you know, he had a large part in keeping the uh in sculpting the sort of final outcome of this record for sure.

I love that. And through I mean through all the Deathcab albums, it feels like every single time there's always one or two songs that sort of have this through line straight to listeners' hearts and emotional beings. On the new album, that song for me personally was trapdoor. I couldn't stop listening to it and invoked so many different things.

But I'd love to know a bit more about that song and its story.

I mean, that song uh it it it it had a kind of a funny journey. Um, you know, it it was a demo. We'd kind of we were doing this round robin thing that we had started on the Asph Meadows tour uh or on the Asphalt Meadows not tour on the uh demoing for Asphalt Meadows, where we, you know, because of the pandemic, we weren't allowed to sort of be in the room together or in a room together.

So we had to kind of figure out a way to work remotely, and we started kind of this idea where we would one of the members of the band would start a song on a Monday and come up with some riff or an idea, and we'd kind of pass it to another member of a band on Tuesday, and then you know, we'd kind of go down the line.

So by Friday, everybody had had it for one day uh and we had a complete song, you know, at the end of the week, but we hadn't been checking in with each other. Uh and so Trapdoor was this uh song that kind of came up through um, you know, there was this um little sequence. Uh Ben had these great lyrics, uh, and I think you know, we immediately recognized that the sentiment in that song was just so powerful.

You know, there's there's this sort of adage, you know, the songwriters talk about all the time. It's like a great song can be expressed in any multitude of ways. And so it's like trapdoor was working as just farmer chords on an acoustic guitar as it was working with the sequence of all of it. And it was just that that sentiment and that melody was just so undeniable.

And when we had done the round robin thing, by the end of the week, we'd all kind of taken it in all these different directions, and it it was kind of a mess by the end of the week. And it really took Ben coming in and being like, listen, you know, this lyric is direct, this lyric is emotional and raw.

The music doesn't need to be overthought, the music really needs to support that feeling. Um, and really, you know, I I think in the end we kind of struck that perfect balance between the the sort of mechanical side of the synthesizer arpeggios, but there's a human band element that sort of creeps in in the middle of it too.

And I I I I like that the music kind of has a a wistful, transportive sort of quality with the lyric. It really, it does. It it for me, it it takes me someplace every time. I mean, it was one of those songs that when we when we when the demo when we finally nailed it, we were like, yeah, I can just see it, just it it feels really cinematic.

Like it it created kind of those mini movies in your brain immediately, and we thought, well, if it's doing that for us, hopefully it'll work for someone else as well, you know.

It definitely does. You guys have nailed it. I mean, on I mean, taking a step back just from your perspective as a songwriter, obviously Deathcab's entire catalogue for the most part has inadvertently been the soundtrack for so many triumphs, tragedies, breakups, coming of age moments through all your listeners' lives.

To have had that impact as a songwriter, how do you kind of sit with that? Is it a a beautiful thing? Is it a burden at times?

I mean, I I I don't know. I, you know, as certainly I've only contributed to songs partially over the history of this band, you know. I've co-written stuff with Ben and the band, but I, you know, I'm definitely not the principal songwriter. I definitely don't nobody in the band writes lyrics or makes, you know, like you know, puts puts that stuff forward.

And so I I mean, as as someone who plays in the band and is invested in developing the music and and um you know at very you know in frequent moments been a co-writer along the way, I think more of myself as as an active listener, and I can I've I've it's been great to sort of be able to just sort of be in this band and then also just listen and and be able to um actually let the music impact me in a way where I don't have a lot of um a personal connection to it.

It's not it's not a story from my life or something that I'm trying to say, and so I I get the benefit of just being able to listen and uh and enjoy. So, you know, I can be a fan of our band and be in the band at the same time. Uh, and it's something that uh is I I'm I'm very happy about, you know. I I I don't feel there's much conflict in that.

And I think, you know, I uh over time it's just been you know, I know Ben has has I I don't know what Ben how Ben would answer that. I don't know if he would find that as a burden or um a blessing or any maybe it's a very complicated answer for him um in all of that. And I know you know if there's one thing I'm very proud of him, he is a incredibly hard worker.

He's the kind of uh uh bandmate and person that is constantly refining his craft and constantly working on it. You know, he's not he he doesn't believe in that sense of like, well, I'm gonna wait around for lightning to strike and inspiration to come. I mean, he he shows up to his studio every day and he is working on on songwriting and really trying to refine his his craft in that way.

And that that's infectious. It it makes us all work on our craft that way as well, and I think just makes us a better band because of it. Um so yeah, I don't know. I mean, I I I think in a lot of ways, this many years on, I I I really don't stop and think about it as much. I it's more about, you know, it's it's it's a more uh kind of present moment sort of thing where I'm listening to the music, we're playing the music, we're playing the shows, and that's gonna be enough.

And then maybe I'll get a chance to get up tomorrow morning and and do it again one more day, you know. Uh that that's that's that's the that's the goal. And I've been saying that to myself now for three years. So well, hopefully I can do it for 10 more. I I don't know. I who knows? Who knows? I I I'm thankful for every day you I've been able to do it to this point, you know?

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, well, speaking of playing music, you are heading down to Australia to play the East Coast on the I Built You a Tower tour. You've been touring it globally for a little while now. We mentioned before you've been in Europe. So from a stage and set design perspective, how have you approached this tour run that's potentially, I guess, different from Deathcap tour's fans may have seen before?

Um not not incredibly different. You know, we're not a big uh we've we're not a band that has really relied heavily on production live with you know lasers and video. I mean, obviously there needs to be some show uh involved um that that really supports the music. Um but we we have never I I don't know, it's not not for not enjoying that stuff.

We go to shows all the time that are just blow your mind, like almost feel like like magic shows where you're like, how are they even doing this? This is incredible. Uh and you know, but for us, our we've our shows have always been pretty similar in terms of stage production. Uh, I think that we really try and let the music carry the night and our energy kind of fill the space as much as possible.

Um and and really uh and leave it at that. You know, I think there's there's a there's a humbleness to our shows that uh uh I think kind of just adds to the the overall feeling that the music that we make, you know, we're not our our music we're not a dance party band, you know, you know people don't go put on deathcap for cutie to to get up in the room and start boogieing, you know, and so uh we don't need a light show to to encourage that either, that if that makes any sense.

Um so I think we try and really match match the mood as much as possible, you know.

I mean, I'd pay to say people throw down to transatlanticism.

That's true. I don't know how they do it, but we could say it. Okay, they could. I mean, uh I've seen everything at this point, but I don't think I've quite seen a room full of disco during transatlanticism. That'd be uh that'd be a fun thing. It'd be a solid thing. But maybe that's because we've never had disco light show with translanticism.

Maybe that's what we need to do, you know. Let's let's get the lights pumping and the lasers going. Let's I need you so much closer. Yeah, let's do it.

100%. Well, for listeners eager to see Deathcap for Cutie on their upcoming I Built Your Tower tour, they're playing Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane 12th, 13th, and 15th of November. And make sure to go and stream the album wherever you get your music. Nick, thank you so much for taking the time to have a chat.

Thank you. Yeah, thank you very much. I appreciate it.

Disco During Transatlanticism Ft. Death Cab for Cutie

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