{"id":678187,"date":"2026-06-01T16:52:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-01T16:52:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/678187\/"},"modified":"2026-06-01T16:52:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-01T16:52:08","slug":"death-cab-for-cutie-new-album-interview-i-built-you-a-tower","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/678187\/","title":{"rendered":"Death Cab for Cutie new album interview: ‘I Built You a Tower’"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 They usually hold court in theaters, but for the last few years, the beloved indie act Death Cab for Cutie<\/a> has moonlit as an arena rock band. That\u2019s because they took their career-defining albums 2003\u2019s \u201cTransatlanticism,\u201d and later, 2005\u2019s \u201cPlans,\u201d on an anniversary run \u2014 recognizing that in the decades since their release, the records have only grown larger, resonating with new audiences.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was such a sense of there being a power greater than us, not necessarily in a spiritual sense, but in the communing with the audience each night,\u201d said guitarist and keyboardist Dave Depper. \u201cIt was so concentrated and on such an epic scale \u2026 It felt important to be able to tap into that energy and somehow transfer it into the feeling of this next record.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Friday, the band will release \u201cI Built You a Tower,\u201d their 11th studio album<\/a> and second with producer John Congleton. But this is not simply another full-length offering from artists in their veterancy. It is one at an unusual crossroads: A band looking to continue harnessing the enthusiasm of their nostalgic listenership, and one simultaneously experiencing grief. <\/p>\n

\u201cI spent a lot of 2023 going through this very painful experience of a separation and eventual divorce,\u201d said frontman and lyricist Ben Gibbard.<\/a> That informed the record \u2014 and happened right as they were embarking on the \u201cTransatlanticism\u201d tour, a run where Gibbard did double-duty, performing two sets. It was also a celebration of his side project the Postal Service, marking the 20th anniversary of that group\u2019s sole album, \u201cGive Up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Navigating all those realities was a challenge. \u201cI was doing a lot of context switching and in order to do that context switching, certainly as it pertained to my personal life, I had to put all that stuff in a building, as it were, and just lock the door,\u201d he said. \u201cI started to write a lot about how we contextualize, compartmentalize, specifically our grief.\u201d<\/p>\n

And a record was born.<\/p>\n

The construction behind \u2018I Built You a Tower\u2019<\/p>\n

Gibbard credits<\/a> the anniversary tours with reinvigorating his writing. <\/p>\n

\u201cI have come to the conclusion over the years that the fans are always right. The records that they think are the best ones are the best records,\u201d he said. \u201cI didn\u2019t want to write \u2018Transatlanticism 2,\u2019 but I wanted it to really build on the spirit of that tour.\u201d<\/p>\n

He asked himself: What is it about those songs that continue to connect? \u201cMy best work are the pieces that are very emotionally honest, earnest and open,\u201d he said. \u201cI think a lot of my songs that are the best ones are the ones that are very detail oriented. \u2026 They kind of sing like real tiny movies.\u201d<\/p>\n

There are modern examples of that across \u201cI Built You a Tower,\u201d like in the single \u201cPunching the Flowers,\u201d which takes the image of a toddler stomping on plants and uses it as a metaphor for fatalist frustrations. <\/p>\n

And sonically, there are echoes of Death Cab\u2019s<\/a> most beloved albums \u2014 found in the staccato rhythms of drummer Jason McGerr on a track like \u201cHow Heavenly a State,\u201d for example \u2014 or the vocal performance of \u201cStone Over Water\u201d or \u201cPep Talk,\u201d while avoiding self-imitation. <\/p>\n

A new direction<\/p>\n

Gibbard and Depper credit Congleton for pushing them to avoid perfectionist tendencies, reminding them that flaws give life to songs. <\/p>\n

\u201cPerfection is the enemy of good rock music<\/a>, of good guitar music. It really is the push and pull between the instruments. It\u2019s the fact that guitar is a little bit out of tune against the other one. It\u2019s that the drummer rushes a little in the chorus. The vocal is just a little out of the tune or the harmony just kind of wavers a bit against the lead vocal. All of our favorite records sound like that,\u201d said Gibbard.<\/p>\n

\u201cA big part of why we love those records is because we hear the humanity and collective fallibility of that. And that\u2019s been wiped away, you know, in this age of AI, more than ever,\u201d agreed Depper. So they endeavored to make an album full of heart \u2014 not a glossy, mechanized product.<\/a><\/p>\n

The band started writing the album in 2023 and 2024, between tours. Through that process, Gibbard eventually felt as if he was able to remove himself enough from the subject matter of \u201cI Built You a Tower\u201d: his divorce. \u201cI was giving enough distance where I felt I could write about it in a manner that was internal and also hopefully lacking in any bitterness,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

Then they recorded it in three weeks in September of last year, and this summer, they\u2019ll play hit the road with \u201cI Built You a Tower\u201d \u2014 their first time touring noncatalog music<\/a> since 2022.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll the love for the records that we lovingly presented,\u201d Depper joked, \u201cbut it is very nice to be playing some new material again.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 They usually hold court in theaters, but for the last few years, the beloved…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":678188,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[2224,129875,2692,295621,14837,88,295622,295620,216,2003,2002],"class_list":["post-678187","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-arts-and-entertainment","tag-ben-gibbard","tag-celebrity","tag-dave-depper","tag-divorce","tag-entertainment","tag-jason-mcgerr","tag-john-congleton","tag-music","tag-wa-state-wire","tag-washington"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=678187"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678187\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/678188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=678187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=678187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=678187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}