Having a strong catalogue of albums and reigning success in the indie/alternative rock scene, Death Cab For Cutie are clearly great at what they do. With their eighth studio album, Kintsugi just released, we chat to bassist player, Nick Harmer about the meaning of the term “Kintsugi”, the details behind Chris Walla's departure and how the band have evolved using both experimentation and consistency in their music.
Since their 2011 release of Codes and Keys, their newest record holds high value to the band as they have undergone many changes in the last year. It’s safe to say that they have absorbed every ounce of creativity needed to finish something that was always worthwhile doing.
I find it incredibly compelling that the eighth studio album is called Kintsugi, which by definition translates to the repair of broken ceramics of precious metals, highlighting the cracks rather than hiding them. What intrigued you most about the philosophy of the term?
Exactly that. When I first came across an image of an object online that had been repaired with a Kintsugi technique, I was really just struck at seeing the fracture lines present that was highlighted in the piece and something about that just seemed so strong and so honest at the same time. As soon as I started reading about Kintsugi and its process and the philosophy behind making the repair of an object, part of its visual history and part of its history moving forward, really resonated with me in a lot of the ways that I feel about growing older and especially the culture that we live in now globally.
There's a skew towards trying to make things too perfect all the time and photoshopping out the scars and I happen to think that the scars are what makes things interesting and more perfect than removing them artificially. I think that when we finished up this album, we were thinking about the songs on it and where we were at and what we wanted to say on this record. It was an album title that I brought to the band and shared with and kind of explained the philosophical connection to it and I think they all got it immediately. The sort of philosophy behind it really connected to just how we’re all kind of feeling about life and I like that. It did seem like a nice serendipitous moment to find that title.
I felt like it was such an elegant title to name the new album as well because I've never actually heard the term before. Seeing that it originated from Japan, I was just wondering, did you ever watch a documentary on Kintsugi or did you go to a Japanese museum that sort of triggered that experience as well?
I didn't go to a museum but I did watch lots of film stuff, I read stories and there's some books out there too. It's sort of tangentially related to a philosophy of Wabi Sabi in Japan which is sort of the imperfect being perfect and kind of the wear and tear, letting those be parts of an object. I lived in Japan when I was young for a number of years and studied Japanese all the way through the end of college. I've always had a real, deep connection with Japan and Japanese culture. It wasn't anything more than just seeing this image online and before I even saw the photo, I’d never heard of it.
As soon as I started reading more about the philosophy behind it and the process and the technique, I just became so much more connected to it and it really just spoke to me. I definitely did as much homework as I possibly could but it also was just a real gut instinctual reaction I had to the word and the imagery of the ceramics repaired with the Kintsugi technique - it was sort of an immediate reaction. You know those moments where you walk into an art gallery and you see a painting that's maybe abstract and you're not exactly sure what it is but you almost just have a physical and emotional reaction to it? It's very similar to the process of learning about Kintsugi for me.
So it must've been tough on you guys when Chris left the band. How did you find your experience working with Rich Costey as a producer?
To be clear, Chris told us about halfway through making this album. We were making it all together and he told us halfway through the process that he was leaving the band after we were finished making this album. He didn't just walk out of the studio and leave us sort of hanging in there, you know. We knew after we finished making the album with him that he wasn't going to tour or continue to be part of the band but he was very much committed to finishing this album together.
I think part of the reason why we were able to do that and to have finished the record so strong was that we had Rich there. We didn't tell Rich that Chris was leaving and we kept it kinda private among ourselves because we didn't want the knowledge of Chris not being around to have any impact on Rich's feedback or decisions. We just didn't want it to influence the making of this album in any way whatsoever and so rather than risk it, we decided to tell him after we were done. When we did tell him, I think he was a little bummed that we didn't share that news in the middle of the process but I think he also recognised that it was the smart thing to do and he was glad that we kept that away from him because you just don't know what you'll do with that information when you get it, you know.
I wouldn't say it was disruptive or challenging, I mean, we worked together for 17 years and we have a great friendship and still do have a great friendship with Chris. Him leaving was more about him following a bliss of his life which was producing records and working in the studio world which he'd been doing with us with our band and lots of other bands for years. We always knew that producing was going to be something that at some point would pull him away from this band, so it was never a question of if Chris was gonna leave the band, it was always a question of when.
There was a moment where we were a little surprised at the timing of it but also now in hindsight - when I look back, I'm really glad he told us when he told us and we were able to finish the album together and I'm very proud of this album. I’m really happy of how it turned out and I don't think we would've been able to make this album in any other way.
So the band is quite metaphorical in its approach when it comes to the depth of creativity in both album and song titles. How do these creative juices flow when it comes to the songwriting process?
The songwriting process has been pretty constant. The way that we've worked as a band in songwriting has been about the same since our very first album which usually starts with Ben writing a bunch of demos and songs in a room by himself. He'll come up with different ideas and mainly just kind of writing lyrics and melodies and recording demos and keeping track of them. When he reaches a critical mass of songs, he'll start sharing them with us and then we get to sort them out as a band and talk about which ones we really like and which ones we're really reacting to and are excited about while adding to and working on them; that's really where the rest of the band comes in and rolls out their sleeves and figure the rest out, making them into a Death Cab For Cutie song and every song is different, you know.
Sometimes, it's just Ben on the guitar and sometimes Ben has ideas for drum, bass and piano, so we really just take it song by song and we get to react and challenge Ben along the way when we hear demos that we liked, wanting to help elevate them. Certainly working with Rich Costey as a producer this time really helped us further that kind of process where we could deconstruct demos and talk about what's working while pushing the territory musically that maybe we weren't really comfortable with and see some new light in them which was exciting. Throughout that process, he was really instrumental, pushing us to the edge and kind of pulling us back from that edge and I'm really thankful for that - it was a real necessary part of the songwriting process ultimately.
With Death Cab For Cutie's song titles, they're so intricate and detailed. I know I'm looking into it too much but do you guys think of a song title before you actually write the lyrics or is it more so you write the lyrics first and then you come up with the song title?
That would be a question for Ben. I don't exactly know but it's funny, I was giving an interview and someone was asking, "Do you always know what songs mean?" and I don't. I think in the hundred or so songs that we've recorded in this band, over the last 17 years, I think there's probably maybe 6 or 7 songs that I ever asked Ben what they're really about; the rest, I have my own feelings towards on what they might mean. The thing that I love about Ben's songs is that he writes from a perspective that’s relatable so people can find connections to their own lives in a way and make their own memories that make them feel very personal. I have my own connections and my own memories for the songs that I don't even need to know necessarily where they were coming from. It's a strange thing - maybe I should start asking where some of the songs come from [laughs].
As a band that has achieved so much success from their music. How do you find balance in both consistency and experimentation?
I don't really know if you ever find a balance with that, I think you kinda go one way and then you go the other way. In this case, Rich Costey was our fulcrum between experimentation and consistency with this album. We would be in an experimental place and we would move back towards consistency and comfort; it's a sea-saw that happens which I think just goes on forever. I don't know if we ever really have figured out an exact way to do that effectively. I feel like one thing that we've always tried to do in this band musically is to just listen to our instincts as players and try things that sound good to us and write songs and play songs that we like to listen to and hopefully some other people might wanna listen to as well.
I'm just as surprised as anyone that we've been able to do it for as long as we have and have gained success from it because I certainly know that from the very beginning, we never had any plans for that; we never tried hard for success, we've just sort of wrote songs and liked playing them together and that has remained intact even to this day. I don't know how we find that balance or if we ever have but some people might say we might need to experiment more and some people might say we need to experiment less.
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Kintsugi is available now, and you can check out our review here.
