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As a songwriter, I’m not necessarily writing about myself or my life.

Ben Gibbard

Between every record, we all split off in our own world and we all end up listening to usually pretty different music on our own. We come together not really knowing what the other people having been really listening to and what’s been influencing them.
BEN GIBBARD

Listening People Together
If there is one thing I think I have accomplished, it’s that I always thought of myself as a very literal songwriter, and as I look at some of those older records.
BEN GIBBARD

Clever Distance Song
I feel like there’s a lot of beauty in the darkness of ‘Narrow Stairs,’ but that’s not really a place I’m ready to go to for a while. I’m interested in taking a different approach and having the next record be different in tone – I’m just not interested in making another dark, dark album.
BEN GIBBARD

Beauty Dark Next Tone
I’m not like a 90-mph fastball kind of guy, but I can hit 70 on radar gun.
BEN GIBBARD

Baseball Gun Player
I can remember sitting up in guitarist Chris Walla’s bedroom and for the first time in my life having this realization like, “Maybe I can do this. Maybe I can make music that in some capacity people will enjoy and come see me play.”
BEN GIBBARD

Bedroom Capacity People Realization Some
I feel like on those older records there are a lot of attempts at clever turns of phrase.
BEN GIBBARD

Attempts Clever Older Record The Phrase
I’ve covered Avril Lavigne. I like good pop songs, and I don’t think there should be any kind of preconceptions about where good pop songs come from.
BEN GIBBARD

Kind Song Thinking
We had friends who had a hit single on the radio and sold 500,000 records, and then they couldn’t get arrested a year later.
BEN GIBBARD

Friend Later Records Single Sold
I don’t think I was doing anything poorly at that time, but I can certainly see how my writing has changed.
BEN GIBBARD

Certainly Changed Think
We always idealize the past because we don’t feel the painful stuff the way we used to.
BEN GIBBARD

Feel Idealize Painful Way
Because of my age and what I do for a living and the amount of time that I’ve spent away from my family and loved ones.
BEN GIBBARD

Age Darkness Fun
We were not goofing around anymore. We all threw everything we had into this in a way where we all found ourselves really far from home, and we were stuck with each other.
BEN GIBBARD

Anymore Each Other Goofing Ourselves
Our band is very polarizing. There are people who absolutely can’t stand us, and people who absolutely can’t live without us. I’d rather spark those kind of polar-opposite feelings than have people be indifferent.
BEN GIBBARD

Feelings Opposites People
As you go through your life, you make friendships, you break friendships, you have relationships. Music is the one thing I’ve always been able to rely on.
BEN GIBBARD

Friendship Make Relationship
The Photo Album is the weakest record. For the first time in our careers, we found ourselves with an economic incentive to be on the road and to be making albums.
BEN GIBBARD

Cutting Home Real
More times than not, it’s a failed endeavor. You will fail more times than you succeed. But I think you need those failed endeavors.
BEN GIBBARD

Needs Thinking Writing

As a songwriter, I’m not necessarily writing about myself or my life.

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As a songwriter, I’m not necessarily writing about myself or my life.

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