I don’t hear it now the way I did when I was 20. I think it is undeniable that the songs have become more instantaneously descriptive and literal.
BEN GIBBARDI don’t hear it now the way I did when I was 20. I think it is undeniable that the songs have become more instantaneously descriptive and literal.
BEN GIBBARDWhen I listen to Airplanes record, it takes me back. I remember a lot of my thought processes when I was 20 or 21, writing those songs and recording that record.
BEN GIBBARDI 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 GIBBARDI’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 GIBBARDNada Surf and Harvey Danger are good bands. I think they’ve just stayed true to why they play music in the first place, it’s just because they love doing it and they love each other and that’s the impetus for doing it, not trying to keep singles on the radio and on MTV.
BEN GIBBARDI like writing on piano and a computer, and a lot of ‘Plans’ came out of samples and vocal lines.
BEN GIBBARDWe always idealize the past because we don’t feel the painful stuff the way we used to.
BEN GIBBARDBecause 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 GIBBARDAt this point in my life, I find myself obsessed with alternate paths I could’ve taken. I don’t think about this with a sense of regret, but with a sense of wonder.
BEN GIBBARDAround that same time I started running. I never saw myself as the kind of person who would become a runner. It seemed unfathomable to me that I would ever run three miles, let alone 26.2.
BEN GIBBARDAn ex-girlfriend once got upset when I told her that music is the most important thing in my life. It’s more important than anyone else could ever be.
BEN GIBBARDAnything was better than going to work. All those early tours before we made any money were more like vacations. I don’t think it was until 2001 that we pulled our heads out of the sand and were like, “What are we doing?”
BEN GIBBARDYou can’t please everybody all the time, but I think for the most part we tend to maintain a healthy level of self-reference to kind of make sure we continue to push things forward.
BEN GIBBARDWe would scoff at the idea of a nice studio. “Why would you want to go to a nice studio? Oh wow, they have really expensive gear. Ooh, that’s really fancy. Well we’ve got an eight-track. We’ve got it going on here.”
BEN GIBBARDI want to write songs with complete sentences. I almos have this obsession with short-changing words. I would never be so pretentious to say that my lyrics are poetry. … Poems are poems. Song lyrics are for songs.
BEN GIBBARDThere were two recording studios in Bellingham. One was really expensive, a “nice studio.” We were at the point where we were young and irreverent.
BEN GIBBARD