Pitchfork

Remember when your favorite band hopped on to a major label and they were never the same again? Months and months in the studio, blowing thousands of dollars on tape and coke and haircuts. Fear not, fans of Death Cab for Cutie, as bassist Nick Harmer tells us, "It's still a very special Death Cab."

Pitchfork spoke to Harmer just after the band had completed a photo shoot in New York and he spilled some details on the band's upcoming album, and major-label debut, Plans, which is due August 30. Fortunately, the band didn't go through any indie-to-major bullshit when they jumped ship from Barsuk to Atlantic. Harmer said the new label was fantastic and didn't interfere in the least. "I was as apprehensive as the next person going into the process," he said, "wondering how involved they were going to be, if they would keep looking over our shoulders. But with all honesty, they just let us do what we needed to do, and as thankful as we are for that, it was strange because we didn't expect it."

So no shenanigans? "Well, while we were up [in rural Massachusetts], there were two studios and for the first week, the guys from Jet were in the other studio, writing and rehearsing. Near the end of when they were there, they had some label people come up and one night we were just making a god awful racket trying to come up with a noisy part of the record. Banging on pots and pans and making all kinds of noise, to maybe later manipulate it into some ambient texture someplace. And the next morning, we come downstairs and they were like, 'Man, we don't know what you guys were doing up there, but it sounded amazing!' We were like, 'Wow, really?' It was a funny moment. If there was ever a major label moment, it didn't even come from our own label but another label entirely, which made us laugh a bit. We told them, 'Cool, well, tell everyone you know that you liked what you heard!'"

Produced again by band member Chris Walla, Plans picks up for where their previous album, Transatlanticism, left off. "It's not completely different", says Harmer. "There aren't any conceptual ties, but we approached it similarly. In some ways [Plans] is an extension of Transatlanticism, but more realized as an album, as a complete thought from start to finish. The performances are that much better, the sound, the production quality. We pushed hard to keep moving in the direction began with on the last album, and I think we'll keep pushing in that direction for awhile. Not everyone's going to like everything you do, obviously, but I'd be surprised if someone who liked Transatlanticism would not like this record."

The album's first single is expected to be "Soul Meets Body", and the band shouldn't have trouble coming up with some B-sides, as they recorded several more songs than what made it onto the album. Guest spots on the album include Beulah's Bill Swan and Harvey Danger's Sean Nelson.

Tracklist:

01 Marching Bands of Manhattan
02 Soul Meets Body
03 Summer Skin
04 Different Names For the Same Thing
05 I Will Follow You Into the Dark
06 Your Heart Is An Empty Room
07 Someday You Will Be Loved
08 Crooked Teeth
09 What Sarah Said
10 Brothers on a Hotel Bed
11 Stable Song

Death Cab have a few festival gigs lined up through the September, before a full North American tour later this fall. Dates:

07-07 Milwaukee, WI - Summerfest
07-24 Chicago, IL - Lollapalooza
07-30 San Diego, CA - San Diego Street Scene
08-06 Bend, OR - Les Schwab Amphitheater
08-13 Osaka, Japan - SummerSonic
08-14 Tokyo, Japan - SummerSonic
08-18 New York, NY - Central Park SummerStage
09-24 Austin, TX - Austin City Limits

* Death Cab for Cutie: