's dependably spry Chris Walla says from his
London hotel room just hours before his band is set to appear at the
31-day, genre-hopping iTunes Live: London spectacular. "I think it has
something to do with iTunes but I'm not really sure. I don't ask too
many questions."
Walla claims to be exhausted, citing his band's merciless touring
schedule since the release of their Narrow Stairs album in May and the
social ineptitude and hazardous sleeping habits it has introduced to
his life. But Death Cab's multi-instrumentalist-cum-producer sounds surprisingly buoyant for some one on the verge of an alleged personality crisis.
"We're holding-up ok and we're getting along, which we always manage to do. But some things always get neglected," he says.
Walla admits that many of his symptoms border the cliché, but maintains
that constant touring is not particularly conducive to dignified social
behaviour. "Things tend to unravel and become very disordered," Walla says. "My bag was packed so well when we started this tour, but now it's
turned into a mess. Things don't seem to fit where they used to even
though I have the same amount of stuff now as when we started."
And this disorder apparently is not limited to luggage and personal grooming. "I think the touring mentality impacts on a lot of things, like food
and talking and ambitions to do anything outside of the bubble of tour.
"Socialising becomes ominous because you tend to spend all day talking
about your band and your spend your nights playing with your band, and
when you roll in to a town and meet up with friends they obviously want
to know how the band is going too. I love my band and I don't mind
talking about it, but it can become tiring after a while."
And of course, a statement like this could only possibly be followed
with a question like: you have previously stated that you were anxious
about how well
Narrow Stairs would translate on stage. Why was that,
and how have the performances gone so far?
"I'm not sure why I thought that, and it has glued together on stage
really well so far. We went back and listened closely to record before
we started the tour and found that it was really easy to play on stage,
especially compared to [Death Cab's 2005 album]
Plans," Walla says.
"This record came out of rehearsals, and that was very different to the
last record was made.
Plans basically happened somewhere between
[principal songwriter] Ben's piano and the loops we created in the
studio. Plans is sort of the black sheep in that way."
"Playing the new record on stage is much less cognitive, so we can have
more fun and actually pay some attention to the audience."
Narrow Stairs has been received as something of a return to Death Cab's
West Coast, pensive college-rock basics, and in many ways, a reaction
the grandiose production that soured
Plans's otherwise solid song
writing.
Plans was widely derided as Death Cab's attempt fill out their
sound to suit their newly acquired superstar status - although such
contempt probably also had something to with the common, if rather
unfair, attribution of the band's rapid rise to its appearance on the
soundtrack to the teen-fantasy-drama, The OC.
"It was quite a challenge to be both guitarist and producer on those
two records because I had to balance my reaction to the songs as the
guitarist in the band with the need to produce them objectively," says
Walla, who has also produced albums by Tegan and Sara, Hot Hot Heat,
The Decemberists, The Long Winters, The Thermals, and his solo
project, Martin Youth Auxiliary.
"I think this new record is a reaction to the last record, but also the
production work I did between the two," he says. "And I think it's
important to make records in a reactive way, otherwise you will just
keep making the same mistakes and continuing on the same path."
Walla says he excited to be returning to Australia in August, and is
particularly looking forward to touring with (Brisbane band)
An Horse as support act.
"I saw them play with Tegan and Sara in Las Vegas a few weeks ago, and
it's going to be great to have them on the tour," he says.
"So many of my favourite bands are from Australia and every time we go
there it feels like home because we have made so many friends over the
years.
"People in Australia seem so enthusiastic about what we do, and it
really feels like our support there has developed in such an organic
way."
Death Cab's Australian tour in August is completely sold out! Console yourself with the clip from their new single 'Cath' on TheVineTV.
Pat McGrath