It's every kid's nightmare. Your favorite band, the best-kept secret that (you think) no one knows about, goes big time. And suddenly it becomes a household name. That's the story of Death Cab for Cutie. A band that has quietly and consistently delivered quality material since 1997 from a little place called Bellingham, Wash.; they've traveled all over the world in a smelly little van, sleeping on people's floors to spread the gospel of indie rock.
But then they get consistently name-dropped on Fox's "The OC" by some dorky kid named Seth Cohen. And the mainstream media, the guys who spent years ignoring Death Cab, are covering their last album, "Transatlanticism." Then they get handpicked by the big dogs - Bruce Springsteen, R.E.M. and Pearl Jam - to play on political action committee MoveOn.org's Vote for Change tour.
"They're all musical heroes to us," says bass player Nick Harmer.
Sold-out gigs, solid record sales and more interviews than they can keep up with: Death Cab for Cutie is now a household name, and they've hit the big time.
"I honestly had no idea you were calling," said Harmer, sighing, of the scheduled Thursday 9 a.m. interview time. He (and the rest of the band) will spend most of the day on the phone doing press - talking to daily newspapers, alternative weeklies and colleges at all of their tour stops. Sometimes he'll field the same boring questions like, "What are your influences?" or "How did the band meet?" But our conversation steers clear of that.
So why the attention all of the sudden?
"Music lost its way after the '90s broke," Harmer said. "Everything was thrown against a wall, and there was this desire to see if it would stick. Genres like rap-rock and nu-metal became a form of entertainment and less of a form of music. Of course, there are notable exceptions."
And now Death Cab for Cutie and Modest Mouse are two of those indie-gone-mainstream exceptions. The same thing happened to the Flaming Lips in 1999 after they dropped "The Soft Bulletin." While the Lips did have a fluke hit with "She Don't Use Jelly" much earlier, it was just that: a fluke.
Harmer cites the Lips as a blueprint.
"If they can go on 'Beverly Hills 90210' then we can be played on 'The OC'," he said.
Harmer, who gets his fair share of teasing from friends, gets a little defensive about being ridiculed.
"'The OC' has always played great and interesting music like Nick Drake and Bright Eyes," he said.
So why not take the classy road, and put your song in a Volkswagen commercial instead?
Death Cab for Cutie plays the 9:30 club Saturday.
