I have always been very open and earnest about some things in my life, some things that are not directly in my life, but they're twirling around me at the time. Ben Gibbard More Quotes by Ben Gibbard More Quotes From Ben Gibbard If you tell certain people that you like Kerouac, they assume that's all you read, like you don't know anything else about literature. I recognize all the things that people dislike about the way he writes - his tone and the sentimentality of it all. But those books were there for me at a very important point in my life. Ben Gibbard writing book people I think sometimes a narrative can come out of a single word. Ben Gibbard narrative sometimes thinking There were a lot of fences and walls existing in my life, literally and figuratively, and that was really not indicative of the kind of person that I'd always been. So, when I moved back to Seattle, the first thing I said was, "I will never live in fear again." Ben Gibbard wall kind firsts 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 opposites feelings people Nada 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 Gibbard mtv play thinking 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 tone next dark The songwriting of Hall & Oates is deceptively complex. There are a number of key changes that pass you by as you're listening to the song because they're so seamless and clever. Ben Gibbard clever numbers song The story of our band is that we were this relentless touring band in those early years. We were leaving day jobs and going off on the road and having fun and seeing the country for the first time. We were playing Chinese restaurants and basements and record stores and houses. We were crashing on floors and it was all new and exciting. It was like a vacation. It didn't feel like work. I couldn't wait to go on tour back then. I would be sitting at my day job or my apartment, just itching to go. There were so many adventures that were about to happen. Ben Gibbard fun adventure country Everybody has a language or code that they use with their wife or their girlfriend or boyfriend or what have you. It’s a language aside from the language they have with strangers. I’ve always been maybe an abuser of alliteration, but I’ve always loved it and I like how those words sound together. Ben Gibbard girlfriend wife together I 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 Gibbard want writing song As a songwriter, I'm not necessarily writing about myself or my life. Ben Gibbard songwriters writing We never sit down before we start making a record and talk about this new sonic palette that we are going to try to explore. We always let the record kind of reveal itself to us over time. Ben Gibbard kind trying I feel that we are currently living in a world that is similar to late '50s, early '60s kind of world. Ben Gibbard late kind world I like writing on piano and a computer, and a lot of 'Plans' came out of samples and vocal lines. Ben Gibbard piano lines writing I was literally just going and applying for jobs, and I couldn't get a job, and I was getting more and more broke, and you find yourself groveling for jobs you don't even want. Ben Gibbard finding-yourself want jobs 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 together people I'm not like a 90-mph fastball kind of guy, but I can hit 70 on radar gun. Ben Gibbard gun player baseball You spend hours alone, only with your thoughts, and you torture yourself. It's a tendency of many writers to temper the self-destructive act of writing with other self-destructive acts. I certainly was one of those people for a long time. Ben Gibbard self writing long I've always had a soft spot for Phil Collins. He's a great vocalist. Ben Gibbard vocalist spots I kind of dropped a lot of bad habits about three years ago and became kind of accidentally straight-edge. I don't have Xs on my hands, but I guess if I wanted to go back to calling myself straight-edge, I could. Around 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 Gibbard habit kind running
