Tonight, the band Death Cab For Cutie is trying something that (we think) no indie band has ever tried before: premiering the video for its single “You Are A Tourist” as a scripted, one-shot, livestreamed affair.

At 7 p.m. EST (so soon), the video will begin above, and the results from said stream, directed by Tim Nackashi, will live on as the official video for Death Cab‘s new single off of its seventh album Code and Keys, due out May 31 on Atlantic Records.

Mashable reached out to Nick Harmer, bassist for the band, before the event to see how he’s feeling about the whole ordeal. Check out our interview below.

How has technology affected the way you make music videos, particularly this new live video?
Ten years ago if we wanted to attempt something like this we would have had to have the support and involvement of broadcast television network, which a band of our size and caliber would have been very hard-pressed to get. But these days, new technology and access to that new technology has opened all kinds of avenues of exploration for us when creating and distributing everything — including making music videos.

We have always been inspired by the intersections between creative fields, where music meets film, where film meets Internet, where Internet meets music, etc., and there are so many ways to enjoy the things you love these days that the sky is pretty much the limit with putting things out there. If anything, with so many compelling options it is the difficulty to decide on what to use and how to use it that weighs on our process more than feeling limited by what is available. Option anxiety is a real thing for us. But we are very excited to be able to use the Internet, filmmaking technology and our music to hopefully create an experience that is as fun to watch as it will be to make. Will it work? Here’s hoping…

Has/will this video change the way you connect with your fans?
I’m not sure. As musicians, a huge part of what we do is play our music live for people to enjoy, so fans of our band already have a way to experience our music with us in real time. There is an energy and excitement at live shows that everyone feeds off of and there will never be a substitute for the thrill of knowing you are part of an audience seeing something for the first time.

I’d like to think that this video is just one more way for our fans to have a live experience with us that is not an actual concert. If it turns out well, hopefully we’ll try something like it again and push it a little further. I mean, I think this could be an exciting thing for lots of bands and artists to try moving forward. We’ve all been performing live on television for years, why not use technology to take it a step further?

There are so many unknowns at this point, will it work? Will fans actually tune in? Can we pull it off? If we stick the landing, this could change a lot of things.

What has the band done to prepare for this live video?
We have had lots of conversations and spent way too much time on the phone! But besides all the talking, we have really just let the director Tim Nackashi do all of the heavy lifting. He has a great team working with him to iron out all the technical and creative wrinkles.

So our role in the preparations has been a small one, we’re really just important in the execution once the cameras are rolling. We’ll do our best to learn our cues and marks and hopefully everything goes off without a hitch. And yet, even if this thing does come off the rails, that will still be fun to watch too, so I’m really not feeling a ton of pressure either way. I’m just keeping my fingers crossed nobody gets hurt, I don’t need the world to see me lose an eye or anything.

Image courtesy of Atlantic Records