Death Cab's Ben Gibbard: A life-changing foul ball
On the way to making Death Cab for Cutie’s forthcoming album, “Codes and Keys” (Atlantic), singer Ben Gibbard quit drinking, got married and ended up relocating to Los Angeles, a city he once despised.
The dramatic changes were foreshadowed by Death Cab’s bleak 2008 release, “Narrow Stairs.”
“That record is kind of a fulcrum in my life,” Gibbard says. “So much of the negativity in my life got funneled into it. I realized after the fact that I didn’t want to go any darker. I wanted it to be the bottom for this band and my own emotional spectrum in terms of writing. I had no grandiose plans to turn my life around. But there was this eerie moment ...”
It’s a good thing Gibbard has a video of the moment because no one would’ve believed him. He prefaces the story he’s about to tell by asserting, “I am not making this up”:
"Around spring of ‘08, I went with my mom to a (Seattle) Mariners game, and I had this very real thought as we were sitting there that my life was about to change. Then a foul ball came flying off the bat and I caught it in my hat. I have the video to prove it – the ball, the hat. It was out of a movie, but it was indicative of something. A couple months later I reconnected with the person who would become my wife.”
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