I may have had a vague inkling, but it is not until 15 minutes before I am due to meet Chris Walla, guitarist for Death Cab For Cutie, that I realise how big of a deal it is. I can wax lyrical about the giggles and meander through the intricacies of heart palpitations, but as the bunch of us wait at the hotel lobby of Marina Bay Sands for our respective interviews, a fellow journalist puts it across in few words: "I'm so nervous, I'm probably going to vomit."
With clammy hands and gum sticks rejected for fear of accidental ingestion, we are ushered into an elevator that brought us to the alt-rockers' hotel suite on the 50th floor, and the hushed tones of our collective footfalls against the cushy carpeted corridors serve as plush reminder of how far the four-piece Seattle band has come from their days of scruffy hairdos and recording sessions in the basement of frontman Ben Gibbard's home.
Glitz digs aside, Chris' tendency to field questions with the politically correct savoir-faire of a seasoned interviewee makes clear that they have been around the block over the last 15 years. Ask him what is the best and worst thing he remembers about their 2008 Singapore debut here at the Esplanade and he dismisses all negativity and launches into a praise of how "Singapore is just such a unique place," with its "culture clash" that you do not find "anywhere else on earth".
Still, seven studio albums, multiple sold out shows and a massively successful career later, 36 year-old Chris retains a shadow of the awkwardness that almost eclipses the band's megastardom, such that you are tempted to ask him for a game of Mario Kart on your Nintendo. Clad in a light grey hoodie and preppy red-and-white checked shirt, the ex-Starbucks barista peppers his speech with numerous instances of I-don't-know's and lumbers through answers with hesitations by way of "uhm" and other guttural intonations. And as the whipped cream on top of his modesty, the choice word he picks to describe the many Grammy nominations that Death Cab For Cutie has picked up over the years is "weird".
"It's nice to be recognised for what you do, but awards are so formal and weird. I mean, I don't know, I feel like, in a way, awards and that sort of things are almost more exciting for our parents or grandparents than they are for us. We have crowds that cheer for us when we play at shows. That's the thing that gets me up in the mornings; it's less about getting nominated for a Grammy, which is… really weird."
And so it is, that even with over a decade of triumphs in an industry that saw them move from basement to Atlantic Records in New York City, Death Cab For Cutie in a five-star suite is still less Kanye than you might expect. Nevertheless, one can hardly deny Death Cab their huge mainstream following that has eluded other critically acclaimed indie rock outfits like Bright Eyes and Stars. At the risk of possible furore, I imply that the band owes it commercial success to the relentless references it received in The O.C., the popular American teen drama series that earned Death Cab a permanent imprint in popular culture.
In an understandably defensive gesture, the guitarist brushes off the suggestion: "I think that it was a big deal, but what a lot of people don't realise is that at the time it happened, we had already sold half a million records. Things were going really, really well for us and it was a shot in the arm so to speak, but it wasn't a defining moment of our careers."
"Did you guys watch the show?"
"I watched a few episodes… I thought it was cute?"
An Indonesian journalist at the table then took that as a cue to bring up Ben's recent divorce from Hollywood's resident Manic Pixie Dream Girl, Zooey Deschanel, to which Chris replies with a standard we've-all-got-one-another formality. When told by the same reporter that people are probably expecting a darker eighth album as a result, Chris lets out a slight scoff: "People are going to expect whatever they want. I don't think there's any merit in speculating."
And there it is, Chris Walla with his celebrity niceties mixed in with necessary VIP aplomb, all wrapped up in a 15-minute bow. I almost feel bad for being a part of the industry that interrogates nice guys like Chris in a way we usually reserve for close friends and abhorrent criminals, but then I dish my last question, asking what he thinks he will be doing if not for Death Cab. He smiles a smile that indicates he has answered this a million times and says without missing a beat: "I think I'd probably be working at a Starbucks still and recording bands in my basement."
Precisely because he is no longer a barista and precisely because Death Cab For Cutie is still selling out shows worldwide, my conscience rests a little as Chris obligingly autographs CD sleeves and entertains photo requests from our group of four. We file out in a minute as somewhere in there, a Death Cab minder hits an imaginary "Next" button.
Photos: Aloysius Lim/LAMC Productions
by QH YEO
