Ben Gibbard and Mark Kozelek Talk Benji, St. Vincent, Modest Mouse in E-mail Thread

Last fall, a conversation between Ben Gibbard and Mark Kozelek went online at the Thread, in which both artists talked about a variety of topics including San Francisco and touring. Now, in a new installment, they’ve continued the conversation and moved on to topics like St. Vincent, Modest Mouse, “Ben’s My Friend” from Benji and more. You can check it out here, via Stereogum. 

Gibbard shares an anecdote about playing a Death Cab for Cutie song that mentions Ex Hex’s Mary Timony… in front of Mary Timony:

 There’s a lyric on our first album that name checks Mary Timony from Helium, a person whom to this day I have never met. The song is about an old girlfriend who was a huge fan of hers (I was too). When we played Boston for the first time in August of 1999, Mary was inexplicably one of maaaaybe 50 people at the show. She was most likely there to see one of the other bands, but at the time I was too dumb to figure that out. I was so fucking nervous when we played the song in question (“Your Bruise”) that I couldn’t look at her. I felt really silly for putting her—a real person whom I didn’t know—into one of my songs. While I’m sure she didn’t (doesn’t?) care, it was a weird moment for the 23-year-old version of me. We have a number of mutual friends, so I’m sure we’ll cross paths at some point and I’ll get to properly say hello.

Kozelek talked about his fond feelings for the Postal Service, and the thought process behind “Ben’s My Friend”:

I have a clear memory of you and I having lunch in Seattle in 2003. Ghosts of the Great Highway was out that year, and you had just released The Postal Service album. I recall you handing me the CD—it had only sold a few thousand copies at the time—and you weren’t expecting much from the record. A Death Cab record was also coming out, so you were very focused on that. So, seeing you at The Greek last year with The Postal Service, 10 years after, that was really something. I told my girlfriend—THIS is a concert.

It blew my mind so much that I wrote a song about it. I was so proud of you, yet bent out of shape about the whole thing at the same time! It was like a 24-hour petty jealousy virus thing. I listened to the reissue of the Postal Service record tonight. The whole album is amazing, but tracks 1 and 2—I have a chemical reaction to both of those songs. It’s no wonder that record took off like it did. 

Kozelek also talked about the first time he saw Modest Mouse, who he eventually covered on 2005′s Tiny Cities: 

I remember being on tour with the Cardigans in 1997, and our guitar tech told us Modest Mouse was at our show. I was like, “Who the fuck is Modest Mouse?” I was in a fight with my girlfriend at the time—she was up there with me—and she bolted back to the hotel after the show. I left the show immediately to go make things right with her. Anyhow, after Modest Mouse got pretty famous, the guys in [Red House Painters] said, “Those guys were backstage in Portland back in ’97.” Who would have known that the band I didn’t care about in 1997 would be a band I’d dedicate an entire cover record to in 2004?

Read the entire conversation here.

Watch Sun Kil Moon perform at Pitchfork Music Festival:

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