Ben Gibbard: "Roger Waters Doing Dark Side Would Be Like Ringo Performing Sgt. Pepper's"
The boys of DCFC are gearing up for a busy festival season -- Coachella, Sasquatch, Bonnaroo, Pemberton -- where they'll be playing songs from the forthcoming Narrow Stairs, which hasn't leaked yet. Spin recently sat down with them at Ahmet Ertegun's old office to talk about life on the road and Billy Corgan.
SPIN: You're playing the big-time sunset slot at Coachella just before Narrow Stairs comes out. Is there a different approach you take playing to a big crowd that most likely won't have heard the new songs yet?BEN GIBBARD: I think we'll have an hour; we'll probably play three new songs. I feel like we have a responsibility to kind of make sure we're playing material that the wealth of the audience is excited about hearing, and the more shows you play, the more you realize which songs fall into that category and which don't.
NICK HARMER: We're going to do Dark Side Of The Moon ... but with David Gilmour.
SPIN: Awkward!
CHRIS WALLA: "We got a new record coming out in a week and a half, but we're gonna try something a little different this time..."
BEN GIBBARD: Roger Waters doing Dark Side of the Moon would be like Ringo performing Sgt. Pepper's.
CHRIS WALLA: I had the same thought. All the parts of that album I love most are Gilmour's.
And looking back to Lollapalooza '94...
CHRIS WALLA: I sold my copy of Siamese Dream the day after seeing Smashing Pumpkins at Lollapalooza because Billy Corgan yelled at D'Arcy onstage.
They played right after the Beastie Boys, who were awesome; they were the Beastie Boys, they ruled it. And when the Smashing Pumpkins came on, the reception was a little icy, so Corgan said, "You guys want the Beastie Boys to come back out?" and everybody went crazy. He spent the rest of the night yelling at people. The next day, I sold my Siamese Dream and bought the Breeders' Last Splash and a Shudder to Think record and Mars Audiac Quintet by Stereolab. All because of the experiences I had that day.
Death Cab play the Coachella Stage at 6:30 PM tomorrow. You won't be able to sell your copy of Narrow Stairs the next day, because the album's not out for another few weeks. Read more of DCFC's thoughts on festival season (and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Vampire Weekend, and Arcade Fire) in the new Spin (MMJ cover).
Posted at 11:51 AM
Tags: Beastie Boys | Ben Gibbard | Coachella | Death Cab For Cutie | Pink Floyd | Roger Waters | The Smashing Pumpkins
ringo vs roger waters, no.
no wonder i never got into death cab their a bunch of wankers.
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Wankers? Poor sentence construction? When the fuck did British teenagers start reading stereogum?
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HAHAHAHAHAHA. As an Irishman in London, your comment has made me a very happy man. Poor sentence construction indeed. It's an epidemic here. Mork probably never got into DCFC because he was too busy wetting his pants over whatever drug-induced nonsense Pete Doherty was vomiting into a microphone that week.
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yeah thats a pretty stupid thing to say.....waters wrote a lot of the record....he just didnt perform all of the parts....and as far as the lyrics, those are all his...
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this is pretty true to some extent. it has pissed me off that just Roger Waters is performing Dark Side Of The Moon, and no one seems to care that David Gilmour isn't there! Waters may have written most of the tracks, i understand this, but Gilmour sang half the album, and wrote half of it with Roger Waters.
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Chris could tell Billy Corgan is a primidonna? you don't say, how did he ever pick that one up? I guess that's why they pay big bucks for the diamond ear of these producers.
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Billy Corgan's a meanie.
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That is really stupid, really really stupid!
Roger Waters wrote the 90% of that album (maybe more), they really dont know anything about pink floyd and music, poor bastards.
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I'll take Ringo Starr's RINGO album over any Roger Waters solo album.
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It's funny when an extremely boring live band talks shit about the leader of the greatest live band of all time's live performances.
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chris wallace needs to get his head out of his arse. i never liked death cab. billy corgan is not a meanie, he is just peticular. he is a genius. and that copy of siamese dream probably went to someone who deserved good music.
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he has a good point
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I'll take Ringo's performance of Sgt. Pepper's over The Bee Gees.
That was probably the Lollapalooza at The Gorge, but we left after The Beasties played (they were awesome). "See the Smashing Pumpkins or not fight a billion people to get out of here afterwards?"
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Billy Corgan is definitely a jerk, but that never stopped me from liking 'Siamese Dream.' I don't see why I have to like someone's personality to connect with their music.
Dark Side of the Moon performed by anyone is boring, btw.
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the Pumpkins should have broken up after Mellon Collie.
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Whoa, I had the exact same experience at Lollapalooza that year. I've never seen a crowd go apeshit like they did for the Beasties -- before or since. And then Smashing Pumpkins just totally sucked the life out. Corgan kept saying shit like, "Hey, we came here to rock, and if you didn't, then why don't you just go find your car in the parking lot and leave. We don't need you. We just want the people who came here to rock." Clearly, as demonstrated by the reaction to the Beastie Boys, we were all there to rock. But it's hard to get into a band that's totally suck-ass boring (as they were), and it was made far worse by Corgan's incessant whining and insults. It was fucking ridiculous. I remember fighting the urge to jump onstage just to tackle that whiny little fuck.
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As much as I'm a Pumpkins fan, and a Hideout-loving Cubs-hat-toting Chicago native, Billy Corgan has proved himself time and time again to be a chump ass hole. Best Buy anyone?
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Waters comment is ridiculous, so is the Corgan one. I don't particularly like Beck as a person (I think he comes off as a bit of a twat in some of his interviews) but I'm not selling Odelay or Midnite Vultures back anytime soon. Pretty weak on perspective if he can't see the forest for the trees (i.e. the music being awesome......btw, saw Waters do Dark Side live and it was GREAT). Then again, we are talking about the guy from Death Cab so fuck him.
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Yeah, if you stopped listening to all of the bands that are comprised of assholes, you'd most likely be left with about 10% of your music collection.
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More accurately, it'd be like John Lennon performing Sgt. Pepper's, which apparently was mostly Paul McCartney's deal. It's a silly remark, though. I don't see why people would work themselves up into rectums over a feud from rock history that's over.
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Actually, Ben, Roger Waters, see, was the bassist and main songwriter. We need to work on your reasoning skills, here.
Ringo : Sgt. Pepper
Nick Mason : Dark Side
See, cause, Ringo was a drummer.
So, what you mean to say is that Roger Waters doing "Dark Side" is like Paul McCartney doing "Sgt. Pepper." Which makes total sense. And which makes you a douchebag. And which makes me sell back my copy of "Plans."
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you bought plans?!
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I think we're all missing the really exciting possibility here - Ringo Starr doing Dark Side of the Moon!
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how about "Roger Waters doing Dark Side of the Moon would be like Ben Gibbard not singing like a sackless balding pederast."
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how about "Roger Waters doing Dark Side of the Moon would be like Ben Gibbard not singing like a sackless balding pederast."
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anyone who knows the real corgan would know that mostly he is full of shit. a guy who most likely was a huge loser his whole life who now trusts nobody, treats people like shit and has the karma of adolf hitler.
yeah, I said it. He is a huge douchbag and routinely screws people around and bully's them. On ly taking the time ton not be corporate by being corporate.
way to go billy your whole life is a joke.
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Jesus, have you ever seen D'arcy play live? D'arcy was a shit bass player, I can't say that I blame Corgan for yelling at her from time to time. Her timing was often way off.
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Roger Wrote the songs. They are his to perform. If David wants to join Roger then Roger has said he would reunite Pink Floyd. It's up to David and thats where the story ends.. for now.
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i'll grant you that waters is a genius, but he is also a controlling asshole who was less than appreciative of the other geniuses he worked with. if waters is vader, gilmour is the force.
i don't blame david for not wanting back in.
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Roger Waters doing "Dark Side" at Coachella was one of the greatest shows I've ever seen.
He also did a set of different material.
All classics.
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Roger Waters doing "Dark Side" at Coachella was one of the greatest shows I've ever seen.
He also did a set of different material.
All classics.
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gee whiz, ben. since when did ring write pepper? ass!
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Although i love the music DCFC, Smashing Pumpkins and Roger Waters make, I shudder to think what I would say to these people in person, seeing as each one at one time or another has been a complete and total dickweed.
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Although i love the music DCFC, Smashing Pumpkins and Roger Waters make, I shudder to think what I would say to these people in person, seeing as each one at one time or another has been a complete and total dickweed.
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Although i love the music DCFC, Smashing Pumpkins and Roger Waters make, I shudder to think what I would say to these people in person, seeing as each one at one time or another has been a complete and total dickweed.
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Ugh, yet another reason to hate this pretentious dweeb. Fuck off with your herky-jerky 4 credit course lite rock and bow down to your master Waters.
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I saw the Pumpkins at Lollapalooza 94 at Randall's Island in NYC and had the same experience. Corgan was yelling "f-you! I'm a rock star!" at the audience, and I pretty much stopped liking them then and there as well. Beasties were great though, and so was P-Funk All Stars, Breeders Tribe Called Quest & Green Day. Courtney Love came out and played a solo set too - only a few months after Kurt offed himself. It poured rain the whole day and was one of the most fun days of my life in NYC.
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Billy Corgan is second on my list of Bald Singers I'd Like To Kick In The Nut-Sack (Phil Collins, incidentally, is first).
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Apparently no one here, or in the interview, knows that Pink Floyd - minus Roger Waters and led by David Gilmour - played DSOTM extensively during their 1994 tour. Obviously both Waters and Gilmour had a lot to do with creating that album, and both have played it live since Waters "left" the band post "The Final Cut", so if either one wishes to take it on the road, so be it. I think the real issue is sloppy journalism and some jumbled, unformed thoughts by a band that's usually pretty articulate (and decent, generous folks to boot). If I had done that interview I would have just left that part out, as it really didn't read well, make much sense, or have much to do with DCFC.
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You might want to update that "hasn't leaked yet" part up there. It just did.
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... because American grammar is just so fucking fantastic, as seen time and time again. Don't you have some 'standardization' to be getting on with, diclick?
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... because American grammar is just so fucking fantastic, as seen time and time again. Don't you have some 'standardization' to be getting on with, dicklick?
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