Stereogum sat down with Death Cab For Cutie’s Ben Gibbard to talk about the ten year anniversary of Narrow Stairs:
I look back at that period of writing and it was really a much more personal, confessional period, even in relation to the albums on either side of it. To put it in context, we had made Transatlanticism, The O.C. happened, the band’s profile kind of grew exponentially very quickly, and then we signed to a major label. That process and that period of change and growth, having a whole new group of new people we were putting records out with at Atlantic Records versus the four people that worked at Barsuk, it was a stressful time. We signed to Atlantic because we wanted to reach more people. We worked harder than we’d ever worked before, we toured more than we’d ever toured before, we were doing so much press, the profile of the band had just really blown up.