In the 17 years since the release of debut album Something About Airplanes, several bands have come along that bear more than a strong sonic resemblance to Death Cab for Cutie. "People have been like 'Don't you think this band is totally ripping you guys off?'" frontman Ben Gibbard says. "It's like 'Dude!'" he adds with a laugh, "I'm in no position to throw stones for people sounding like me with all the people we sound like." As Gibbard openly admits, it's no secret that he and his long-running Seattle indie-rock outfit have drawn influences from a wide array of other artists, most notably Built to Spill. To mark the occasion of their sparer yet ever melodic new album Kintsugi, out today—the first album not produced by former band member Chris Walla who departed last year—Gibbard talked to Esquire on the phone and broke down his and his band's most notable musical influences.

The Cure

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"From the time I started listening to my own music—there's that period when you're an adolescent and early teen and you start to discover music on you own, whether it's from the radio or MTV—I immediately had this connection with the Cure. I know that's the same for Nick [Harmer] and Jason [McGerr], and I don't know if I can speak for Chris anymore, but I'll say Chris as well. Disintegration was the record that came out when I was 12 or 13, and as a young, very emotional preteen—my dad was in the Navy and we moved a lot—that record and songs like 'Pictures of You,' they really struck a chord with me. I just felt so connected to that music from such an early age. They're a band that as you grow older you might be embarrassed to admit you liked at one point or you have to say you liked them with a kind of smirk, as if certain bands are stepping stones to other bands. But that has value. I'm sure we're that band for some people. But for me the Cure are a band that I still listen to very often and there are still things in their music I have yet to discover. I'm still learning whenever I listen to them. They're still a huge influence on me."

Low

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"This is another band that we bonded over when we were first starting. I remember seeing them in 1994 at the OK Hotel in Seattle. I was 16 or 17. They were opening for Sunny Day Real Estate and Velocity Girl. I was there to see Sunny Day and Velocity Girl—I love those bands. Before Low had come out onstage I saw just this small bass amp, a snare drum, and a cymbal. I'm thinking 'What is possibly gonna happen? How does a band not have a kick drum?' They came out and played a set that to this day was a life-altering set of music. I couldn't believe how beautiful it was. It was music that I wasn't aware was possible but as soon as I heard it, it felt immediately familiar. It felt like something I'd been sent there to hear. I'd been sent to the show to hear this band. They just stole the show for me. I became a lifelong fan from that day forward. They're a band that we've toured with. What's fucked up is they've opened for us on tour. That doesn't feel right. We did a tour with an eight-piece string section a couple years ago and Low opened about a week of shows and we're kind of buddies with them now. There was a moment a couple shows in where I turned to Nick and was like, 'This isn't right! This isn't the way it's supposed to be. These guys aren't supposed to be opening for us. We're supposed to be opening for them.' But they were great. They didn't give a shit. They were just playing a show. I got to go out and play bass on one of their songs. It was a career highlight."

Built to Spill

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"It's probably fairly obvious. I was a huge fan of this band called Treepeople who were from Boise. They put out records in the late '80s, early '90s. There were two songwriters in the band and Doug Martsch was one of them. Doug did the poppy stuff and the other guys did the more punk stuff. And I would go see them and think, 'Oh my God. I love this guy with the beard. This guy's fantastic. I love his songs.' They were the songs I skipped around to on the record. And then there was his hubbub in the local press: 'Doug Martsch left Treepeople. He's doing a new project called Built to Spill.' So I got the record when it came out. And similar to Low, I was like 'Oh my God. The way he plays guitar is perfect. The way he sings is perfect. The melodies are amazing. The lyrics are fantastic.' People have joked that we almost started a Built to Spill cover band. Some of the early stuff was Built to Spill-ish to the point where maybe we should have owed them some royalties. It's the kind of comparisons people are going to draw. When you're young and you're still developing into who we became and when you're 20 or 21 years old, you wear your influences pretty hard on your sleeve. It's on you. If you don't want people to say you sound like Brian Wilson, then stop singing like Brian Wilson, you know? It's that simple. But at the time we didn't care. We didn't perceive ourselves as having any kind of real career. Built to Spill, they were like Led Zeppelin to us. Nobody cared that we sounded like them. We've played with Built to Spill a number of times since then and they're all really great guys."

Lloyd Cole

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"Just last week my girlfriend and I went to see him here in Seattle. He did a solo show. He's an English guy who was in a band called Lloyd Cole and the Commotions in the '80s and has been putting out solo records since the '90s. He's now is in his mid-fifties and has amassed this huge body of work. In the '90s I was a fan of his but not a huge, huge fan. And over the years I became more and more fanatic and more influenced by how he writes songs. There was this moment where we were watching him—he was just solo acoustic, played for like two hours and change, and the songs were so great, the audience loved him so much, and he was so gracious and elegant and he was funny. I turned to my girlfriend and said, 'This is what I want to be in 20 years. This is the guy I want to be. I want to be the guy who has amassed this body of work who can just go out with a guitar and charm the pants off people.' We were probably the youngest people by 15 years at the show. It was the moment where you're looking around and seeing a lot of gray hair and thinking, 'It's pretty phenomenal that after all these years, you're looking at a guy who has been making records since the '80s, and a lot of these people were listening to these records when they were 20, and those records affected these people's lives enough that they're still coming out.' It was clear to me what the power of a songwriter can be and something to aspire to. You continue working and building a body of work that can live with you throughout your entire life."

Mark Kozelek

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"Chris was the first person who introduced me to Red House Painters and I just fell in love with it immediately. To this day Rollercoaster is one of my top five records of all time. Throughout the years I've become friends with Mark and we keep in contact and see each other when we're in each other's cities. Seeing his evolution as a songwriter and as a musician has just been unbelievable. Not only just the tone and the way he writes songs, but also just seeing that at whatever age, he's making the best music of his life. Benji is potentially the best record he's ever made. And then seeing how his approach to lyricism has changed, how he went through a period where he was playing a lot of classical guitar and killing that. The way he wrote lyrics in 1996 is drastically different than the way he writes lyrics now. He's obviously not without his controversies, but at the same time he's a constant source of inspiration to me. I look forward to what he does next in a way that's unique. I'm interested in my friend's records because we've been growing up together and making records throughout the years and I want to be a part of their evolution and I'm a fan. But with Mark's music it's like I'm aware that I really have something to learn. I pay attention in a different way. I know there's something in these records that I need to take away and learn from. To be able to watch somebody experiment with a new style of writing and maybe stumble a bit at first but then really make it hit where everything clicks into place is really inspiring."

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