Title & Registration

[January 23rd, 2008]

Chris Walla is known for many things: He plays guitar with Northwest indie-rock cum pop giants Death Cab For Cutie; he’s produced every DCFC album, as well as records for such big-name acts as the Decemberists and Tegan and Sara. In addition to filling those roles, Walla’s a songwriter himself.

And his solo debut, Field Manual, garnered attention well before its release: In October, the Department of Homeland Security seized the album’s master files (via the hard drive from Walla’s laptop) during their transport across the Canadian border. Field Manual ’s confiscation was rumored to be content-related, as the album’s gentle, positive-message pop is political in nature. The DHS, which returned the hard drive a week later, claims the files were held as “commercial merchandise.”

Walla, a 32-year-old Bothell, Wash., native, spoke with WW from his Portland home about the hard-drive incident, how “Death Cab” his album is and what it’s like to focus on his own music for a change.

WW: How does it feel to finally give your own music the kind of attention you so often give to other people’s songs?
Walla: It feels weird to do a whole album’s worth of stuff. I’ve been writing songs for years, so that part doesn’t feel so awkward. It was more just doing a full 10-12-14-16 tracks at a time. That was the weirdest.

What’s weird about it?
Discovering that I’m kind of incapable of producing my own record completely myself. I really only finished three to four songs myself. Then I was totally burned out. I had to decide whether or not I wanted the record to be done. When I decided yes I hired...old-school English producer Warne Livesey.

Do you have a hard time asking for help?
I have a hard time asking for help with stuff that I don’t feel like I’m supposed to ask for help with. If this was someone else’s record and I’d been hired...I’d feel really weird about calling somebody else in. But it’s my thing and it’s my songs.

What are your feelings on the inevitable Death Cab and Ben Gibbard comparisons?
I’m totally fine with that. If people were like, “Dude, it’s totally a Death Cab ripoff,” I’d be a little sad ’cause I’ve been playing in that band since it started—there are some similarities. I think that if this points out for people what I do in that band, that’s great. If it points out exactly what I don’t do in that band, for better or worse, that’s totally great.

Is it daunting to be linked to so many great songwriters and then step out on your own?
Yes and no. If there is any single thing I really focused on for this record...it was getting to a place where I was really proud of it. I’m strangely disaffected by it, like I can’t wait to see that 2- to 3-point review that comes out on Pitchfork.

Most timeless political songs aren’t overly specific; is Field Manual intentionally vague?
I did make a conscious effort actually, yeah. Why is it that—to write a protest song is so hopelessly uncool? I think it has to do with the fact that there’s a script for it. And the script is for a play that people don’t necessarily want to remember. They don’t really like the outcome or the players.

Since the attention over the confiscation of your hard drive, do you think people are going to look for the political side of the album?
I sort of hope so. First and foremost, I hope that people just enjoy it as a pop album. I typically don’t like to be browbeaten during the course of a record.

You weren’t bashful about being pissed off about that. Is it all water under the bridge?
Well, yeah. My anger, my distaste and distrust was based on the fact that we didn’t have any information for what was going on. And when I talked about it being a black hole and [said on my blog], “It may as well be at Guantánamo,” that was based on...this massive disconnect. It was implied in the AP story that the drive was confiscated because of its [political] content. The border has enough Fourth Amendment issues to deal with, without getting involved in First Amendment issues. [The DHS] took great offense to the Guantánamo comment...[but] that’s fair game! It’s a real black hole. I stand by that as marginally funny. The whole thing was basically a huge misunderstanding.