Ben Gibbard was overwhelmed by his memories.
It started a few years ago on the joint anniversary tour that the Postal Service and Death Cab for Cutie put on to celebrate 20 years of Give Up and Transatlanticism. Each night, the frontman would travel back in time, tap into his 26-year-old self and deliver convincing, vulnerable performances. But offstage, Gibbard was finding it difficult to switch back and forth between the past and present as his personal life took a rough turn. The frontman was going through a separation from photographer Rachel Demy, who he married in 2016. By 2024, the couple filed for divorce.
“I was having to do a lot of compartmentalization,” Gibbard, 49, tells Rolling Stone. He’s sitting in the lobby of the Bowery Hotel, with Death Cab guitarist Dave Depper next to him. Gibbard sips on a hot Americano as he lays out the metaphor that helped him cope over the past few years. “I started to just have these visions of my life as a skyline. It’s like you’re looking at it from an aerial. You can see all these different size buildings and they all house different memories,” he says. “The memories of all those people, those times exist in the buildings and you can visit them, you can go open the door and say hello.”
The idea for Death Cab’s 11th studio album, I Built You a Tower was born out of that metaphor. “It’s putting the wonderful memories and the very painful ones into this edifice, trying to lock the door from the outside,” Gibbard says. “It’s like, ‘you stay in there, I can’t have you out of that building,’ but there’s always a moment where they escape … even though you think you’ve made an emotional break from that period or that time, it all kind of comes rushing back.”
With understated, melancholic melodies and gut-wrenching lyrics, I Built You a Tower details the cataclysmic experience of facing the past head-on — and the grief that comes with it. Over the course of 11 tracks, Gibbard and co detail everything from devastating heartbreak to hard-won acceptance, using every memory as a roadmap.
That trajectory becomes apparent on the turning point of the LP, “Stone Over Water,” which is out today ahead of the album’s release on June 5. “I’m trying to hold it together,” Gibbard admits over a quintessentially Death Cab drum beat before realizing, “I can scream and shout / Or learn to live without.”
I Built You a Tower marks Death Cab’s first album since 2022’s Asphalt Meadows. Between releases, the band has experienced pivotal full-circle moments, the pendulum of time pushing them back into the past and informing their future. In 2023, they were on the road for the aforementioned anniversary tours, a Millennial nostalgia dream come true with so much demand that Death Cab extended their run with more dates. A year later, they found themselves leaving Atlantic Records, their major label home for the past two decades.
It almost comes as no surprise, then, that their new record is the first project in years where they’ve managed to tap into the magic of early-aughts records like The Photo Album and Transatlanticism that transformed them from indie darlings into rock icons. “I wanted to recreate the process of how I wrote those early songs,” Gibbard says. “But hopefully with the emotional intelligence and skillset I’ve developed as a songwriter at almost 50.”
While making Asphalt Meadows, Gibbard began digitizing 4-track demo tapes from Death Cab’s early years, uncovering instrumentals from the band’s inception and reminding the frontman of his old writing process. “The songs that have resonated the best over the years have been the ones that are very transparent and emotionally honest and earnest. The times that I’ve gotten away from that have been the songs of the records that haven’t hit the same way,” Gibbard says, making a point to name 2011’s Codes and Keys in particular. At the time, he was living in Los Angeles and married to actress Zooey Deschanel. “I didn’t want to be as transparent and honest out of self-protection,” he admits. “That is by far the least transparent, least emotionally resonant record that I think we ever made.”
But playing an open-hearted record like Transatlanticism to a live audience every night showed Gibbard that Death Cab’s vulnerability has always been their superpower. “It just made me realize that this is the resonant element of the band, this is the reason that there are 18,000 people at Madison Square Garden,” he says.
As Death Cab takes inspiration from their past work, it’s less about a nostalgia grab and more about using the energy behind that early music to revitalize them as a band. “Those anniversary tours really cleared the slate for me,” Depper says, who joined Death Cab in 2015. “We’ve honored the past, but I want to imbue some of those feelings into what we’re doing now.”
One way Death Cab are honoring their past is by returning to an independent label for the first time in more than 20 years. “We initially had plans to do one more record with Atlantic,” Gibbard says. But after a major shake-up at the label forced longtime chairman and COO Julie Greenwald out, they changed courses. “We were like, ‘We need to get the fuck out of here,’’ Gibbard says. Before she left, Greenwald even helped Death Cab get out of a newly minted contract, a move that he points to as “a true testament to her and her dedication to this band, in the midst of her losing her job, she was willing to do what it took.”
I Built You a Tower will be released under ANTI Records, Epitaph’s sister label. For Death Cab, the return to an indie is a homecoming of sorts. “It felt so refreshing to be back in a room with people that were culturally of our world,” Gibbard says, recalling the first meeting with Epitaph owner Brett Gurewitz and former head of A&R Alison Crutchfield. “I can really count on one hand in the 20 years at Atlantic the number of people that we felt we had some true similar musical vocabulary” he adds, “It feels like we’ve landed back in a place that we feel very comfortable at.”
Depper agrees. “It comes at a great time for us, like having sort of a tabula rasa moment after those anniversary tours,” he says. “I’m sure we would have made a great album with Atlantic again, but having this prism to focus this energy through in terms of releasing it, it just feels completely right.”
Nearly 30 years after their inception, it’s clear Death Cab have hit a whole new stride, proving time and time again the power of their resonant indie rock. But this fate never felt like it was in the cards for the band. Back in 2005, in an interview for the band’s Plans record following their mainstream rise, Gibbard told Rolling Stone, “I don’t think I’m a pessimist for saying that I know for a fact that this band is not going to last forever and I’m probably not going to be as successful doing music as I am now in 20 years. That’s the reality and I’d rather acknowledge it than dread it.”
Gibbard isn’t surprised to hear that what he calls his “fatalist nature” was alive and well decades ago. “I would rather prepare for the worst… I probably would give you a very similar answer now,” he says with a laugh. Death Cab bassist Nick Harmer has even coined the term “Gibbard’s wager” to describe the frontman’s betting style. Gibbard explains: “When the Seattle Mariners were in the playoffs, I would bet on them to lose and then if they win, I would lose money, but I’m happy, right? And if they lose, as I think they’re going to do, I make money, right?”
“I, for one, am delighted you were wrong,” Depper chimes in, raising his eyebrows.
At this point, the coffee that remains in their cups has gone cold, and our time is almost up. Gibbard relents.
“I never would have seen this. There’s no fucking world that I think this would be my life,” he says. “The longer I get to do this, the more grateful I am and the more locked in and the more focused I am. More than ever in my life, I feel the utmost responsibility to the catalog, to the fans, to make sure that we’re not fucking around.”
Taylor Swift and Bad Bunny in a split image
Taylor Swift and Bad Bunny Dealt With Trump Quietly. It’s a Smart Move
Taylor Swift and Bad Bunny are both major superstars — and they’ve shared some parallels in their careers and discographies for several years. Now, they’re even using the same playbook to deal with taunts and baiting from Donald Trump and the White House’s social media teams.
Since Trump took office during his second term, he and his administration have been using social media as part of their communication strategy. The propaganda-like, rage-bait-style clips often lean into internet culture and use popular music to make light of Trump’s most egregious actions, like his immigration policy and war-hungry foreign policy.
Olivia Rodrigo, Katy Perry, Ariana Grande, and Noah Kahan are just some of the artists who have had their music used in these videos without their permission — and vehemently spoken out against these actions and against the president. In the past couple of weeks, the Trump administration seems to have wanted to provoke a response from two of the world’s biggest superstars: Bad Bunny and Swift.
On July 30, the official White House TikTok used “La Mudanza” for a particularly tone-deaf video about immigration that celebrated the number of deportations under Trump. A week later, a video with text that said, “mood because it’s August and Donald Trump is your president” set to Swift’s “August” was uploaded by Team Trump, the president’s official campaign account. The caption was an overt provocation: “I’m sure Taylor Swift is going to be super excited we used her song,” it read. Days later, another clip from the same account featured an edited version of Swift’s Red album cover with text that said, “Did you know that Taylor Swift wrote a whole album about the color of the Republican Party?”
Neither musician has released a public statement denouncing the use of their music in Trump’s videos. Instead, two of the world’s biggest superstars quietly removed their songs from videos posted by official accounts linked to the Trump administration. (It’s unclear if there is a TikTok feature that allows selective sound muting on videos or if the respective teams reached out to the social media accounts directly.) The tracks are still available for other TikTok accounts to use in their videos, making their silence a pointed — and smart — approach. Both Bad Bunny and Swift seem to recognize the president and his administration’s tactics for what they are: antagonizing moves that keep the Trump conversation centered on his social media presence, rather than his actual policies and the harm they commit. Why would they add their star power to the conversation and stoke the flames when that’s exactly what the White House appears to want?
Some people argue that celebrities should wield their platform to denounce Trump at any chance if they are truly not politically aligned with his MAGA politics. But because they hold so much influence, these superstars need to be strategic about how they use it.
Benito, in particular, has been incredibly outspoken about his politics. He stood on two of the world’s biggest stages and used them to voice pro-immigration messages, denounce Trump’s policies, and highlight Puerto Rico as it struggles with the effects of U.S. imperialism. “Before I say, ‘Thank God,’ I’m going to say, ‘ICE out,’” the Puerto Rican superstar said at the 2026 Grammys. “We’re not savage. We’re not animals. We’re not aliens. We are humans and we are Americans.” Last summer, Bad Bunny’s music video for “Nuevayol” used a voice that sounds a lot like the president’s to deliver a pro-immigrant message. “I made a mistake. I want to apologize to the immigrants in America. I mean the United States. I know America is the whole continent,” the voice bellows out of a Seventies radio toward the end of the video. “I want to say that this country is nothing without the immigrants.”
Fans were convinced that Benito would speak out against the official White House TikTok account when it used one of his most political songs. But commenting on the video would only blow up the discussion for a wider audience. When Rodrigo, Perry, Grande, and Kahan made public comments, spokespeople for the White House used the opportunity to spread hateful rhetoric. “We’ll say this one last time: what’s actually barbaric, inhumane, and heinous are the criminal illegal aliens who have injured and murdered innocent American citizens,” Abigail Jackson said in a statement to Rolling Stone after Grande spoke out. It’s the antithesis of what Benito said during his Grammys speech this year: “The only thing more powerful than hate is love.”
Swift, on the other hand, has dealt with Trump and the right-wing’s instigations for years, each one crazier than the last. The TikTok videos from the last week aren’t even the first time that the administration has used the singer’s music for social media videos. Last fall, both the official White House TikTok account and Team Trump used songs from Swift’s then-newly released The Life of a Showgirl in separate videos. One plucked the lyrics “pledge allegiance to your hands, your team, your vibes” from “The Fate of Ophelia” to celebrate Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and the first and second ladies. The others boasted about Trump by using “Father Figure” and honored Melania Trump’s Patriot of the Year award with “Opalite.” As of Aug. 10, the audio is not available under all of these specific videos.
The pop superstar has not spoken publicly about these instances. But she has made her disdain for Trump clear. Over the years, Swift has criticized Trump’s autocratic leadership. On X, she wrote “we will vote you out” and endorsed Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in the 2020 and 2024 elections, respectively. In 2019, Swift told Rolling Stone, “There’s literally nothing worse than white supremacy. It’s repulsive. There should be no place for it.”
Even though she’s shared her liberal viewpoints on issues like abortion, LGBTQ+ rights, and racial inequality, Swift has still faced ridiculous claims of being MAGA-aligned and folding in right-wing dog whistles to her music — and that’s without ever naming Trump. If Swift were to make a statement about her music being used by the Trump administration, the attention-seeking president would absolutely revel in it. Getting Swift and Bad Bunny to weigh in is exactly the type of headline grabber he would love to draw attention from his remarkably unpopular presidency.