Ben Gibbard Turns To Kerouac As Inspiration For New Death Cab for Cutie Album

Death Cab for Cutie's Ben Gibbard is following in Jack Kerouac's footsteps in search of inspiration for his band's next record. But fans expecting a rollicking ode to debauched living will be disappointed: It's not the beat poet's classic tale of youth and abandon On the Road that's on Gibbard's mind -- he's digging Kerouac's dark exploration of the perils of addiction and arrested development, Big Sur. "I don't want to be overdramatic about it, but I'm starting to see a lot of my bad habits get the best of me," Gibbard told the San Francisco Weekly. "Living this life in the same sorta way that Kerouac lived ... you get to hang out at shows and drink and you're able to not really face reality and adulthood the way most of my friends are."

Gibbard worked with Kerouac's nephew on a documentary about Big Sur that also includes contributions from Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Michael McClure, Tom Waits and Jay Farrar. Then the singer-guitarist found himself planning a two-week songwriting retreat at the Big Sur cabin where Kerouac wrote the 1962 novel; he plans to hole up and sort through ideas for the next Death Cab record there.

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Song Stories

“Baby Got Back”

Sir Mix-a-Lot | 1992

While watching a Budweiser commercial during the Super Bowl, Sir Mix-a-Lot thought the skinny female models in the ad didn’t represent reality. So he wrote this ode to ample bottoms, featuring its famous to-the-point lyric: “I like big butts and I cannot lie.” MTV banished the video, featuring shaking booties and sexually suggestive fruit, to 9 p.m. or later. “I thought my career was over,” he told Rolling Stone. “Then I called Rick Rubin, and I told him the video was banned, and he was like, 'Great!' We sold another 2 million records.”

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