Guess who is in Runner’s World magazine? Ben Gibbard, who introduces himself as ‘I play in the band Death Cab for Cutie, and I’m a runner’. The way he says it sounds more like an introduction during an AAmeeting, but we are not too far away from this thought actually, as he said he beganr unning 4 years ago to remove bad habits and pick up some good ones. I suppose he is talking about alcohol.
I also totally get what he says when he compares running with addiction, and this quest to catch that first high,… just like drug users, we are all addicts, us runners. He admits that he is carrying a treadmill on tour,and he has never looked in better shape!
Ben is sharing his new passion in a long interview and a short motivation video to make us understand how someone like him can gradually increase a daily running routine and become a Marathon runner. He said he wanted to beat another famous marathon runner, Flea, who is in ‘great shape’. And despite the weather being the worst this year for the LA Marathon, Ben did the very good time of 3:56:34, only 4 minutes behind Flea!
Of course he is listening to music while running, like most of us, but rarely to his music. He is sometimes previewing records he has just bought (currently the newest Seasons record, I know this band!), but the songs that pump him up are either a mashup of Ludacris and ‘Sentimental Mouths’ by She & Him, or ‘Burning inside’ by Ministry, or ‘Lazer Beam’ by a Seattle hip-hop group.
And if you really need a comparison between songwriting and running, Ben is really seeing an interesting parallel there:
‘Running and songwriting share a similar principle in that,if you've reached a hard part, you kind of have to work through it. When it doesn't feel good, you have to work through it. Every time you pick up an instrument to write a song, you're not going to feel incredible. How you transcend that difficult part–the part where a wall goes up–as a runner or a musician, defines who you are. If you walk away, you may be leaving a brilliant idea before it's come to fruition. Maybe once you work through that wall, you could be onto something great. It could also not be that great. Some of the songs I'm most proud of, I wrote in 15 minutes. Others took two weeks, and came after I broke through the walls that were up in those songs for me.
Being a runner–especially in running a marathon–means you have to overcome that wall. You may walk a little, but at the same time, you have to get to the finish line. There's no cab that's going to take you home.That same principle is very present in being a songwriter. When you have those uninspired moments, you have to power through them. You have to see how they work out.’
He is quite convincing, too bad that Zooey Deschanel is running away with Joseph Gordon Levitt these days