That hasn’t been a problem with Death Cab until now. Do you find that there are a lot of fans who just want to hear Transatlanticism?
Well, it’s my theory that whatever anybody’s first exposure to a band or an artist is, that will always be the best thing that the band or the artist does in the mind of that person. I mean, most people came across this band with Transatlanticism, and for probably a couple hundred thousand people that album will always be the best album we ever made. But for another set of fans, it was the second album, and for another set of fans it was the first album. So I just take that in stride. I mean, not every record can be the best record that you’ve ever made, and not every record can be everybody’s favorite. The thing that I like about this band is that because it’s grown at the gradual rate that it has, people have had five periods of its existence to get into it and figure out what they like about it.

What in your mind is the biggest difference between Transatlanticism and Plans?
We went into Transatlanticism with a pretty good idea of which songs we were going to record. But I think a lot of things about the record were just happy accidents. If there’s one big difference between that and Plans, it’s that we broke up the recording into a lot of chunks with Transatlanticism, so the record unfolded over a longer period of time. With Plans, we flew to the East Coast for a month, took a week off, and then went into the studio for another month to finish it. Also, a lot of songs I wrote for Plans were keyboard songs, songs that came together on the computer, a lot of cut-and-paste kind of stuff. So when we got into a room and started running through the songs, it wasn’t like we strapped on guitars and just barreled through it playing music together. Now, I’m making a conscious effort to spend more time on guitar, and I think we’re all more excited about constructing everything together in a room together. But I think that with every album you learn what works and what doesn’t work.

One last thing: have you had to beef up your live show for the larger venues?
I think we’ll always be comfortable just getting up and playing songs. But being on tour with Franz Ferdinand was a real eye opener for us. I think that we learned that when you get into larger venues and the tickets become more expensive, you can spend some money to make it more of an event. So we bring out a lighting director and we really try to fill the room. And from all accounts, people seem to enjoy the bigger production. We’re performing as well as we ever have, and we’re as personable as we’ve always been, and now we have this extra element. Because people do have to pay more money for tickets, and a lot of people who come to see us now expect a concert, not just a show. And if that stuff offends you, then don’t go to the show. I mean, if people don’t want to listen to our music anymore because of the way the band has grown over the last couple of years, I’m not going to lose sleep over it.

DEATH CAB FOR CUTIE | Opera House, 539 Washington St, Boston | November 2-3 | $29.50 | 617.931.2000

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