It’s going to be a good year for fans of Death Cab For Cutie. Later this month, they are set to hit the road on tour to celebrate the 20th anniversary of their album, Transatlanticism. This year also marks the 20th anniversary of the album, Give Up, from Death Cab lead vocalist Ben Gibbard’s electronic pop side project, The Postal Service.
While Give Up has become a cult classic in its own right, The Postal Service — which was comprised of Gibbard on vocals, Jenny Lewis on background vocals, and producer Jimmy Tamborello — has never reunited for a follow-up record. In a recent interview on the Kyle Meredith With… podcast, Gibbard revealed he has no plans to make a follow-up to Give Up, his reason being that the way artists produce music has evolved greatly over the past two decades.
“Anybody who’s been asking a second Postal Service record, like really ask yourself, after 20 years, do you really think that there’s gonna something we could make that could even satisfy half of the desire you have in your mind as to what this record would be like? Twenty years — a lot of technology has changed,” Gibbard said. “A lot of how we make music has changed dramatically since then. It wouldn’t be the same.”
He continued, saying, “I think often, when we think about the music that we love the most and the eras of a certain artist or a band that we love the most, we’re as much thinking about the sound. It’s not just the songs or how you were driving around in high school listening to it, wishing you could be anywhere other than the town that you’re living in — it’s the sound of it. Whatever we would make now would sound dramatically different than what we made 20 years ago, and I think it would be a disappointment even if we tried.”
This isn’t the first time Gibbard has ruled out the possibility of new music from The Postal Service. Back in 2021, he revealed to NME that while the supergroup attempted to make a follow-up record in 2004 and 2005, it just never came to fruition, and probably won’t.
“You want to never say never, but no one should be holding their breath waiting for Postal Service music coming any time soon,” Gibbard said. “We haven’t worked on anything. We stay in touch as friends, but that’s kind of the extent of it.”
The Postal Service will, however, reunite as part of the joint tour with Death Cab, which kicks off on Friday, January 27.
You can check out the full Kyle Meredith With… interview above.
Ben Gibbard and Death Cab For Cutie are Warner Music Artists. .
