Ben Gibbard says emo was mostly "pop-punkers who heard 'Pinkerton'"
Death Cab For Cutie‘s Ben Gibbard apparently has a bone to pick with early-2000s emo. He reduces most of the genre to “pop-punkers who heard [Weezer’s] Pinkerton and decided … to start talking about feelings” in a new interview with Noisey.
Read more: Norma Jean vocalist invites you to #MAGA?
Recalling the era of music surrounding early Death Cab album We Have The Facts And We’re Voting Yes—which Noisey calls a probable “emo classic”—the musician says he never wanted to be involved with the then-burgeoning emo scene:
“I was very disinterested in being attached to that music. Because a lot of it was just really bad. A lot of it was some pop-punkers who heard Pinkerton and decided they wanted to start talking about feelings. Seriously, listen to some of that stuff. It’s like they were into NOFX and then heard Pinkerton and were like, ‘Oh man, I got feelings! I’m a suburban white kid but I don’t really have the intellectual capacity to express these feelings in an interesting way so I’m going to speak about them in the most straightforward manner possible.'”
Death Cab’s new album Thank You For Today is out Aug. 17.
What do you think about Gibbard’s comments on emo? Do you agree with the Death Cab For Cutie singer’s take on pop-punk bands only going emo after hearing Weezer’s Pinkerton? Sound off in the comments and let us know your thoughts.
