Paste: What did you used to covet that you’ve learned to live without?
Ben Gibbard: I don’t know if it’s necessarily that. I think it’s a struggle that a lot of musicians, or artists, have. There are a number of years through the growth of this band were I found myself focusing more on the people that didn’t like us than the people that did like us. Or the accolades that we weren’t getting, rather than the ones that we were. It’s the old adage of the band that is critically lauded curses the fact that they don’t have commercial success, and the band with commercial success wishes they had that critical acclaim. So I think that over the years, I sometimes was looking for validation in a lot of the wrong places. And certainly over the past few years, I’ve started to really focus on how unique our story is, how much people care about this band, and what a valuable part of my life it’s been. And I do not want to squander the time I have left or concern myself with the people that never cared for what we did, if that makes sense—being concerned about the awards we didn’t win.
