Ben Gibbard likes to run.
From ultramarathons to morning jogs, the frontman of the Seattle alternative rock outfit Death Cab for Cutie has logged countless miles in recent years — including a sizable swath of Bay Area terrain. He loves to run the trails in the Oakland hills and, in 2019, completed his first 100-mile race in the Marin Headlands.
But it’s a souvenir from a run last summer that local fans can say they now share with Gibbard.
While staying with a friend in Bernal Heights, during a stop in the city with his wife on their way down to Big Sur, the songsmith was struck by the sight of two nuns during a morning run. Their white habits, he noted, offered a captivating contrast to the fog-drenched skyline.
“As I ran past them, it hit me that this was eerie looking,” he recalled. “I’d told myself if they were still there when I came back around, I was going to take a photo, so I just pulled my phone out and took one. Then I immediately sent it to the rest of the guys and said, ‘Hey, I have the cover of our next record.’ ”
That record, at the time, was still in its infancy. Recorded in late 2021 with producer John Congleton, “Asphalt Meadows” was released in September and features sonically ambitious cuts like spoken-word standout “Foxglove Through the Clearcut.” And Gibbard’s photo on Bernal Hill indeed serves as the album’s cover art.
Ahead of his band’s return to the Bay Area for two upcoming shows with Yo La Tengo at Oakland’s Fox Theater on Sunday and Monday, Oct. 23-24, Gibbard exclusively told The Chronicle about his fateful Bernal Hill encounter and why he considers the place so special.
“What I love about running on Bernal is there’s about a mile of stable track that goes around the top, so it’s a cool place to get some miles in when you’re on tour,” he said. “You get these 360-degree views of the city. It’s just incredible. It’s one of my favorite parts of San Francisco, and San Francisco is my second favorite city in America next to my home.”
Gibbard’s enthusiasm was palpable when he sent his bandmates the photo he’d just captured.
Bassist Nick Harmer, Death Cab for Cutie’s other remaining original member, remembers receiving the photo and not being sure if Gibbard was joking or serious. Regardless, he said he and the other guys in the group — guitarist Dave Depper, keyboardist Zac Rae, drummer Jason McGerr — were instantaneously into it.
“We all felt the vision right away,” Harmer confirmed. “It’s just such a striking image. It looked like an album cover, so it didn’t take much debate or back and forth. We didn’t even entertain any other possibilities, really.”
Before the band could commit to Gibbard’s photograph, though, he first had to ensure his iPhone-captured image would work at the necessary quality and scale. Luckily, Gibbard is married to someone with an ideal skill set: photographer Rachel Demy.
他认为一种印刷用纸和打捞,注意that she “was really the main reason this thing became the cover,” after tinkering with the image in her studio. If that didn’t work, Gibbard admitted he and the band considered re-creating the picture themselves.
“We thought about getting nuns’ habits, putting them on people and reshooting the photo,” he said, “but too much of what makes the photo great is the fog over San Francisco.”
As for how the cover art vibes with the sound of Death Cab’s latest offering, Harmer feels it’s not a reach to find themes of loneliness and despondency — as well as resiliency — present in both the sights and sounds of “Asphalt Meadow.”
“Personally, I gravitated towards (Ben’s photo) immediately,” Harmer said. “The image of the two figures standing, looking at a city. There was this close-but-not-touching feeling through so much of the pandemic that I saw in that image and that was present in Ben’s songwriting at that moment, too.”
Gibbard agrees. For him, both the best and worst aspects of the pandemic are encapsulated in his photograph.
“虽然它从未当我花了我的意图t,” he said, “that photo has taken on a lot of meaning for me. When I think about this record — and what we’ve been through — I see those nuns as these faceless, spiritual figures looking out for us on the hillside. They’re looking out over the city, which is shrouded in fog, and of course that fog is a metaphor for many things. They’re just watching and, in their own way, as much as they can, trying to direct us back to a place where we function together.”
Death Cab for Cutie:7:30 p.m. Sunday-Monday, Oct. 23-24. $59.50-$75. Fox Theater, 1807 Telegraph Ave., Oakland.thefoxoakland.com