Hello Nick. For anyone who hasn't heard your smash hit, number one in the US, album 'Narrow Stairs' yet, what would they think of it if they heard it?

I hope they enjoy it, I really do. I'm very proud of this album. I think we all found a good place with the songs on this collection. There was a real good confidence and sense of self assuredness that happened in the studio this time around. So I hope that translates for the listener.

Our rock-cliché detector is flashing, are you about to tell us this is the best album you've ever made?

No I'm not! I'm not prone to judging our own albums that way. For us I think every album is like a child that you give birth to in the world and it's very hard to pick a favourite and say, "this one's better than all the rest of them." I think there are a lot of great moments on this record and certainly some of my most favourite ones. But I'll let the journalists and everyone else decide which is the best album.

Us journalists often talk about the 'difficult third album' but is the sixth album difficult or does that have an adjective of its own?

Ha ha. I don't really know that it does become difficult after that. We certainly got through most of our growing pains on our first few albums. I think, if there's any difficulty at all it's just continuing to push yourself and try some things that might make you uncomfortable. That goes for life in general. The older you get you have to seek out things that shake you up a little bit and challenge a lot of the things you've grown comfortable with. This album reflects where we're all at in our lives. It's as much a declaration of a desire to find new places and new spaces musically, as it is a confirmation of the things we know we're good at and like doing.

Good soundbite. You're very successful in the States, but not so much in the UK. Is that your fault or ours?

I think it's a combination of things. We were on a very small independent label for the first three albums and we didn't secure any distribution for here, until very late in the game. But things are growing.
So some of it's our fault and some of it's that we've never really been a very sensational band, so we've never really caught the eye of the prominent music press. There seems to be a fair amount of extra-curricular things that bands get involved with, that make the press. I think that's because, here in the UK, music is your Hollywood. We have plenty of famous celebrity actors and actresses in the States that give us all our fix of tabloid journalism, and it's really present with your musicians. We've never found our footing with that. Maybe we'll start. It's never too late to start some scandal.

We notice you haven't updated your blog since June 2007. Do you have nothing of interest to share with the world?

I haven't! I started writing and it was great and then one thing leads to another and you keep telling yourself, "Oh, I'll do it tomorrow..." And before you know it you're a week behind. And I started thinking that it was a really self-important decision to make, that my life was so interesting and my thoughts are so fascinating that people should be reading them. I just realised, I'm kind of a boring person! I just couldn't imagine that anyone would have read that stuff and gone, "Woah!"

This time last year you wrote you were worried about bees disappearing? Are you still worried about bees?

I am absolutely still worried about the bees. Colony collapse is a huge issue that not a lot of people are talking about. Everyone sees a bee here and a bee there and thinks everything is fine. But there are massive failures on honey bees and pollination. Once the bees go, we all go.

There are quite a lot of theories about what's happened to all the bees, none of them have mentioned suicide.

Massive bee suicide! I have yet to see that theory too. I think it's important to consider that some bees get fed up being just a cog in a larger bee machine.

The only fascinating fact we know about Death Cab For Cutie is that your drummer is Chloe from Smoosh's drum tutor. Can we have another fascinating fact please?

Well, I did hear that there's a princess that likes our band, Princess Eugenie. I'd like to offer her an open invitation if she wants to come to one of our shows.

And that's your first ever tabloid story, right there. And being British we'll make that one - almost non-existent - royal connection the main feature of the interview.

Oh no! I think that's all you really need, you can spin that out forever.

We'll try our best.

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