Author: Faye Bradley and Sarah Wei

Vivarium Director Lorcan Finnegan on Irish Folklore in Film & Dystopian Cities

Interview by Sarah Wei and Faye Bradley

Lorcan Finnegan’s exploration into uncanny dystopia settings started way before Vivarium, the highly-praised debut featuring Imogen Poots and Jesse Eisenberg. His career began in creating surreal absurdist content for Zeppotron, one of Charlie Brooker’s early ventures before Black Mirror, where he began shooting sketch comedy and motion graphics. Fast forward through his career, Finnegan started his own company Lovely Productions to pursue independent short films, which followed with Foxes, Without Name and Vivarium. The Irish director has been busy since and is working on several projects on the go including an upcoming film with Eva Green and Mark Strong.

We spoke with Finnegan on his key themes interwoven in each film, including what makes a dystopia, sociopolitical systems and Irish folklore.

Faye Bradley: Could you give us a bit of background on yourself and how you got into filmmaking?

Lorcan Finnegan: I studied graphic design originally – I thought at the time that graphics was more like motion graphics, you know, from watching things like the Channel Four logo coming together and stuff like that. So I was like, oh yeah, that looks cool. Graphic design. And then I studied graphic design and it turned out to be mostly about print. But I started experimenting with animation in college, just sort of teaching myself some motion graphics and animation and I made a couple of short films, like fake trailers for movies, and a stop motion interactive game and stuff like that. When I graduated, I was really into absurdist comedy. So I was watching a lot of American and British surreal and absurdist comedy and was watching a show called Unnovations which was like a fake shopping channel comedy show and I got in touch with the creators of the show at Zeppotron in London. And I asked if I could get a job doing whatever. They were starting to make comedy content for the very first mobile phones with video that came preloaded with content. So I ended up getting a job with them and ended up editing some of this comedy content. They gave me a camera course and I started shooting some sketch comedy on a PD 150, which is a mini DV camera and doing motion graphics and intro sequences to the sketches and stuff like that.

That company actually ended up making Black Mirror much later – it was Charlie Brooker’s company. Then I started creating sketches myself with my friends in Dublin. I’d borrow equipment from work and fly back and make stuff with my friends. And then I realised that I preferred not working for anybody. So I started a small company, just to make my own stuff and started applying for short script awards and funding to try and get stuff made.

My first short film that had a budget was called Changes – it’s about two caterpillars in love and when they emerge after metamorphosis, with one of them has turned into an unpleasant butterfly. She’s really mean to the other butterfly and they break up. It did well and won some festivals.

From there, I got to make more. I got funding for another short film called Defaced. I was putting everything I was doing on the internet. It was at a time when YouTube was really just coming up. Its content was user-generated and they were trying to get more short films and things like that. So a lot of people ended up seeing the shorts that I was making. And then an ad agency got in touch asking if I could direct a TV commercial in this style. So I started doing some TV commercials and music videos and that kind of thing. So it was kind of an organic transition from graphic design to filmmaking. I think once you start making films, there’s definite interest in feature films since it’s a big challenging project to take on, to create an entire movie. So that’s what I’m doing at the moment.

FB: Your feature film Vivarium came out in 2019 which was actually before the pandemic hit. How do you think the meaning of the film has changed since its launch, with reference to concepts like self-isolation and people’s views of the future?

LF: So Vivarium was coming out in March and I was in France. It came out in France first and then it was supposed to come in the U.S., in late March, early April. So I was in Paris and a lot of people came to see the film on the day of release but there was already a fear of coronavirus and people were a little bit wary. The next day the government started shutting down the schools and the following day they shut down cinemas. So it was a bit of a bummer. And then I had planned on doing a US promotional thing with Jesse and Imogen and then suddenly everything closed there too.

I was lucky, first of all, to make the film and I got to travel a lot to festivals and all that kind of thing. But then it took on this other life of its own when people were watching it during lockdown. A couple stuck in a house with a child that was driving them crazy, not being able to go anywhere. You know, Jesse’s character, Tom contracts a mysterious illness and he starts coughing. There’s a book showing some sort of strange virus that seems to be dividing into a man and woman with this child in the middle. So there are all these weird coincidences. In some ways, if you’re interested in collective consciousness, in which humans all share similar ideas and thought patterns, then maybe it was inevitable that we were going to make this film to be released for to watch during quarantine. It’s certainly interesting but I’ve never got to see it from that perspective. When you make a film, you never really get to see it as an audience member would. And even then the experience I’d have wouldn’t be the same as seeing somebody seeing during lockdown as a completely fresh thing. Did you guys see it during lockdown?

Paradigm Haus: We did yes. I think it was kind of like April or May last year.

LF: Right. It must have taken on a whole other meaning, but I think maybe it did no harm in a way because it’s quite existential in a lot of regards. So, I imagine people had a lot of time to think about their life and the future and what they would like life to be perhaps, while they were stuck at home.

FB: You mentioned quite a bit about Irish folklore in your film. How do you think this Irish folklore or these stories have influenced your creative processes?

LF: It’s interesting. It’s hard to tell what parts are folklore for me. Greek mythology, Roman mythology and those stories because they generally have a dual purpose. Their narratives are there to steer society or give whoever’s listening to the story some sort of moral guidance. And that’s sort of the function of folklore in many ways. There’s a lot of fairy stuff, I guess that could be related to Vivarium and Without Name. But Irish fairies aren’t really, you know, like Tinkerbell or anything. It’s much more of an idea that nature is an entity in itself and it sort of manifests as the faerie rather than a fairy and you know, there are ideas that they live under hills and all that kind of things. So, I’ve seen people draw parallels between Martin and some sort of changeling and that fairies live underground. So, I mean, maybe subconsciously there is an element of that. But it wasn’t put into the film as some sort of Irish folklore, but at the same time, I think our role, Garrett and I work together at creating these stories that could be, considered as modern folklore, because the means of telling stories now is different to when like people sat around the fire, before electricity. Now you can have an audiovisual story being told and it can still be folklore essentially.

Sarah Wei: Are there any futuristic concepts you’ve integrated into your films to kind of enhance this dystopic theme? Like where did they come from – are they parallel universes?

LF: Vivarium was influenced a lot by art, architecture and film. The idea of the lifting of the curb, I think came from like a Bansky painting, like lifting a curtain on the side of the street and sweeping stuff underneath, which sort of drew a parallel between what’s underneath, what’s behind, what’s the kind of machinery that’s driving consumer-capitalist society is never something that we really see and it’s sort of behind the curtain. So I think that’s where that idea came from. But yeah, I mean I was influenced by people like Roy Andersson, David Lynch’s films and Todd Haynes’ film Safe.

It’s also been a while since I’ve made the film – I’m currently making another film. So it’s hard to remember where all the various influences come from. But I don’t think it was so much thinking about this topic, worlds or dystopia, trying to do a film version of that. It’s more that we’re trying to explore themes, and through these themes create dystopic sort of environments for the stories play within. And that version of dystopia, it’s just this world of homogenous, characterless, de-humanised, gigantic housing developments. This was what was inspired by Foxes and what really went on after the crash in 2008 – all these abandoned housing developments with people living there and they were really trying to get out of their predicaments, but they were trapped there because they bought a house that cost way too much money and the banks wanted the mortgage paid back and all of that. So on a kind of parallel, the world we were creating for Vivarium was like an amplification of all of that in order to show how strange and absurd real-life would be if we all decided to that let a capitalist mindset just go for it – that’s what you’d end up with because they would literally strip back all of the natural world and cement you into little boxes that make it very easy to predict your behaviour and bleed you dry in order to just expand and keep growing, a little bit like Yonder itself. So, yeah, I mean, that probably leads to the whole technology thing as well, where like, you know, what the problem is with the future and all of this. Yeah. But it doesn’t look good.

FB: What is your take on us living through this internet age with all this new technology in a virtual reality-driven future?

LF: So I saw an article about cows in Japan wearing VR headsets that were showing green pastures that made calmer and produce more milk. It’s a pretty grim concept, but yeah, I mean, it’s strange. It’s strange, but there’s the version of the future where everyone just kind of goes along with it and just keeps on allowing their data out and all of that kind of thing, which is one version of one trajectory, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it became more punk and new wave to reject all of that and start taking privacy more seriously.

They may start using technology to better society rather than just kind of continuing in this sort of untenable pyramid scheme where people end up quite unhappy because they’re in a pursuit of happiness that is actually not real. It’s something that’s advertised. So I guess that’s the difference between individualism and community and all of that.

Technology is bringing people together in a lot of ways, but it’s also alienating people and isolating them and giving them sort of a false sense of reality. So, yeah, it’ll be interesting to what happens. I don’t have the answers to how we save ourselves from a horrible world like Yonder in Vivarium, but I think it’s up to the younger generations as well. There’s a responsibility for everybody to leave behind a world to the next generation, but then it’s also up to the next generations to visualise the kind of world that they want to live in and then make that into reality

SW: Yonder exists as its own community – there were only two people. Did you ever think about adding the other variables of neighborhood – more people and neighbors and stuff – and how does that kind of affect the society?

LF: Well with Vivarium, the idea is quite abstract. As we were developing the story, we conceptualised that there are other people in the houses, but they can’t see each other, which is sort of mirroring subdivisions and these sort of housing developments on commuter belts where people don’t actually know their neighbours and never see them because everyone is working all the time. We were also interested in string theory while working on this as well, that each home is sort of vibrating at a frequency that the next home is out of sync with. When Gemma goes underneath the curb and experiences the other houses, it’s as if she’s able to pass through these other dimensions and see there are people going through the exact same kind of things. And some people are handling it better than others. The idea was that the place is actually full of people, but nobody can talk to each other. They’re all trapped in their own little worlds.

SW: What do you think post-modern culture would look like? In the context of Vivarium, there wasn’t much of that community culture that we get in regular neighbourhoods or in this kind of like ghost estates, how they were kind of created from scratch?

LF: Maybe I’m just optimistic, but I have a feeling that people are starting to feel the absence of community in society. And I think that even during the whole lockdown, people are starting to notice and appreciate the smaller things like that, like knowing the people down the road and your neighbour, spending time locally and shopping locally and all of that kind of thing. Maybe that could be a positive takeaway from the whole pandemic, that there’s more of a veering towards respect and admiration and desire for community rather than pre pandemic when it was everyone was so busy working and trying to reach goals that were impossible and not spending enough time to just enjoy life and see their family and friends.

I’d like to think that post-modern society is more focused on community and producing local products and supporting the local community and less about giant corporations owning everything. Even like 20 years ago, you know, if you go traveling, each city fell quite different, you know, different shops. I remember people would come back from France with H&M clothes and you’re like, oh, cool you got that in France. Whereas now every high street is pretty much the same, everywhere in the world has the same stuff, which makes it all a bit boring, you know? It would be nice to see less of that and more choice and more local-based business. The film I’m working on now is sort of dealing with fast fashion and exploitation. I think people expect everything to be cheap. Therefore these giant companies do well because they buy up all of the smaller shops and offer people cheaper things. I think that if people appreciate spending money on things that lasted longer the community will do better and everyone would probably be happier.

FB: Do you have any recurring themes or themes that you would like to explore more in your filmmaking?

LF: It seems that these films have a cyclical theme to the nature of the narrative. When you’re making a film, you need to care about it – the themes that you’re trying to explore – enough to fuel the duration of development up to pre-production, production, post-production, you know because the whole process takes years. So it needs to be something you’re passionate about. The current film obviously I’m very passionate about. It has interesting themes on folklore and culture and cultural differences from the east and the west. It’s about a Filipino nanny who moves into the home of a fashion designer who is suffering from a mysterious illness and she uses a traditional folk healing to reveal a horrifying truth.

I’m working on another project with the same writer that’s about war, creating monsters in order to start wars and steal natural resources. So I suppose they’re quite universal themes that explore humanity but in a slightly sci-fi or genre way. The narratives wrapped up in a way that’s engaging I hope, but also it is multilayered and people get to disseminate it afterwards.

SW: Can you take us through how your creative process starts? Does it start from these themes that you were just talking about, like what’s topical, for example?

LF: It’s not like we think, oh, what’s topical? It’s more about what are we interested in and the starting point can be different for different projects. For example, the war film was inspired by paintings in the National Gallery here of David and Goliath. David is standing over Goliath and he looks like he’s about 15. Goliath is looking at him with sad eyes, not wanting his head to be chopped off. He looks like a sympathetic character and that image is what inspired the story. And with Vivarium, I suppose it was socio-political events that ended up inspiring the story because we made Foxes based on what was going on. And then that developed into Vivarium

With Without Name, it’s about a land surveyor who ends up trapped in this forest being protected by an entity. I think that was kind of vaguely inspired by a documentary about the Finnish nuclear waste disposal programme, burying nuclear waste underground and sealing it up because it will be dangerous for the next 2000 years and how they warn future generations not to go down there as it we don’t even know what language people will speak in the distant future. I guess that Garrett and I talk to each other a lot, so we ended up discussing these ideas and themes – talking and watching stuff and talking and watching stuff and then stories start to emerge and then I gather visuals and we watch a lot of films, documentaries, share them with each other and then the writing process starts and that can go for a couple of years. Generally, it takes maybe three or four years from the beginning of an idea to getting it into production.

SW: Would you say there’s any period in history of artists that you feel most inspired by or nostalgic for? Would you want to explore these even more in the future?

LF: Hmm, not really a period in time. I mean, in terms of films, I think I’m inspired by the sixties and seventies because they were a little bit more free. They were breaking the mold and experimenting and making really interesting films.

Now, there are new techniques emerging and new types of filmmaking coming out. But in terms of a time, not really, I mean, I’m interested in doing a prehistory story, set in the bronze age. There’s an amazing museum here in Dublin with preserved bodies which were found in bogs from the bronze age. There’s a guy who you can see who had his hair slicked back and has been preserved – he has his nipples cut off and apparently Kings used to have their nipples sucked and they cut his nipples off so they could never become King. So you know, it was an interesting time.

SW: What elements do you think make up a dystopian society? How do you integrate that into film?

LF: Ultimately a dystopia is like the opposite of utopia. And I think a lot of that comes from the feeling of dehumanisation, a lack of control and love, happiness, humanity, all those kind of things. I think with Vivarium, what we’re trying to do is create a very synthetic world that was tangible, but fake. So the boy was only mimicking a human only in order to reproduce like a brood parasite. He was completely devoid of humanity and the place is devoid of nature. The food is vacuum packed, processed and stuff just arrives boxes. So to me, that is a horrible nightmarish dystopia where everything looks the same and everything’s synthetic and there’s no nature anywhere to be found.

This article is from our interview feature on Lorcan Finnegan available to read in print. Get your limited edition copy here.

All images courtesy of Lorcan Finnegan.

22 July 2022
Thomas Nuding of SARAH Sea Rescue Tells of Refugee Missions in the South of Europe

For the past five years, Thomas Nuding, the Managing Director of Search and Rescue for All Humans (SARAH) has been on an active mission to rescue refugees crossing both the Mediterranean and the Atlantic.

Interview by Sarah Wei and Faye Bradley

This is the uncut conversation from our feature on ‘Sea Rescue in the South of Europe’ coming out 2022 in print.

Paradigm Haus: Can you start by telling us what your experiences have been so far, from reporting and being on missions during the refugee crisis.

Thomas Nuding: Let me start with my intentions. In the summer of 2016, one of my friends wrote me an email saying that he did a sea rescue for the refugees with Sea-Watch. I thought it was a great adventure, so I joined my first mission in October of that year. I worked as a captain on a sea rescue vessel with a German NGO called Sea-Eye. I can’t forget that there was a pregnant lady on that vessel who asked me to send her to the doctor. I couldn’t imagine how bad the situation of their country was, this vessel was even safer than the land of their country. I think it’s a human necessity to help these people. The upcoming thing was in 2018, a sea rescue vessel was blocked from Malta, and the Italian government intervened for more than one week. I think the European Union Government broke the law of human rights. It’s important to protect human rights. Therefore, the sea rescue changed my mind.

PH: How would you normally prepare for these missions? Did you expect to see what you saw?

TN: No, I saw a lot of different things from what I expected. In the very beginning, sea rescue was much easier because of the support of the Italian government. They provided boats, shared information with the sea rescue meeting, and even arranged aircraft to patrol over the sea. They informed the position of the refugees to NGOs and helped with taking people back to Europe after the rescue.

However, everything changed completely in 2017. In 2017, the European Union, especially Italy, decided to work with the Libyan coast guards. The Libyan coast guards got boats from Italy and money from the EU to bring fleeing people from the sea back to Libya. Libya was not a safe place for them. The Libyan coast guards collaborated with the smugglers, even sometimes they were the smugglers. They brought people back to the detention centers and tortured them again to squeeze money out of them. It was the worst for the fleeing people. They were afraid of losing their lives in Libya, so they chose to escape. However, the Libyan coast guards were informed by the European governments to bring them back to Libya, to the detention centers. At the detention centers, women were raped over and over again. People were sold as slaves. When the people were not useful for the Libyans anymore, they would be put on a rubber boat and sent out to the sea. There were so many smuggling organizations which you can’t imagine. If the people were on a boat escaping from the first organization, the Libyan coast guard could bring them back and sell them to the second or third organization. It was a loop that would never end.

I met people from Somalia on our rescue vessel. When the Libyans came close to our boat, they held our feet and begged us not to send them back to the Libyans. They said “don’t give me back to the Libyans. If you want to give me back to the Libyans, I will jump into the sea and end my life.”

There are many reasons why people want to escape from their countries. The civil war and political reasons make the government in those countries treat people badly. Also, the economy is in a bust. If people think staying in their countries would be safer, they won’t travel to Libya and go by boat to Europe, which means the situation in their own countries is awful.

PH: Have you had a lot of interactions with the smugglers and the job traffickers on the missions?

TN: Yes, I have contacted the smugglers several times. The first contact we had was with the so-called Engine Fishers. In 2016 and 2017, they had small boats in around six meters. Three people went out with the boats. When they left the Libyan coast and entered international waters, 25 to 30 miles away from the coastline, one of them got a piece of wood and told the migrant people not to come close. Then two others took the engines from the migrant people’s boat. The people were left alone on their boat without any engine drifting on the sea.

The second contact was the so-called Libyan coast guards. We called it the “so-called Libyan coast guard” because they collaborated with smugglers. However, the European governments thought they were good people and they never worked with smugglers. NGOs knew them better since we got the stories from the people who survived from the Libyan coast guards.

PH: How long would these missions go for?

TN: In the early days, these missions were around two weeks. In the past, the harbor that the NGOs used was Valletta in Malta. It was the closest Harbor to the Libyan coastline. You received instructions before getting on the boat, then came back to instruct the next group. But now it changed because we couldn’t get any information from the governments and we didn’t know when or where you could find people. We had to use private aircraft to search for them.

Last week, Sea-Watch left Palermo, Sicily. They found two boats within 5 days and they had 363 people on board rescued in a period of 48 hours. The boat was droughted, so they started their way back to Italy. However, the Italian government blocked the coast. They need to wait for three days or even three weeks. People on the boat were in a bad situation. Some got injured, while others got sick and needed medical treatment. Compared to the past, it took more time to let them disembark. 360 people needed at least two days to do COVID tests, then they had to stay in the harbor for at least two weeks for quarantine. Also, the Italian government used different reasons to block the ship, such as too many people on board or too many life vests. The ship could be blocked in the harbor for months. Therefore, one mission now could need at least five weeks.

PH: How many people would you usually have on board as crew?

TN: It depends if it is the small vessel or the big vessel. The small vessels, like Sea-Eye and Sea Fox from Sea-Eye, have around eight to nine people crew. The best we want for SARAH is the vessel for a 12 person crew. The bigger vessels, like Sea-Watch Four and SEA-EYE 4, have a crew between 22 and 26.

PH: What percentage of injuries that need medical advice would happen on the boat, and how many would happen during the journey?

TN: During the journey, different things can happen. In spring, the seawater can be at 13 to 15-celsius degrees, which is very cold. If the people stay in the water for over one hour, they may get hypothermia. Also, if people stay on the boats without drinking water, their bodies would have a massive loss of water. Moreover, some people who get seasick for a very long time, their body will also lose a lot of water. People from the detention centers may also have knife wounds, gun wounds, psychological problems, and infectious diseases, especially COVID for now.

PH: How do you deal with the psychological after-effects of the journey for your staff and the refugees?

TN: We have some psychologists on board. Sometimes the medical team has to deal with this situation themselves.

PH: What has been your experience with the medical groups once you’ve landed at port?

TN: People may need emergency treatments or normal medical treatment. If the condition of someone turns bad, we can call the Italian government to ask them to make an emergency medevac to a hospital. However, normally the government doesn’t care about the physiological problems or something not severe.

PH: Do you work with NGOs on land so that once the refugees arrive, there are volunteers to help them integrate into the community?

TN: We do work with different NGOs. For example, the most common NGO working in Africa is Alarm Phone. Alarm Phone has website pages in different languages. On their pages, people can find phone numbers to dial in an emergency, but when some people lose their phones, those are not useful anymore. Some people may have some cheap satellite phones to contact with the Alarm Phone. Normally, the call will also connect to the government due to the laws, but the government won’t help generally. Only NGOs will come to help them get to the land, normally in Italy and Malta, and assist people to get through the law process of the government. NGOs on the land also help them get food and psychological treatments and also keep in contact with them.

PH: How do you tackle the different rules in the different regions?

TN: Because of the Italian government, it was a little bit more difficult to run an NGO in Italy. Valletta, Malta is closer to the Libyan coastline, which is also an easily reachable country from almost every airport in Europe. Also, they can speak English. It’s easy for you to prepare for the boats to go to the Libyan coastline. However, nowadays, Malta is very bad for NGOs. They have arrested the boats from NGOs for years and don’t want to have NGOs anymore.

However, now there is a new possibility in Sicily. Since the Italian law now doesn’t allow refugees to be brought back to the harbors, some NGOs will have a home base in Sicily. Spanish NGOs will have bases in Spain. SOS Mediterranean will have bases in Marseilles, France. However, these harbors are very far away from Sicily. It takes one week to travel from Spain to Sicily and another week from Sicily to the South.

PH: Once you’ve picked up these refugees, how do you know which harbors to land in, or would you sometimes have to spend a week with refugees on board going to a different harbor because you weren’t able to land.

TN: If we bring back people from the South to the North, yes. You get in contact with the Italian government because every country has an MRCC. The MRCC is the maritime rescue coordination center, which is responsible for international sea rescue and will tell you the next safe port. We have to go to the port whichever they tell us, no matter how far it is. We need to wait and ask the government to let them instruct you to a port.

PH: We heard that the routes are now changing. People used to go through the Mediterranean sea, and now they’re going through the Canary Islands. How do you hear of that and what’s your experience so far?

TN: I saw the Canary islands on TV and I heard on the radio that the situation there is turning very bad. In 2019, about 2,500 people were crossing the Atlantic in 12 months. In 2020, we decided to go there for a short period at the end of November. From January to October, 12,000 people arrived in the Canary Islands, so we knew the situation there was becoming severe and we decided to help. In November and at the beginning of December, the situation was extremely severe. In 2020, around 25,000 people came to the Canary Islands. The distances they traveled were 1000 kilometers, which was three times longer than the distance people traveled in the central Med, 300 to 350 kilometers. The time they were on board was much longer. Since I am an experienced sailor and I was in the Canary Islands several years ago, I know the weather situation that the wind comes from the Northeast and also the currents come from the Northeast. Therefore, if the engines are broken, the boats will drift to the west, where there is nothing, only the big Atlantic Ocean.

PH: How would these refugee boats navigate when they’re in the oceans? They don’t have the same equipment as the boats that you’re using.

TN: It depends. They may navigate with cheap compasses. I saw some compasses which can be bought for $5 from Alibaba. Those are wooden boxes the size of 10 to 10 centimeters. Normally, they are not good enough for navigation, but people use them in the Atlantic. Many of these people have cheap small handheld GPS. We once found a very old handheld GPS, probably five or six years old, on a refugee’s boat. The positions on the GPS were marked by the previous owner, which was on the East coast of the United States, so we thought this GPS was probably sold on eBay. Then, it was sold to Africa and people used them as a navigational aid to get from the South to the Canary Islands, but it only works when they have a running engine. When the engine breaks, they have no chance to navigate.

PH: In those situations what would they do if they can’t navigate anymore?

TN: Nothing. They can only hope to be found by an aircraft or by another ship. It’s just a small wooden boat with one engine. Sometimes they have two engines, a bigger one, and a spare engine, but normally they only have one engine. If the engine breaks, they can only pray that they could be found, otherwise, they will die.

PH: What about the chance of an extreme weather condition? Is that quite frequent on that route to the Canary Islands?

TN: When you have bad weather conditions, the bow of the boat will be very high. It’s also a very large fishing port. There are tons of boats, which could be found on Google maps even. A lot of fishermen lost their jobs at those piers for months because of the big fishing vessels from all the industrial nations including China. They took out all the fish from the sea while the smaller local vessels couldn’t find any fish anymore. The local people lost their jobs, income, and future. They had nothing to do, so they sold the vessels to the smugglers. Some people will even go further south to Senegal and along the coastline to Nouadhibou. They leave there, turning North and trying to reach Gran Canaria.

PH: What would be the success rate for the boats going out, getting picked up by NGO groups or the coast guard?

TN: Normally, the boats can get close to the Canary Islands, around a hundred nautical miles away. The Spanish sea rescue organizations do good jobs with a well-equipped boat, but with very few people. Sometimes they only have five or three people on a big vessel at around 30-meter length. Also, they are only available to go out for less than one and a half weeks, so they can only operate in one area. I think, close to a hundred nautical miles South of the Trenton area. The migrant boats have to reach this area to be rescued. If they miss this area because of a broken engine or stronger winds, they will be in danger.

The official data say only 12% of all people fleeing have been dying, which is the same in the central Med. Only the dead person can be counted if the bodies are found. If the bodies are not found, then they are not to be counted. So, the rate of people that die is five times more than 12% in my opinion.

PH: That’s really sad. Is there anything that you think about people within the cities? When the refugees do land, what has been the reception from businesses and from the local communities?

TN: You have to know something about the Canary Islands. Many people live from the tourists. During the COVID-19, there were almost no tourists. At the beginning of last year, people from the Canary Islands tried to help. For example, people who own hotels give their hotels to the refugees because they can get some money from the government for keeping some fleeing people in the hotels. It’s better to have somebody in the hotels than nobody. At least, they can gain some money. But generally, people in the Canary Islands get more and more afraid of losing tourism, because many European tourists are afraid of refugees. It’s just something in their mind. They want a pretty beach, a comfortable hotel, and a happy holiday, so they think the refugees are disturbing. Then, the local business doesn’t want to lose their income, so they don’t welcome refugees either. The situation is becoming worse and worse.

PH: Overall, have you seen the situation changing in your experience comparing the earlier days from 2016 to now 2021?

TN: From 2016 to 2019, the number of migrants was only around 2, 500 each year, so the Spanish government would take them to Mainland Spain from the islands. However, with the increasing number, the government didn’t want to have them anymore, so the migrants had to stay on the islands. The government made some agreements with Morocco, Moda, Tania, and Senegal to bring the people back, but the agreements were completely ended after the COVID.

The city of Arguineguín is the one that is the southernmost harbor in Gran Canaria with around 3,000 population. The NGOs brought the migrants there and they had to wait until the COVID test was done. Around 2000 people were living there for months. The situation turned very bad in the press and on TV. Now they made some old military camps as refugee camps in every Island area, at least one. I think the situation on Canary Island at the end of this year will be the same as on the Greek islands in Malia.

PH: I think that was all of our questions so far. Is there anything else you’d like to share?

TN: Yes. In my mind, it’s completely unacceptable that people die because of drowning undersea. Everybody has to take care in their mind that we need to solve the problems of fleeing people. If you want to change Africa, we need 10 to 30 years. What I want to tell everybody is that from now until the time Africa has changed, we are forced by law to help people to survive. As industrial countries from the Northern hemisphere, we made these situations hundreds of years ago until nowadays. China is even doing the same thing in Africa nowadays. We should help them to survive. It’s humanity and a necessity to help people. That’s why I want to have some donations for a new rescue ship.

If you check our homepage, you can see our NGO is a little bit different from all the others. Every NGO buys many kinds of ships, such as fishing vessels and patrolling ships, but the size is not appropriate and the speed is too slow. The maximum speed is between 8 to 12 months. If you fly over sea by aircraft, you can see there are few rescue ships on the sea and the distance between rescue ships is really long. They need several hours to go to the place where they need help. Sometimes people are dead because rescue ships need half a day to get there. Sometimes the Libyan coast guards picked them up and brought them back to Libya. Sometimes the boat sank and people drowned. We need a new vessel specially designed for the rescue with 50% faster speed. That needs a lot of money, more than half a million euros. It’s worth it to save people, so please help us to get donations for our project.

Support Thomas’ mission and SARAH at @sarah.seenotrettung

4 April 2022
Nathalie Suthor on Her Sea Rescue Journey Through the Mediterranean

Nathalie Suthor, an investigative journalist from Germany who set off on her first sea rescue mission in 2016, and here is the impact five years later.

Interview by Sarah Wei and Faye Bradley.

This is the uncut conversation from our feature on ‘Sea Rescue in the South of Europe’ coming out 2022 in print.

Paradigm Haus: What has your experience been so far covering the refugee crisis and what have you learned?

Nathalie Suthor: It was 2016 when a lot of people tried to reach Europe on boats crossing the Mediterranean Sea. The refugee crisis was in every newspaper, which was a big topic. There was also a heated discussion in Germany. Some people were concerned that there were too many refugees, while others said we should help the refugees instead of watching them die. Many NGOs were founded during that time and went into the Mediterranean sea to rescue the people.

I joined in 2017 on one mission— the NGO was Jugend Rettetand and the boat was called Iuventa. The boat usually started in Malta and traveled close to the Libyan coastline, where they patrolled. We were there all the time to look for refugee boats that were usually small wooden boats or inflated rubber boats. It was traumatic for me, especially as a mother, because after staying there for about a week, we suddenly found some boats carrying mothers and their young children on the Mediterranean sea. It was unbelievable for me when I realized how dangerous the Mediterranean sea could be. I wondered how tough the situation was for people who went on a boat with their children and tried to reach a better life.

Those NGOs had been working there for one and a half years. Mostly they would go abroad to Italy since most of the refugees came from Turkey to Greece and then crossed the Mediterranean sea to Italy. However, it also caused a European problem that many European countries regarded the problem was only for Italy rather than themselves. There are many refugee camps in Italy now that are a severe problem, but other European countries don’t care or try to find a solution for it.

Additionally, Europe made a deal with Libya that they paid the coast guard money to let them stop the rescue boats to leave Libya. Right now, the situation on the Libyan coast is in big trouble because the Libyan coast guards try to block NGOs to rescue the refugees’ boats. Italy also gave a pushback. They tried to use some reasons to not allow the boats to leave the harbor, such as too many life vests.

Many people in Europe also discussed the reasons for the rising refugee crisis, which was in my documentary as well. There were some political and historical reasons about how Europe treated Africa in the past to make them have nothing now, so people tried to search for a better life somewhere else. There were also wars between warlords in their countries. The traffickers made money by bringing the people on the boats to Europe. However, when the refugees arrived in Europe, they would be stuck in camps and have no chance to start a better life. Europe hasn’t released a solution because other countries think Germany and Netherlands took too many refugees. The situation is very bad now.

Image Courtesy of SARAH Seenotrettung

Now, some refugees are trying to take the new route to reach the Canary Islands, which started in autumn last year. They also tried to reach Europe through this route in the past, but it was extremely dangerous and difficult. Refugees could use small wooden boats on the Atlantic Ocean to travel to those small islands from Africa, which was time-consuming. Once, we found hundreds of people were stuck on a boat for a week. They wouldn’t know what would happen. Water, food, and fuel might not be enough. Therefore, that was the reason why I joined the second mission, where I met Riley. We tried to find out about the route, who those people were, and where they came from, and so on.

PH: Where were most of these routes going through in the Mediterranean?

NS: Yes, the first route was across Turkey to Greece, but Europe agreed with Turkey to stop this route. Then, people tried to cross the Mediterranean. Mostly, they left from Libya, where there were many NGOs that were always crossing the Libyan coast. However, afterwards, a big discussion came up about the push and pull factors in Germany and Europe. The traffickers found the NGO boats and they made refugees know the NGOs would take them to Europe, so more and more people came because they thought it was a safe way to go. That’s one of the reasons why the European countries tried to stop the boats.

In the first documentary, we were arrested by the Italian government because they said our boat had something wrong. We had to go back to Lampedusa. Then the policemen came on the boat at the Lampedusa port and they thought we made a deal with traffickers, which was quite funny because there was a TV crew on the boat making a documentary for a major public German television like the BBC in the UK. Of course, the police didn’t have the proof, so we could leave. However, after this mission, the police arrested some people from NGOs and kept the boats in Sicily. The boats couldn’t leave anymore. Right now, there’s a trial going on. 10 of the full-time NGO workers are facing 20 years of jail because they were regarded as traffickers. That’s the situation now.

PH: For smaller NGOs, such as SARAH, how do you face those challenges?

NS: SARAH is a newly founded one. I met the founder three years ago in my town. People at SARAH work tightly together and always talk to each other because we have the same goal. NGO workers are shocked to see a small wooden boat full of refugees. They have seen people drowning in front of them or suffering from gun wounds. Refugees were in bad situations, especially the women coming from the Libyan camps who were all being raped. When a person who lives in a civilized society knows about all of these problems, we will want to help them. Therefore, the people at SARAH put a lot of effort into this small NGO.

PH: How would you prepare for these missions in general?

NS: Normally the big NGOs have support from a trauma expert. They will come to talk to you before you go on the mission. It was quite interesting for me that I thought I could handle those traumas since I made some documentaries about these tough topics, but it did affect me a lot some years later. I made a documentary three years ago. When I watch it at midnight, I feel touched and depressed.

The documentary shows that we looked for a disappearing boat for the whole night. On the next day, we found it and many corpses were floating on the sea. There were around 200 people on that boat. A couple of months later, I went to Tunisia to visit a fisherman. Because of the currents and the waves, a lot of corpses were taken to the beach. The fisherman buried them and built up a grave, as well as told me the stories about these people. For example, a woman tightly hugged the child to not lose the child.

Image Courtesy of SARAH Seenotrettung

PH: How did your missions for the documentary in 2016 and research come about?

NS: I met Thomas, the founder of SARAH, in my town in 2017. He told me that they founded an NGO and they were going on a mission to the Canary Islands. In Germany, the TV channels were not keen on these topics. After my documentary in 2017 was broadcasted, someone attacked me personally on Facebook saying I created problems in their lives and brought all the refugees to our country. Therefore, when Thomas told me, I decided to join him with my cameramen.

The documentary will be broadcasted next month. Not so many dramatic things happen in this documentary, but it’s quite interesting to see how the new route is working. We found out refugees were leaving from Morocco. They went from the Spanish coastguard to Gran Canaria. There were refugee camps but some were closed. The government gave the refugees COVID tests and brought them into hotels or military camps. There was a demonstration when we were there, because in Lesbos or Moria, Greece, there were very big refugee camps. Although some people in Greece thought they should have helped the refugees, they still worried tourists wouldn’t come anymore because of the big refugee camps. It was a little weird when people were lying on the beach, a refugee boat arrived. In Gran Canaria, people were afraid that it would be the second Moria or Lesbos and the tourist industry might be affected.

PH: Do you think documentaries are helping in opening people’s minds?

NS: It’s what I’m always hoping for, but sometimes people will blame you because they think refugees shouldn’t come and that’s not their problem. I always hope I can change something in the minds of people.

PH: You talked a lot about more people going to the Canary Islands. How did you find out this information?

NS: NGOs are well connected in Africa. They know quite well what’s going on in Africa. For example, there’s an NGO called Alarm Phone that spreads its phone numbers in Africa. They told people to contact them when people were in trouble on the boat. There is staff on the phone in Europe 24 hours, seven days a week. When they get a phone call from people who are in danger, they will call the coast guard and the media. They’re well organized and always connected with the whole situation.

PH: So the major route now would be to the Canary Islands? Is that only recently because of the pandemic?

NS: No. There is a big fight for all the NGOs to go out on a mission with their boats because the Italian government always finds some reasons to block the boats. A lot of NGO boats got blocked at European harbors and can’t go out. Sometimes there’s no NGO, but only the Libyan coast guard brings the refugees back to Libya to the camps. When we rescued these boats, the refugees always asked where we would bring them to and begged us not to bring them back to Libya, because they thought those camps were the worst place. This route is a big problem now. People want to find a better life, so they will go on another route if one is blocked.

PH: Do you think fewer people are traveling through the Mediterranean now?

NS: I don’t know about the Mediterranean, because people can’t travel now due to the coronavirus. I don’t know how the situation will be when people can travel again. If people find all of these hotels are for refugees, they probably don’t want to go in there anymore. We met a manager of a hotel in the Canary Islands. The manager was the nicest person I’ve ever met. He was so shocked about the situation of the refugees, so the manager said his whole family would all work there 24 hours a day.

However, refugees couldn’t stay there forever. The government had to decide what to do with them. The reason why this route wasn’t that attractive for refugees was that most of them wanted to go to Germany or North European countries, but Gran Canaria was a small Island and far away from Europe. Once you put your foot in Europe, you can try to get some paperwork done to have a chance to stay there. A lot of people from Morocco even have no chance to stay. They have to go to America immediately, but they still try if there is a chance.

PH: Do you think this hotelier that you met, he’s one of the minority in terms of the hotel groups and the businesses in those cities?

NS: Well, I can’t say the manager is one of the minority, but I can say we were so impressed by the manager. At the same time, there was a big demonstration in the city, because there’s no other business other than hotel business or tourist business. The protestors said they didn’t want to have refugees anymore.

PH: What’s been the government’s reaction or response so far?

NS: Spain is doing quite well so far, especially the Spanish coast guard. Once we found two refugee boats at night. Thomas let us call the Spanish coast guard. Two hours later, they arrived, which wouldn’t happen when you are in the Mediterranean. In the Mediterranean, the refugee boats are usually so big and there are a lot of refugees. If the boats are sinking, you can’t just bring the people on your boat because your boat will sink as well. The situation is so bad there. However, the Spanish coast guard is behaving much better. They’re more cooperative.

PH: Is that like something to do with historically on why you think the Spanish coastguards are being more cooperative than Italians?

NS: It’s pretty new for them, so we don’t know how they will be in two years. The situation in most of the countries in Europe, especially countries of South Europe, is quite bad due to the coronavirus. I can imagine that it will be hard for the government. They have no money to rescue all the refugees since they have a lot of Spanish people suffering from coronavirus. They have no money for a proper health care system even. Right now they’re behaving very well and cooperative, but it’s hard to say after the election how the new government sees this refugee crisis.

PH: What other differences have you found between the government groups? Is it just a matter of time to make the Spanish government more responsible?

NS: The Italian government is right-wing. They always have something against people. Also, the economy in Italy is not good. People hope the government will help them before helping refugees. Italy and Spain depend a lot on tourism, but the tourist industry is down because of coronavirus. It will be a big problem.

PH: How do you think people in these cities can help the refugees adjust?

NS: Well, I haven’t been to Greece, but I’ve heard that lots of people there cook for them, bringing food and clothes. There are always very good people. When people know the situations of refugees, they will want to help refugees.

PH: In terms of your experience covering the refugee crisis, other than the sea rescue, what other crises have you covered as well? Can you share that experience?

NS: Only the sea rescue. I am thinking about going to Africa because crossing the Sahara is even more dangerous than crossing the Mediterranean sea. People are coming from everywhere in Africa. We have even met a guy fleeing from Pakistan, trying to go to Europe. So they are from the whole world. People are moving to try to find a place where they can earn enough money to send it back to their family or just to start a better life.

PH: How do you think common people could get more involved or volunteer their time? If you’re overseas or can’t physically attend.

NS: I think these NGOs need money. For example, the main goal for SARAH is to collect enough money to build our boats because the European governments block the boats. We want to have a small clinic and enough life vests on the boat. Moreover, we probably will have arguments with governments about our missions. For example, 10 people are facing the trial of jail. They also need to manage. There are a lot of people putting all of their energy and time into these topics helping refugees, so they need support.

PH: Are there any other rescue groups that you could recommend us to, or that you see are doing very well?

NS: Yes. The biggest one in Germany is Sea Watch and they already have four boats. One of their boats was blocked three days ago. They were also in big trouble because they had a lot of people on board and the Italian coast guard wasn’t reacting to them. Usually, the Sea Watch calls the Italian coast guard to let them help the refugees, but the Italian government just didn’t answer for days. Could you imagine when you have like a hundred refugees on board and they need water and food, as well as you have to look after them? After two days, the Italian government allowed them to go to Sicily.

PH: How does that collaboration process work between the different NGOs?

NS: NGOs can’t go out at one time, since sometimes there will be five boats out but sometimes nobody’s out there. I think Seabridge is the name where they are all together and they are always having meetings, trying to work together.

PH: Are NGOs based across Europe?

NS: Yes. They are based across Europe, but I’m not so familiar with the other European NGOs. We met them when we were out there in the Mediterranean for two weeks. We met a Spanish one and an Italian one, but I had no contact. Of course, they worked together for some rescues. When we found four or five refugee boats, we also called the other NGOs to ask them to help us rescue people.

PH: Are there different times of the year?

NS: Yes, of course. It depends on the weather situation and the situation on the sea. During the winter times, there are rarely boats coming because the sea is so dangerous.

PH: Do you find that there’s ever a language barrier between the refugees and the volunteers?

NS: No, the bigger NGOs have translators as well. They always try to have somebody on board who can speak Arabic. Also, since refugees have been fleeing for some months and even years, most of them can speak some words in English. It isn’t a big problem to communicate.

PH: How many people would usually be on these missions?

NS: It depends on how big the boats are. For the mission in 2017, I think there were 12 and we were on the sea for two weeks.

PH: What’s the media coverage that you get in Germany about these rescues? Is it portrayed in a negative light?

NS: It changed over the years, which started to be quite positive. Many people in Germany wanted to help them and became more welcomed. But, once a New Year, some young guys from Africa or Arab countries attacked girls and women in Cologne on New Year’s Eve parties. You can know people’s opinions have changed a lot from that. However, you have to keep in mind what they have been through. Although they were so friendly to us on the boat, some of them came from countries where they didn’t receive education about relationships with women, so they need to learn a lot.

PH: Are there any trauma help centers for the refugees?

NS: Yes. It’s starting right now, but it’s still rare. In Germany, refugees got stuck in the camps for years. They couldn’t study German or find a job. Of course, they also got frustrated and felt people didn’t welcome them.

PH: Do you think people are getting more open-minded in terms of cultural differences and experiences?

NS: Yeah, probably in all countries. But right now due to the coronavirus, it’s getting worse because a lot of people hope to help themselves before helping others. Of course, that’s not right, but that’s what probably a lot of people think right now, so the refugee crisis is not a big topic here anymore.

PH: Do you think all of the media coverage you have seen in Germany is shifting from the refugee crisis to other topics, especially coronavirus?

NS: Yes. You can’t make friends when you make a documentary on this topic and bring it to the media. A lot of people will blame you for that. But of course, a lot of colleagues are still reporting that, but it’s not in focus anymore.

Find Nathalie Suthor on Instagram at @nathaliesuthor and @benstarmedia

Watch Nathalie Suthor’s documentary ‘37 Grad’ on zdf.de/dokumentation/37-grad

30 March 2022
24 years of music & counting with Death Cab For Cutie, as told by bass guitarist Nicholas Harmer

If, like us, you grew up with the melodies of 90’s and early 2000’s indie rock bands that can now bring waves of memories of college dorms and nostalgic youth, you’re not alone. Loyal listeners of Bellingham-born Death Cab For Cutie have followed the band’s over 20 years (and counting) journey since its inception in 1997 when then roommates Ben Gibbard (lead singer) and Nicholas (Nick) Harmer (bass guitarist) experimented in the confines of their college dorm. There’s something so powerful and authentic about its tunes that have guided emotional breakthroughs, set the scenes for warm summers, and first romances. But despite the band’s immense global success, its humble roots remain prominent in its albums, which continue to explore the indie-rock genre at different stages of life. Nick speaks to us on the Seattle music scene, Japan’s impressive vinyl stores, and decades-long inspirations.

We spoke with the bass guitarist of Death Cab For Cutie — Nicholas (Nick) Harmer.This is the uncut conversation from our artist profile feature on Nick Harmer coming out this Fall in print.

Interview by Faye Bradley and Sarah Wei. Raw interview transcribed by Cherie Cheung.

Paradigm Haus: You’ve been with Death Cab for Cutie since 1997 – the beginning. How have you evolved as a person and how has your music guided you through different stages in life?

Nick Harmer: Ben and I were really good friends and roommates before we were ever in a band together. Playing music and now 20 something odd years on, into a career together. What he’s always done as a songwriter — and we’ve always tried to do as a band — is to write music that feels honest about where we’re at in our lives. Not get hung up and try to appeal to a certain audience, but more write songs that capture our feelings about whatever life stage we are in.

In a lot of ways, our music has evolved with our age and our life experiences as we’ve moved along. When I listen back to our earliest stuff all the way through to our most recent songs, I hear that they’re like us, sort of evolving as people and how our life has changed and moved along.

Music has always been an extension of ourselves. As we’ve moved through our different life stages, we’ve all wanted our music and our art to reflect whatever we’re personally going through. And hopefully, people can relate to that or not. Sometimes people are like, “Oh, I don’t know if I really like this new stuff that they’re writing.” And ten years later when they finally catch up to that life stage, they go, “Oh my gosh, this totally makes sense to me,”. So, that’s cool.

PH: How do you balance your commercial success now with your personal relationships with Ben and the band, especially considering it’s been such a long time?

NH: We’ve always been good at changing hats. When we put on our business hats and talk about business, it’s very matter of fact. Whether it’s a business relationship or a romantic relationship, it always comes down to good communication. For better or worse, what we’ve always tried to do in the band is communicate about where we’re at, what we’re feeling, what we need, and keep that dialogue as open as possible. It’s not a perfect science. When you’re involved in music together in a collaborative way, there are lots of things around personalities, egos and everything that you get involved with.

We were really good at being able to know and compartmentalize our relationships. It’s okay that those things sometimes don’t ever cross over. We are constantly navigating, and it’s always been an extension of anything which is just one foot in front of the other when we started the band. We didn’t have any goals. But we only knew that we wanted to do the next thing in front of us. We would accomplish that and set a new goal.

To me, the commercial success that has come along has always been secondary and was never the goal. Some people start projects and they think, “well, this isn’t successful commercially. It wasn’t worth doing, so let’s just stop doing it and give up.” And I have met a lot of musicians along the way that were in bands who really didn’t connect or go anywhere. They just stopped playing music entirely because they never had commercial success. And I’m like, “Why? Did you start playing music just for commercial success?”.

So, the shortest answer is just good communication. We get caught up in making sure that everything is clear and we’re on the same page as much as possible about things. Also, there is a level of not overthinking things and follow our instincts. Now, that has worked out really well for us.

PH: What do your little victories look like now compared to when you first started?

NH: It’s funny that the same little victory still feels the same. It always starts and stops in our band with the song that we’re working on. There will always be something so satisfying about finally finishing a song together, or we hear a demo from Ben where immediately we’re like, “This connects to us!” It is never not exciting when you finish bringing something new into the world and you can sit back and go, “I really think this is a good song.” The rest of it that happens after that is all just toppings on the ice cream sundae.

It’s still fun to play shows, to go to new countries, and to do all these other things. If the music isn’t there and exciting, then the rest of it doesn’t really matter as much either. I keep coming back to every time I finish a song or we finish a song, I look at Ben and I can see him 20 years ago when we were living in this tiny apartment in Bellingham.

We were first starting out and I was hearing some of his earliest songs for the first time. I remember how I’d be blown away and said, “Ben, those are really great, let’s play music!” It’s crazy that this many years on, I still have that feeling. I can see him as the 20/22-year-old college student that I was friends with from the very beginning. But the littlest victory is still playing music and writing the songs. We’ve been writing a lot during the pandemic, even though we haven’t been able to get into a room as a band. We’ve been writing over Zoom and Dropbox.

Even though I’m not in the same room as my bandmates, there’s something really fun about finishing a song at the end of the week. We can listen back to our text threads together, and see the excitement. We still feel that victory or that joy, but I don’t even get to look at these people. Hopefully, we’ll get a chance to get in a room and play music soon enough. It’s fun to say these little victories can still translate even though we’re not in the same room anymore.

PH: Behind where you find inspirations, what has been the creative process when you’re not able to meet up with your band?

NH: That’s a good question! A lot of the songs start and stop with Ben as a songwriter, lyrically. That’s always going to be a focus of the music that we make, wherever Ben is able to find his inspiration which admittedly is very limited in a pandemic. You’re not able to get out and hear stories, talk with friends, and gather up all the kind of input that you would normally need to process your writing. I know he’s been trying to do versions of that, just reading and exposing himself to ‘others.’ Lots of others, whether it’s art and creativity, or film. We’re constantly ingesting tons of content in lieu of being able to be with other people.

We’ve tried to change things up this time by doing a ‘Round Robin’ style of writing. Did you ever play a game when you were young, called The Telephone?

For example, one person says something, and they say the next. By the time it gets to the end, it is completely different than what the first person said. We’re doing a version of that musically.

There are five of us in the band and we rotate through each day of the week, where one person starts on their instrument, with a new song. So, I’ll say I start on Monday, I’ll write a baseline with no other instrumentation, no drums, no guitars, nothing.

And I would upload it to Dropbox. Then it’s the next guy’s day on Tuesday. They download it and say it’s the drummer, and Jason will play drums. The rule is to react and to play what you get sent, and you can change it any way you want. We all kind of react to it and pass it along. By Friday, we have a finished song, and no one knows what it’s going to be except for the person who’s working on it last. It’s been fun to listen to how things shift and change, and what is motivating people.

We’re all in our individual bubbles, so we make creative choices completely in a vacuum. Sometimes it works really well, and sometimes it is a disaster.

Our inspiration is coming mainly from listening to each other and trusting this weird process that we’ve invented. To me, it’s like a weird version of a birthday party, where on Friday you get this present that you didn’t even know you wanted. It’s always fun and you’re always happy to get it. I wouldn’t say all of the records that we’re writing come together that way, but a lot of the records have come together that way. It will be an interesting one to record. And I wonder how it’s all going to come together when we finally get a chance to record because it’s a little different from how we would normally write and work, but it’s been inspiring for sure.

We’ve adapted, taken that limitation and tried to make it a strength. When we finally record these songs, we’ll see if people who know our band either say, “These are good songs, you guys really were onto something”, or, “Go back to the old way, please don’t ever do that again.” We’ll see.

PH: That’s really creative. How have you adapted your creative process, since having a few different band members throughout Death Cab’s life?

NH: Thankfully our creative process from the beginning has been fairly the same. The songs start with a demo from Ben. But I wouldn’t say it always started with him because there have been songs along the way that have been written together, in parts and pieces. If he never comes up with memorable lyrics or a melody that feels compelling, the song never goes anywhere. That’s the final checkpoint in any of the stuff that we’ve done as a band and he is the primary songwriter in the band.

From the very beginning, all of the members of the band who’ve been with us, our only job is to figure out in which ways our instruments can support his lyrics and the songs that he’s demo-ed out. He’ll bring songs to us in various stages of completion. Sometimes, it’s just a guitar and a vocal, and we’re coming up with everything around it. We all adapt to whatever information we’re given from his initial burst of creativity. It’s all about support after that.

I guess it’s more about how new people adapt to the way that we’ve been writing forever. As long as they come into the band and realize that they’re in a supporting role, and figure out ways to process that information, they’ll do just fine. Anytime it’s ever been weird is if somebody comes in and thinks, “I got to write my songs too.” We’re like, “no, that’s not this band.”

Thankfully we’ve never had any tension or stress around any of that stuff because most people understand that it comes from the top down creatively. So, we haven’t really had to adapt very much to how we work. It’s mainly how do we adapt as a unit with personalities and working out the internal chemistry that new people and new ideas bring in. I wouldn’t say that is not a challenge, but that has been more of the work than figuring out how to write and make music together. That process has always remained fairly intact, as far as I’m concerned.

PH: What are the most important values to your band?

NH: It’s always been really important to us to not get hung up in some arbitrary definition of success. A value for us has always been being honest and authentic about what we are feeling and what kind of music we want to make.

We are trying to stay as true if we can, to the music that’s coming out to us. And not feeling that we need to change to reach a bigger audience, to sell more records or tickets. I think that there is a lot of pressure when you get into the public and performance aspects of being in a band, where you start asking yourself lots of questions about, “Do we look right?”

Some people get caught up in that, but we’ve just never had that. We’ve always said, “You know what? It’s about the work, and it’s about the music.” If that’s good, we like it and we’re proud of it, then that’ll have to be enough. And if there are only 50 people in the whole wide world (hopefully more), we’re not going to change anything about ourselves. It feels disingenuous to who we are, to try and guess at what someone might like. So, a value for us has been to keep our heads down and do the work. We are a very even band.

We’ve got good communication. I remember there were some journalists that we met a long time ago and they were like, “Gosh, it’s really hard to write about you guys because there’s really nothing to write about. What’s the story? You guys are well-adjusted, nice guys that like to write music together. There’s no drama and fighting, so what’s the angle?”

And now, I think the angle is straight-up longevity. We’ve been able to do all of that and make it last. All of the things that tear bands apart after their second album or five years into their careers, or any of that stuff, we’ve been lucky to be able to escape from that for the most part.

We’ve lost some members along the way, and we’ve made some adjustments. But the band is still very much intact from how it was in the very beginning. The band started as Ben in a room recording a bunch of songs into a dictaphone by himself. And that’s the core of it from here until the end.

In some ways, there have been some changes, but it’s also been a lot of the same. I guess our values are just to be as honest about who we are, and where we’re at. And not allow us to get caught up in the trappings of the weird worlds that we sometimes find ourselves in, which can be harmful.

There’s been a lot of moments along the way that make us scratch our heads. We’re like, “I can’t believe that we’re here! We’re at the Grammys!” And we were hanging out at some party in Los Angeles with all of those crazy famous people, but we’re just not crazy famous people. I think it gets humbling over the years in a lot of ways. So that’s good.

PH: We’ve noticed a lot of mainstream music has a lot of features, collaborations and singles to gain popularity. In that way, what’s your opinion as a band that started ‘offline’?

NH: I think collaborations are awesome. If there’s something genuine about it, there’s a reason why those two artists are working together. They’re either fans of each other, or there’s something real about their connection musically. I’m a little skeptical sometimes of collaborations that were assembled by managers and agents to get exposure for people. It seems like a vehicle for something. But if the collaborations work well, they are awesome. So, I’m all for it, as far as that goes. And we’ve had collaborations with other people singing our records, but we haven’t had a true genre thing. We did something with Chance the Rapper that was fun. We were a part of Chance’s song. But we haven’t really done anything where we’ve had a Death Cab song.

To me, it just shows how much musicians listen to each other. There’s so much collaboration that happens behind the scenes, in terms of influences. There are so many bands and artists that I listen to all the time. They end up on the same record with others and it would make all the sense in the world because they’re the ones that are getting me excited about making music and vice versa. So, I think it’s a cool thing that’s happened in recent times that there is so much of it. And the ones that work are outstanding. The ones that don’t, I think everyone knows it felt a little strange.

Over from when we first started on our earliest tour, we were able to buy one cell phone and that was the phone for all of us to use. And to where we are now, it’s just mind boggling. And as I used to joke with people because we formed in 1997, people always ask what it was like when we started. I always say, “Back in the 1900’s, there were no cell phones.” It’s funny to say it like that, but it also speaks to how long we’ve been around. I can remember a conversation with a musician friend of ours named John Vanderslice, who at one point he ran a studio in San Francisco. We were recording at the studio and we were talking about stuff. He was like, “I’m telling you guys, there’s this thing coming, that’s going to change the world. It’s called Broadband Internet. The speeds are going to be so fast. We’re going to be able to watch movies and they’re going to be available to get music over your computers. It’s going to be amazing.”

And I remember all of us being like, I don’t see that happening. I really can’t imagine it. And now look at us here. We’re having video conference calls across the entire Pacific Ocean together right now in real time. We’ve seen some bad things develop over time and it’s been great as far as that goes. I think collaborations at this point, just embrace everything and roll with it. There’s no point in trying to ever think it’s a sad moment in your life when you start to think that ‘how it was’ is better than ‘how it is’. A lot of people get caught up in nostalgia in that way where they’re like, “I remember when it used to be so much better when X or Y or Z was the thing.” But there’s no such thing as that. It’s cool right now. You just don’t see it.

PH: Now that we’ve got social media platforms and video streaming platforms, how do you feel that has helped to build your band’s presence?

NH: I think it’s a double-edged sword. There’s the side of it that’s enabled it to be easier to directly communicate with people who want to hear from you and want to know what’s going on. That immediate connection is amazing. With people all over the world, you can disseminate information, news, updates, music, and all of the things that we’re working on as a band so quickly. And be able to communicate to our audience or anyone that’s interested in what we’re doing. There’s power and connectivity that are very real. It’s nice to have that closeness to people. But also, there is the other side of that double edge.

“How much is too much information to share?”. There is some value in keeping some mystery in the world. There is some value in keeping some privacy in the world and keeping some parts of it off. I know most bands now before they even make music, they’re securing their Instagram handles and their Twitter handles. They’re getting all of their domain names registered, and the music comes out. But I never thought about any of us in any of it.

Because it wasn’t in the beginning, it’s just not at the front of our brains that we need to be doing. And we don’t exactly know how to maximize and utilize it to its fullest potential. A lot of people are like, “you guys should be posting more.” People now are so much more savvy about how to use those platforms to their maximum reach. We just don’t and that’s okay too. We’ve tried in the past to do more and it feels weird. But after all, I like social media platforms.

It’s really fun to get a peek into people’s lives. But I also think we don’t exactly know how to do it well and it feels a bit awkward for us. Generally, we are pretty shy people with the idea of taking a picture of all of us sitting backstage, on a bus, or on an airplane. We always think, “Who’s interested in that? That’s weird, I don’t feel comfortable.” So, we try to leave a lot of it out.

Video: Transatlanticsm by Death Cab For Cutie. Provided to YouTube by Redeye Worldwide Transatlanticism · Death Cab for Cutie Transatlanticism ℗ 2003 Barsuk Records Released on: 2003-10-07 Producer: Chris Walla Music Publisher: Where I’m Calling From Music (BMI) Music Publisher: Please Pass The Songs (BMI) Composer: Benjamin Gibbard Composer: Chris Walla

PH: How would you build your relationship with fans around the world?

NH: We didn’t ever have an expectation that it would be as successful as it has been. When we first started on our earliest tours, we would go through most of the cities in America and there would be 50 people at the shows if we were lucky. Then there would be a hundred people at the shows the next time. Most people became aware of our band and our breakthrough moment was with ‘Transatlanticism’ when that record came out in 2003.

We’d been a band actively touring since 1998 with a good five years of traveling and playing shows. Each time we played, there’d be a few more people. It felt really manageable for us to have our career move in this slow crescendo. Some bands immediately thrust into the limelight, and I think some bands can thrive in that. But for a lot of bands, that trajectory really ends up destroying them.

In some ways, they don’t get a chance to navigate all of the little stuff and figure out how to communicate, how to adjust, or how to manage expectations. You need to do all of these things when your career grows. For us, we’re more methodical and slow. There were lots of lean years when we weren’t making any money and we were really doubting whether or not we should continue. But we always just kept believing that as long as we weren’t losing money. Even though only a few more people each time were showing up or buying our records, we were headed in some good direction.

PH: What has kept you motivated along the way?

NH: It’s really our friendship. It’s fun to see the world with your friends and playing shows. I think Ben and I would both tell you the minute we aren’t interested in being friends or playing music together, then there’s no band. I don’t just mean Ben and I, everybody in the band. We all really value each other’s friendships and the time we spend together. We love going on adventures and playing music together. It’s our community. It’s our family. It’s our church. It’s everything all in one. What keeps us motivated is the promise of infinite. We’re infinitely curious about what’s next in every moment.

PH: Are there any quirky or funny moments that often happen backstage?

NH: There are simple things, I think our jokes are so small and random. Most of the jokes and the things that we goof around with are just so random and they wouldn’t really make any sense. Most bands have a rider in their backstage, which is the things that you need to have backstage such as snacks or food. In the past, you hear stories about old rock bands that their riders are crazy intense with all these particular things.

Our rider’s always been really small, but one thing we’ve always had is a lemon, some fresh ginger, and some honey. We had this weird thing where we would slice up the ginger, drizzle honey on it, and we would just eat the ginger only. When you ask for that in all the different countries, the different versions which show up are hilarious and mind boggling sometimes. Because it seems simple to get those, but the ways it gets interpreted are different. I remember when we go to the grocery store in the United States, people won’t know what fresh ginger is. They would come back with pickled ginger or some honey flavored candies. So, we always laugh about that. I guess that’s the funny thing backstage and it’s like a ritual.

Besides, we really love going record shopping wherever we are. If we go to a new city, we’ll go out and we’ll go look for records and buy records. We have a record player and speakers that we bring backstage, and just basically take turns to put on a record that we bought. We can just sit and talk about music all day long and argue about the top five best REM records. Even when we come off stage, we sit back down on the couch, put on more records, and just keep talking about music. We are constantly just talking about that. If that seems fun to you, then hang out with Death Cab for Cutie, because that’s what we do. Honestly, we love it. It’s the best. So, there are a lot of recurring jokes and a lot of the same conversations. I can’t imagine spending my life doing that with anyone other than the other four guys in the band that I’m with.

PH: Where do you find the most interesting records in the world?

NH: Everywhere has them. But honestly, I think the culture around collecting vinyl and really appreciating vinyl is unparalleled in Japan. There are a lot of really niche record stores in Tokyo with only Reggae and Dub records, or with only speed metal. But it’s hyper-curated with things that you’ve never seen anywhere else. When people find their thing, they’re just a total nerd about it. My favorite people in the world are people who love something so much that they could absolutely bore you to tears and just talk about all the nuances of why they love it. Those are my people always. Whatever it is you love, get nerdy about it. So, Japan has a culture of that hyper fandom and focuses on records in a specific way. But I think there are great record stores everywhere in the world.

The most exciting thing about vinyl and the resurgence of this world in which so many people live on music streaming platforms with their phones. A lot of people don’t even have record collections anymore, but for the people that do and the people that value them, there’s still so much out there to discover. The actual physicality of being in a store and thumbing through records, that’s still really exciting and fun for me. I’m glad that there are enough people around the world that still value that. You can still find a good record store in any major metropolitan city in the world.

In Japan, I find a more robust feeling of specialized focus. We’ve been lucky to find good records everywhere, and it’s always fun to go to a country that we have no experience in and picking random records out of a shop. For a while, we were all really excited about Thai funk bands that we came across from the seventies and they were crazy. There’s also a psychedelic rock movement that happened in Africa in the early seventies to the early eighties that you wouldn’t even think about, like legitimate rock and roll psychedelic. You find these little pockets along the way and that is exciting because you’re uncovering things that you feel like you’ve really discovered something and not a lot of people know about.

PH: That’s amazing. Which decade have you connected to the most in terms of the music genres you’ve mentioned?

NH: My era of music was probably 1985 through 1998. That stretch of a decade was a real formative time for me in my life. When I was discovering my personal identity and how my identity was reflected in pop culture, I was ingesting my favorite bands and discovering all of my favorite albums that defined me as a person. I was very protective of those things and very proud of them. And I was really lucky to live near Seattle, and through the big grunge explosion of Nirvana, Soundgarden, and Pearl Jam.

There is so much pride involved in that. They were our hometown heroes and also bolstered my connection to that particular era of music. So, I will always have the most amount of emotional sentiment and nostalgia for that period of time, because it was a formative time in my life. That was when I was making my choices about what music I liked and was developing my identity. But I still really love listening to music from R&B, Pop, and Rock, from the Sixties.

There was a time when Rock and Roll was developing. People were starting to break out of these molds and society was shifting. A lot of movements were happening socially that caused a lot of unrest, but I think that artists were interpreting and exploring their art during that time. The Sixties was just such a dynamic time in American history. A lot of the music that was coming either from England or the others, were also being made in America during the Sixties. It is fascinating to me because it really captures this appealing moment.

No Room in Frame by Death Cab for Cutie Album No Room in Frame Licensed to YouTube by WMG (on behalf of Atlantic Records); UMPI, Abramus Digital, BMG Rights Management (US), LLC, LatinAutor – PeerMusic, ARESA, CMRRA, LatinAutorPerf, and 7 music rights societies

PH: What is unique about the Seattle music scene that makes you want to stay and grow your band here?

NH: We love the area. Ben and I have talked about that in the past. We grew up here, so it feels like home. But I love it geographically and how the city is laid out. We’re close to water and mountains. There are lots of outdoor activities that you can be a part of. The general quality of life is nice here. But the music scene for us has always been really hyper-localized and really about supporting each other. That was something that we saw through the Seattle explosion in the early 90s with the rise of the grunge bands.

They were all friends and they supported each other in a community. After they got famous and successful, they came back and opened up recording studios in town. They brought their wisdom and expertise back from traveling the world and making music at that scale. A lot of those bands reinvested it back in the Seattle music scene, and they really helped and supported a new era of bands coming up, also for when we were starting out. And I think that’s something that we’ve always really wanted to stay connected to and to be a part of, because it was very instrumental. The fact that we can be helping someone else to get started just feels like the right thing to do.

PH: How do you think you’ve affected the music scene?

NH: That’s a really great question. We try to hire as much of our crew from a local pool of people and bring out local bands from Seattle on tour with us. We’ve tried our best to support the upcoming bands through our own promotion and give credit to what we’re listening to. All I know is that we’re a part of this community of musicians and we want to help out. We want to share our knowledge. I’ve had lots of conversations with band members from other bands along the way about the record contracts and how the music industry works. And I’m always available for phone calls, talking to people about our experiences, and just trying to share the advice that we have earned over the years.

PH: What do you think makes up a good music scene?

NH: I think a good and healthy music scene is one that has not only good bands but good graphic designers and good photographers. I think a good music scene is oftentimes part of a bigger scheme of just creatives and artists that are all working together, and they’re all feeding off of each other. I was having a conversation with a friend a while ago because of the Internet and the social media platforms, and I realized that there isn’t really a chance as much anymore for a scene to develop in its own vacuum.

But there used to be a sense that you could discover the city, or one part of the world. Now with social media, it’s so much more immediate about the thing people are doing. You don’t get the closed off thing that happens when a group of artists feed off each other and people in social media are not really connected to the outside world. In that echo chamber when things are a little bit isolated, it really forms a collective and a scene that is really identifiable. If social media has done anything, it’s homogenized a little bit of that across the board and made scenes a little bit more immediate trading of ideas and fashion.

I’m not saying homogenized in a bad way but there are a lot more common denominators than there were. That’s just me looking at what I used to know about when we were traveling for our earliest tours before social media. There was such a crisp and clean music scene in Seattle, obviously, that happened in the 90s. And there was a really crisp scene of music that was being made in the Midwest, Chicago, and Omaha. You could just find all these pockets around the country. I remember we would go in and out of them as we were touring and think that there were so many like-minded people out here. We’re all connected, but we don’t know that we are.

With social media now, people in bands find each other really quickly. The scene becomes not geographically based and that’s cool. But I think what still makes a good scene, is more just about all of the creatives around that feed off of what’s happening in that aesthetic, whether it’s fashion, photography, painting, or film. There becomes a movement that happens around any scene, and it’s identifiable for this one particular group of people, not just musicians or visual artists. They all work together in some ways.

PH: With the pandemic, do you think the music scene will become more widespread in which people are now having to live on the Internet?

NH: I think probably more widespread because most people are connecting now from the internet. There’s an amazing power in that. When I was young, I would be lucky if two other people in my entire school liked the same music that I liked, and you’d find those people as your best friends. Now there are communities and message boards that spring up around us, you are just able to connect with more like-minded people that feel the same way about the things that you feel the same about.

That to me is so exciting, and that is such a global phenomenon now that even language barriers aren’t as pronounced. You’ve got so much more cross-pollination happening with pop culture that people are borrowing, sharing, being inspired, and influenced by all the things that are happening around. It’s probably going to be a little bit more global than hyper-localized. I think there’s going to be some outstanding local artists, but they’ll probably be more a part of a larger collective than a smaller local one. It’ll be really interesting to see what happens when we finally get out of lockdown and we’re done with all of the computer screens or phones. I think a lot of people here in the States after we had the Spanish flu in 1918, we had the roaring twenties.

It was this boom period in the States of parties and drinking. Everyone was just excited to be alive, and people keep talking about how it’s possible that we’re about to go into the roaring twenties again. We’re going to be so excited and be so thankful that we get to do that. But it’s just going to be a wild next decade of fun, which could make everything localized in some ways. I think it was a unique human experiment that’s about to happen after this weird experience that we’ve all gone through on a global scale with this pandemic.

It’s affected every corner of the globe as soon as science is able to help us turn the corner of humanity as a globe. I can’t wait to travel and play shows, and I’m so excited and so thankful if we get to do that again. I will never ever take a day of that for granted, for the rest of my life. That’s going to have an impact on the music we make and the disposition that we have if we get around it. If we don’t, we’re going to hit this decade of depression that we’ve never seen in the history of humankind where everyone’s going to just be so sad and miserable. Then we will never get around the virus and just live in our caves, which I don’t want that to happen.

PH: What do you love about music that has impacted the world?

NH: It’s always cliché to say that music is like some universal language. But there is this sense that music brings people together like the community around the music fans, and the experience that music creates in the backdrop connects people with each other. Music to me is life, it’s everything. So, to be able to realize that people all around the world share that same feeling to me, makes the world smaller and makes me realize that my concerns are everyone’s concerns. Also, we are all living on this planet together and we need to take care of each other.

Because of that, music is able to transcend political borders and a lot of things that are typically used to divide people by making them feel they’re miles apart in different. There’s just something about sharing a musical experience with someone that is real and it feels deep. It feels like we’re connected to something about humanity that’s bigger than anything. So, that to me will always make music special, makes me thankful to be able to play it and to be a part of it.

Stay up to date with the latest tour dates on Death Cab For Cutie and listen to the latest album, The Georgia EP.

All images courtesy of Death Cab For Cutie, Rachel Demy, and Nick Harmer.

26 August 2021