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At first glance, Death Cab for Cutie might seem like an odd choice to write the first single from the upcoming “New Moon” soundtrack.
After all, unlike Paramore — whose “Decode” kicked off the ultra-successful “Twilight” soundtrack — none of the guys in Death Cab are “Twilight” obsessives. But before you judge too harshly, consider DCFC bassist Nick Harmer: He’s been to Forks, Washington — the sleepy town author Stephenie Meyer set the “Twilight” saga in — and he’s been there for fun.
“Oh yeah, I’ve been there a bunch. And I went before it was the place from the ‘Twilight’ books. It’s definitely one of those Northwest towns you hit once or twice, and it’s awesome she chose to set the novels there,” Harmer told MTV News. “It’s part of your trip through [Washington’s] peninsula. There’s not a lot of civilization out on the coast — I’m not being disrespectful, there are no giant cities out there — it’s just towns, and you stop at all of them to see what they’re all about.”
Harmer knows a thing or two about Forks (for the record, he says it’s “very nice” there), and he used that knowledge to help his Death Cab mates pen “Meet Me on the Equinox.” The song will debut on MTV.com on Sunday, September 13, the day of the MTV Video Music Awards. It’s a song the band would’ve been endlessly proud of even if it didn’t get picked to be the lead single from the “New Moon” soundtrack (which hits stores October 20).
“We wanted to record a song that we loved and we would use on an album or anywhere and submit it to this process, and if they passed on it — if they were like, ‘Hey, you know what? This isn’t quite right for us, thanks a lot for trying’ — we’d still have a song out that we’d be proud of, that we could put somewhere else. For us, it was a no-lose situation,” Harmer explained. “What was most important for us was to get the material right first … and it tied into these films, especially ‘New Moon,’ because if you strip away all the vampirism and the werewolves and the Northwest and everything, basically, the ‘Twilight’ series is just a big romance novel. It’s a big story about love, and that’s a major theme for us.”
And as luck would have it, the tune did get picked, which means Death Cab are now gearing up to shoot a video for the song (they’ll film it later this week in Toronto). And though details about the clip are still slim, Harmer seems to be onto something with his idea — one that will no doubt endear him even further to “Twilight” fans.
“The safe route would be to go with the straight performance video, like that Paramore video. But I don’t think we’re going to be outside in the woods … you know, been there, done that. I don’t think we’re going to try to cut a narrative in where we’re all dressed up like vampires running around with fake teeth in,” he laughed. “I’m of the mind-set that the more Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart and Taylor Lautner you can throw in the video, the more popular the video is going to be. Nobody wants to look at us, so we’ll probably be standing in the shadows.”
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The MTV Video Music Awards will air September 13 at 9pm ET.
The Rob Stop 