Death Cab for Cutie are like the librarian who takes off her glasses to reveal a supermodel, or the reporter who takes off his glasses to reveal Superman. Their album Something About Airplanes has been a sleeper hit: Sales have grown steadily on word of mouth, and suddenly the smart boys from Bellingham are players in the Northwest music scene.

Ben Gibbard, Chris Walla, and Nick Harmer met me in the Green Lantern Tavern in Wallingford, where they've been holding most of their band meetings. My mother would say they look like nice young men in their short pants, white socks, and Converse sneakers. The scene is wholesome: We drink bottled beer and lean back against the blond wood paneling of the Green Lantern. The light is low and warm. Nick fidgets and sits on the chairback, his feet on the seat, but he gives long and thoughtful answers. Ben grows expansive after the second round and illustrates his speech with gestures. He is the only one who bothers with sarcasm. Chris is serene, except for a steady toe-tapping which he keeps up almost without fail for the two and a half hours we are there.

What would be the title of your autobiography?

Nick: Hey, Do You Play Drums? [They are looking for a new drummer.] That would be the band autobiography.

Ben: Mine would be All You Need is to Get Some Sleep.

Chris: The title of my personal autobiography would be....

What's more important: the lyrics or the music?

Ben: The music.

Nick: The music -- it's usually what you hear first.

Chris: 'Cause if you turn the music up loud enough you can't hear the lyrics.

What is the stupidest lyric ever written?

Nick: The worst lyric ever written was by this boy group called LFO (Lyte Funkie Ones), and the chorus is "New Kids on the Block had a bunch of hits/Chinese food makes me sick/and I like girls that wear Abercrombie & Fitch."

Chris: It was my first day at work, I'm next to this guy cleaning plates, and that Kid Rock song comes on the End. And when it comes to the part in the song "I'm not straight outta Compton/I'm straight outta the trailer park," the guy goes "trailer park!" and raises his fist! And then he got all stoked and was rockin' out, like he was from a trailer park.

What's the dumbest thing you've ever done while drunk?

Nick: Every band has its roles, and my role, whether I asked for it or not, has become band dad. So I mainly don't drink at shows, or really, at all.

Ben: I think I peed in my laundry hamper once when I was drunk.

Chris: I think the dumbest thing I ever did drunk was go to work the next morning. When I was still drunk.

What song will you have played at your funeral?

Ben: I'm on a super-super big GBV kick right now, so "Don't Stop Now" by Guided By Voices, because I think it's the most beautiful song.

Chris: I think for me "How She Lied By Living" by the Posies.

Nick: Because I think about how I am going to die, "Violence," by Low. This is a thing that I have been going around and around in my brain about. It has to do with that whole "Do the arts make kids pick up guns and go kill themselves and other people?" question. There are artists in the world who say, "My violent movies and violent songs don't make kids pick up guns; this is totally unrelated to what I'm doing." But what you negate when you say that is the fact that your movies and your music make people cry, make people jealous, make people feel. Either there is an impact or not. I just want to hold those people that say there is no connection to what they actually mean. So if you're saying that your movie doesn't make a kid go out and kill someone, then you are also saying your movie shouldn't make me want to feel a variety of emotions -- much less feel empowered to do something like pick up a social cause.

Ben: Like how after Dead Poets Society I got my doctorate in poetry. I was so inspired I went out and got it the next day.

What's the worst album you've ever loved?

Nick: The worst record I ever loved? I liked Van Halen's 1984 a whole lot and I had a secret affinity for Poison's Look What the Cat Dragged In.

Ben: I think it would have to be Daryl Hall and John Oates' Big, Bam, Boom. Because I have it on cassette and vinyl. It's so tight.

Chris: What I think is a bad record -- I went through that whole art rock phase where I liked Yes and Genesis. Moving into the next level of art rock when you pass Yes and Genesis and get into the Yes and Genesis clone bands of the '70s, I skipped over Camel and Gentle Giant but I landed on Marillion for awhile. There is a reason you don't know about this record. I really liked Misplaced Childhood.

What's the most naive ideal you held in your teens?

Chris: That Marillion's Misplaced Childhood was a really good record.

Nick: The most misplaced ideal that I probably ever had was that socialism could work in America.

Ben: Mine had to do with SATs and GPAs in high school meaning something. I worked hard and got good grades and stayed in. Then I realized there was no point to it. So if I have a kid I am going to pull him aside and say, "Listen Ben Jr., don't worry about it, if worse comes to worse we'll send you to a junior college and then you'll go to a four-year, but don't worry about it. In fact don't even go to college." Because all I did was waste $25,000 of my parents' money.

Chris: I think mine was that alcohol is an inherently bad thing by nature. I was straight-edge until I was almost 22.

Would you rather eat a pound of raw bacon or punch your mother in the face?

Ben: I'm a vegan. I'd have to punch my mother in the face.

Chris: I would rather punch my mother in the face. Do I get to prep Mom first? I think that if I could prep Mom I would have to punch her.

Nick: There is no question. I would have to eat the pound of bacon because bacon tastes GOOD.

What did you want to be when you grew up?

Chris: I always wanted to be a recording engineer. There was a time when I wanted to be an architect, but the only career that I have thought about and stuck with since I was 9 or 10 was recording engineer.

Nick: I really wanted to be a geologist.

Ben: I was going to play first base for the Mariners. That was until I was about 19, before I realized that I hadn't played baseball in eight years.

What is your most marketable skill outside of music?

Chris: I have a dream for when rock 'n' roll falls through for me. I'm going to do voice-overs for cartoons and maybe do some puppet shows.

Ben: My most marketable skill is not one that I am particularly proud of. I graduated with a degree in environmental chemistry. I wondered why I studied that in the first place, because it puts me in a place that I do not enjoy: the laboratory.

Nick: My most marketable skill is my overwhelming strength!