News

Death Cab Guitarist's Hard Drive Seized

Chris Walla, guitarist for Death Cab For Cutie, planned to release his first solo album just months from now, but it seems that the U.S. government may not allow that to happen. According to the musician, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security confiscated his master hard drive with all the song files on it for reasons unknown. The hard drive is currently in the possession of the computer-forensics division.

Walla spoke to MTV.com about this inexplicable waste of taxpayer dollars. "It's a true story," he explained. "Barsuk [Records] had hired a courier—who does international stuff all the time and who they had used before—to bring [the album] back from Canada, where I was working on it. And he got to the border and he had all his paperwork and it was all cool, only they turned him away, and they confiscated the drive and gave it to the computer-forensics division of our Homeland Security-type people."

"And now I couldn't even venture a guess as to where it is," he continued, "Or what it's doing there. I mean, I can't just call their customer-service center and ask about my drive. There's nothing I can do. I don't know if we can hire an attorney ... is there a black-hole attorney? You can't take a black hole to court."

Thankfully, Walla has back-up tapes of the songs for use, but they require mixing and mastering. The debut, titled Field Manual, is reportedly "very political." You don't say...

—The ARTISTdirect Staff
10.18.07