Ben Gibbard on his love-hate relationship with L.A. and life after the Postal Service

“When I had the idea to do this tour, I felt like we almost had an obligation to do it because of how much these two records mean to people,” says Ben Gibbard about the Postal Service and Death Cab for Cutie’s “Give Up” and “Transatlanticism.” Twenty-one years ago, Ben Gibbard’s life changed twice in the span of eight months. In February 2003, the frontman of Seattle’s Death Cab for Cutie released “Give Up,” the first album by his electro-pop side project the Postal Service; it went on to become an indie blockbuster, selling more than a million copies and spawning swoony millennial anthems like “Such Great Heights.” Gibbard doubled down in October of that year with Death Cab’s even swoonier “Transatlanticism,” which led to the band’s appearance on the hit teen soap “The O.C.” and a major-label deal with Atlantic Records. “Transatlanticism,” meanwhile, describes a fling with a woman in Silver Lake and followed Death Cab’s 2001 “The Photo Album,” on which Gibbard asks someone why they’d want to live in a town that “smells like an airport runway.” Gibbard talked to The Times about the albums — as well as the state of indie rock and his friendship with former Death Cab guitarist Chris Walla, who quit the band in 2014 — before a gig last week in Kansas City, where he’d just spent the day visiting the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum and the American Jazz Museum. Well, “Transatlanticism” wasn’t conceived as a concept record — it wasn’t written about one person, despite the legend that’s kind of grown up around it.