(CelebrityAccess MediaWire) — Jimmy Tamborello, of the electronica group Dntel and Ben Gibbard, lead singer of Death Cab for Cutie, released a collaborative effort in 2003. Due to the fact that Tamborello lived in Los Angeles and Gibbard resided in Seattle, the two put the album together by recording bits and pieces of songs and mailing them back and forth. Inspired by their method of communication, they decided to call themselves the Postal Service.
According to the Lexington Herald-Leader, the album sold almost 400,000 copies and was a hugely successful indie-rock hit. It seemed like everything was going well for the duo, until the real Postal Service got involved.
Tony Kiewel, a representative of the record label that released the album, told the paper, "It was really polite. It said that the Postal Service is a registered trademark of the U.S. Postal Service, and that though they were very, very flattered that we were using the name, they need to enforce their copyright."
The band and the mail carrier finally came to an agreement just last week. The U.S. Postal Service will allow the band to use the name freely in return for the band promoting the use of the U.S. mail service. Future albums will be forced to have a notice about the copyright stamped on them, though the U.S. Postal Service was willing to sell the band’s CDs on their website. Another concession made by the band was to play on November 17th at the Postmaster General’s annual National Executive Conference.
Although Tamborello admitted to the Herald-Leader that it “seems a little bit weird,” he added, “it's a funny story for them to have — it's a good story of how you can still use normal snail mail.” –by CelebrityAccess Staff Writers
On the Web: http://www.subpop.com/bands/postalservice
