Personal Life and Career
Gibbard was born in Bremerton, Washington, where he spent his formative years, during the time of the grunge musical explosion in the early 1990s. He graduated from Olympic High School in 1994. He also cites Jack Kerouac as a major influence. He studied engineering at Western Washington University. He was raised Roman Catholic and referred to himself as "this indoctrinated Catholic even though I haven't been to church of my own volition in 10 or 15 years now." In a 2003 interview Gibbard stated that while he had previously been a vegan, he had recently become a pescetarian.
He had a small role in the John Krasinski film Brief Interviews with Hideous Men based on the David Foster Wallace short story collection of the same title. He completed a solo tour through the US in the spring of 2007 that featured David Bazan of Pedro the Lion and singer-songwriter Johnathan Rice.
Gibbard became engaged to actress and musician Zooey Deschanel in 2008. The couple married in September 2009 near Seattle, Washington. They announced their separation on November 1, 2011 after two years of marriage. Deschanel subsequently filed for divorce on December 27, 2011, citing irreconcilable differences.
He reportedly gave up alcohol in 2008 and began running marathons.
Gibbard is a strong agnostic, lapsed Catholic: "I don’t want to falsely believe in something solely so I can jump to the front of the line for whatever this awesome place is we go after we die. The vastness of that idea is so beyond my comprehension that I feel like if there was a God, then that God would accept me saying I’m not able to believe because it’s so outside of my ability to understand it. I understand that’s where faith comes into play."
Gibbard is an activist for gay rights and wrote an article in The Daily Beast voicing why this issue is important to him. He stated that when his lesbian sister got married, that it was "the most beautiful thing" he had ever seen. In the article, he voiced his strong support for Referendum 74 and discussed raising money for the issue. He stated, "I would just feel so much pride for my state if we could pass it by a popular vote and show the rest of the country that this is the direction we are going in.”
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