In the ’80s, Nick Harmer and Aaron Stewart-Ahn applied their fledgling filmmaking skills to skate videos, goofy horror shorts and ads for their class presidential bid at Puyallup’s Ferrucci Junior High.

They’ve come a long way.

Harmer is bassist for Seattle’s Death Cab for Cutie, among the most popular rock bands in the country. And Stewart-Ahn is a rising star in the video world, having directed an award-winning clip for Portland alt-rock band the Decemberists.

And one of their latest cinematic collaborations has the childhood friends in the running for a Grammy tonight. (Death Cab also is nominated for best pop performance by a duo or group with vocal for the ballad “I Will Follow You Into the Dark.”)

“Directions” – a collection of low-budget videos, initially shot for online viewing and later packaged on DVD – is up against concert films from Bruce Springsteen, Madonna and Gorillaz for best long-form music video. The award will be given during the nontelevised portion of the show.

The duo developed the concept for “Directions” and are among the project’s co-producers. Stewart-Ahn also directed one of the videos, for “Stable Song.”

Both men agree that the way things have come full circle is a bit weird.

“We kind of shrug it off on some levels,” Harmer, 32, said by phone from his home in Seattle. “But when we really stop and think about it, it’s awesome. I mean, two dorky kids (from) Puyallup of all places.

“We pretty much had to make our fun for the most part. We weren’t really into what a lot of people were doing at the time, so it was always just playing around with video cameras and playing around with computers and playing around with comic books and all that kind of stuff. And now to actually be nominated together for a Grammy.”

He trailed off, laughing.

“I hope we win,” he said.

‘Both went that extra step’

They met 20 years ago, not long after seventh grade started. Granted, they got off to a rocky start thanks to a little misunderstanding.

“I don’t know how this started,” Stewart-Ahn said, calling from Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lives. “When he saw me, he would just call me ‘Airhead.” I would say back to him, ‘Oh, hey, Dick.’ And he must have thought I was making fun of him. But I actually thought that was his name.”

“We just kind of laughed about it and became best friends right after that,” Harmer said. “There was no one else at Ferrucci Junior High that liked comic books and liked the same music and all that stuff.”

“We had really weird tastes,” Stewart-Ahn said. “We were just misfits,” he added, laughing.

Others had more flattering recollections.

“They were both very creative. They both went that extra step,” said their art teacher, Kathy Makenas. She made a point of showing students where Harmer sat once she learned that he’d become a rock star, thanks to a newspaper story about last year’s Grammys. (Death Cab lost to the White Stripes for best alternative album.)

Stewart-Ahn’s mother, Chong Stewart – who still lives in Puyallup with her husband, Jim – recalled how the boys balanced each other. Harmer was the more outgoing one, “a natural leader,” she said, while her son was more introspective and artistic.

“They were very opposite of each other, but so much alike,” she said. “We never even dreamed about how they ended up. We thought Nick Harmer would be a teacher and Aaron would be a writer.”

The seeds of Grammy glory were planted when Harmer got a video camera on Christmas in junior high.

“We just made little shorts all the time – little weird things,” Stewart-Ahn recalled. “We even ran for class president together one year and made campaign ads. But they were ridiculous, you know.”

Using their heads

Harmer remembered their infamous campaign speech, delivered in sci-fi costumes. They wore hollowed melons on their heads to denote highly evolved intelligence and reached inside their “heads” to throw brains (actually spaghetti) at the audience.

They lost the election.

After high school, Harmer headed to Western Washington University in Bellingham, while Stewart-Ahn went to college in Ireland. Harmer kept Stewart-Ahn posted on his bands, which included pre-Death Cab project Shed (later Eureka Farm.) Then one day he had special news.

“He was being sheepish about it,” Stewart-Ahn recalled. “But he was like, ‘Yeah, but I think we actually made something good.’ And he sent me this really sweet letter and a copy of ‘Something About Airplanes’ – the very first pressing and everything. And I put it on and was amazed because for the first time in my life, I had a friend in a band that I thought was really good.”

After Stewart-Ahn returned to the United States, he bonded with the rest of the band when he went along to document an ill-fated, post-Sept. 11 tour, well before Death Cab was famous.

“It was just a really bad time, and I was out of my depth and element shooting a documentary about all this stuff,” Stewart-Ahn said. “So we never did anything with the footage.”

Death Cab eventually gained traction, and by 2004 the band was a staple of college radio. Around that time, Stewart-Ahn worked as a production assistant on the animated movie blockbuster “Shrek 2.”

“That was such a horrible experience that after it was over I just quit,” Stewart-Ahn said. “It was like the show ‘The Office,’ but we were making ‘Shrek 2,’” he added, laughing. “It was a very corporate, office-driven environment, but with the pressure (to have) wacky fun all the time.”

At a loss for what to do next, he was invited to help his friends the Decemberists shoot a video in Portland. Someone else had been lined up to direct but couldn’t do it.

“They said, ‘You have five days and $4,000. Can you do something’?” Stewart-Ahn said. “I was so excited.”

The result was the quirky video for “16 Military Wives,” which won a PLUG Independent Music Award. Harmer appears toward the end as one of those “slow clappers” you see in just about every movie applause scene.

Harmer also turned to his friend when it came time to plan a video idea for “Plans,” Death Cab’s debut CD for Atlantic Records. Frustrated with the major video channels, the duo decided to make a series of low-budget videos for the Internet.

“And that’s how we pitched it to Atlantic,” Stewart-Ahn said. “And they were completely, awesomely receptive.”

The big night

The longtime friends and their families flew to Los Angeles for tonight’s ceremony. But they were apprehensive about their odds.

“It would be nice if the voting base split their vote between Madonna and Bruce, and we came right up the middle or something,” Harmer mused.

But based on how Grammy votes tend to go, he expected the Boss to win.

“If I was a gamblin’ man, that’s where my money would go,” he said.

After the Grammys, Harmer will enjoy some time off. But he expects Death Cab to start recording again by year’s end.

Stewart-Ahn recently shot a video for the Decemberists’ song “O Valencia!”

“The funny thing is, I can’t make anything without Nick,” he said. “He’d just come off of tour with Death Cab, and he’s exhausted totally. And I made him drive down to Portland for a few days, like, wearing a walkie-talkie and a clipboard.

“It’s still like we’re 12-year-olds with a video camera. It’s just that things are more complicated now. Whenever I lose perspective I try to remind myself (that) we’re having the same fun we had back then.”

Ernest A. Jasmin: 253-274-7389

ernest.jasmin@thenewstribune.com