He's one third of one of the most influential bands in American indie-rock. He's a poster boy for instrument-swapping guest appearances on albums from similarly admired artists. He spends half of his life on the road, and the other half in a Brooklyn apartment working on music that is every bit as exciting as the stuff produced under the banner of his full-time concern. And yet no one knows his name...

Mike Baker met up with "the quiet one", James McNew, in Montreal during Yo La Tengo's stop in support of their latest opus, Summer Sun, to talk about life with Hoboken's indie royalty, adventures of home-recording and the release of his latest solo album, Dump's gloriously inspired -- and inspiring -- indie-pop roadtrip, A Grown Ass Man.

Splendid: Let's start at the beginning: Dump has been around for over a decade now, but is only just beginning to emerge from a set of seemingly self-imposed shadows with the release of A Grown Ass Man.

James McNew: I put out a record called Dump International Airport on Smells Like Records, and that was really the only one of the albums I put out before 1997 that was readily available. I don't really know what I was thinking. The early nineties were a strange time in the indie community -- the planned obsolescence of people's work. It was the whole idea of not getting your stuff around -- of making a few things, and if people wanted them they could find them somehow before they disappeared into the ether. It was pretty appealing at the time, but when you're preparing things like that for re-issue then you feel silly. I'm questioning my own logic behind the many artistic decisions I made earlier, specifically decisions regarding commerce. You know, the limited edition objet d'art of a record in 1992 or 1993 was all the rage back then. Everything had to be numbered and limited, and I was all about the numbering and limiting. Now I just feel silly.

Splendid: Thinking back to that period, I would make my routine stop at the Yo La Tengo section of the local record store and it would be littered with the Dump albums featuring the cartoon bunny on the cover. They were pretty few and far between, and as the years went by they were even fewer and farther between.

James McNew: I work really slow, and I'm really busy with Yo La Tengo -- extremely busy. And even when I do have time, I work pretty slow. Another thing was, those albums were nearly impossible to find -- the albums themselves were released on a Dutch label called Brinkman. Until the people at Revolver (a company in San Francisco that distributes the Shrimper label -- and they work very closely together, they're an outstanding distribution company) hooked up with Brinkman, it was like you needed to be on a guest list to find a record of mine in a record store. It was impossible.

I should note that at this point during the conversation, James and I ordered a bite to eat. When the kind Francophone waitress recommended that James try the Americaine dipping sauce, he declined, embarrassed, and politely asked for something else.

James McNew: I can't do that. (Laughing) I can't go to another country and order something called "Americaine". That's the worst thing I can think of.

Splendid: Are you finding movement around the States and across into Canada is dragging as slowly now (in the midst of the latest Gulf War) as it was in the months following 9/11?

James McNew: I just read some article about Godspeed You! Black Emperor being detained somewhere in the States... that's horrible. Everything has been going fairly smoothly for us. We're pretty lucky. Everything is booked until the fall, and then hopefully some far-flung travel to Asia. I'll be very busy.

Splendid: What are your favorite places to visit?

James McNew: I have great memories of almost every place. I can't tell you a thing about the greater-Cincinnati area, but we've played some amazing shows in Cincinnati, so now it's one of the greatest places. "I don't remember anything about the city, but the show was great." And eating. I think that's a really great way to distinguish cities from cities, because each has its own specialities or traditional dish. I think that's a really quick and powerful way to remember where you are.

Splendid: No photo albums?

James McNew: Quite a few! The advent of the digital camera has taken frivolous photo-taking to a new level with me. I've pretty much taken photos of every good meal we've eaten over the last couple of years.

Splendid: What else do you do with your time apart from music? And can a clear distinction be made between your life as Dump and life with Yo La Tengo?

James McNew: No, not really. (laughs) And I'm not really sure exactly where the line is between my own stuff and Yo La Tengo. I really haven't been forced to figure out the difference between the two groups. Maybe six or seven years ago I could have drawn a thicker line between the two, but I don't know if I can any more. It's really strange. I just like making stuff by myself sometimes -- it's somewhere between a hobby and compulsion, almost to the point of a disorder, where music will be in my head all of the time and I have to do something with it. It sounds really strange, but I also really love the technical aspect of it -- just doing stuff myself, outside of a big recording studio, without the help of anyone who knows how to operate a big recording studio. I like to figure things out for myself, even if I don't figure them out correctly -- getting from point A to point B, whether I'm doing it the right way or not. I'm able to apply a lot of that stuff to our Yo La Tengo work, and I've done a lot of recording of our band. Learning instruments and learning different styles, I carry quite a bit of that private playing and recording into playing with Ira and Georgia. But I'm entirely satisfied writing in a group, because we really do operate as a group, completely. It seems like it must be pretty rare these days -- I'm not sure whether we're old-fashioned or avant-garde. When Yo La Tengo records, we like to all be in the same room at the same time, we don't like to wear headphones and we don't like separation. We're really good friends, and we hang out with each other all of the time, and it informs our approach to doing music.

Splendid: As the years have gone by, that unity becomes clearer and clearer on the Yo La Tengo albums, despite the fact that stylistically, you've begun to explore more and more genres. You pursue a lot of different sounds and styles on A Grown Ass Man, covering numerous sonic bases but making it all work as a cohesive album.

James McNew: I don't think of it as stomping around from style to style, genre to genre, just for the sake of sounding eclectic. I'm a huge fan of all different kinds of music, and I know that whatever comes out of me is informed by that. I think that the important thing for me is to make sure that people see it's different shades of one person's personality, rather than being thirteen different people -- although there is something to be said about the concept. I came up with this idea -- before finding out that The Turtles had done it thirty years before -- of a Battle of the Bands record. They made a fake compilation album where they played every song but gave themselves different names.

Splendid: Do you record at home? I can only assume it has come a long way from your early four-track recordings.

James McNew: Yes, at home. I was resistant to digital recording for a long time, but then I tried it and I really loved it. A Grown Ass Man was made using a computer, and I think I was initially afraid that I couldn't translate the same feeling (of the earlier process) to another medium. But I took to it pretty fast. By learning how to do it at my own speed and figuring things out for myself, I was able to capture the same wandering feeling.

Splendid: Did you learn as you were making the album or did you keep your "training" separate? If we listen closely, are there signs of the learning curve present on A Grown Ass Man?

James McNew: I think so, I bet you could. "I Wish, You Wish" was the first song that I recorded and the last songs were "Oh Patty" and "Basic Cable". And not only was I working on Dump stuff, but I was working on Yo La Tengo stuff, and learning about remixing and things like that. As I learned more and more and more, I started feeling freakier as far as what I was willing to try, knowing I could try anything. I've gone from recording with a four-track where your options are "play" and "stop", and now the possibilities are endless.

Splendid: Do you think the next album might come quicker?

James McNew: No. No. More and more options are becoming available and I'm sure I'll want to try them all. I'll probably never finish anything ever again. (laughs)

Splendid: What about the songs? Do the songs come any quicker?

James McNew: Dump songs just come to my head, and I'll practice in my head for a while before I even take it to an instrument. That's pretty much how all the songs come about -- I keep it as insular as possible.

Splendid: What is Dump live, then? Aren't you going to go out on a tour later in the summer?

James McNew: I hope so. It's just me, mostly. I've played shows with other people before -- Ira and Georgia have played shows with me before, and that was really fun. My friend Dave Ramirez from Hypnolovewheel has played a bunch with me also, and the comedian Todd Barry played drums for me at show we did together over the summer (which was really strange). I'm constantly dreaming up combinations of friends of mine who I would really like to do a touring version of the group with, but none of us would ever have time to do it. It will probably just be me in the summer. I have a variety of gadgets to play with -- an old Rhythm Ace drum machine has appeared with me at most of the shows I've played, and that's always fun.

Splendid: A lot of sounds on the new Yo La Tengo and Dump albums are similar, which leaves me wondering if it's an orgy of all the gear you've collected over the years or if there is a distinction.

James McNew: I find a lot of the sounds by myself, but I also just have an assortment of sounds in my head that I really like, and I try to get to them somehow. Sometimes I can get to them without the actual piece of equipment that I need. But there isn't much actual gear overlap between the two bands. I have a different guitar that I keep at home and a couple of crazy guitar pedals that don't work well enough to bring on tour, a drum machine that barely stays together without catching on fire. It's all pretty homemade.

Splendid: Is there a Brooklyn group of friends and a Hoboken group of friends?

James McNew: Not really, it all centers around New York City. Granted, it's a very small social circle that I exist in. When (Yo La Tengo) is not traveling, I spend most of my time at home indoors.

Splendid: How about friends as collaborators? There are a couple of stunning vocal contributions from alt-luminaries on the Dump album.

James McNew: There are definitely friends that I've collaborated with that I absolutely love. I've worked with Sue Garner quite a bit (she appears on the duet "Once Upon a Time") and I played a bunch of guitar for her a couple of years ago that wound up on half of her album on Thrill Jockey last year. Fontaine Toups (ex-Versus) is also somebody that I've known for a really long time and I've always wanted to do something with her. (Toups appears on the epic "Daily Affirmation") She has a new group (The Fontaine Toups) that's really great.

Splendid: I've heard that Versus is going to re-group for one last hurrah?

James McNew: I don't believe that they're broken up. (laughing) I don't buy it. They played in New York and Boston a few months ago. I don't buy it, they'll be back together -- I hope so anyway. The Fontaine Toups group is really good, though. I actually covertly remixed a bunch of recordings Fontaine recently gave me without telling her, and I really loved doing that. She and I have talked about doing something more than guerilla work -- legitimate work together -- so maybe we'll do that soon -- I'd really like that.

REVIEWS:

12/31/2005:
Ladytron
Brian Cherney
Tomas Korber
UHF
The Rude Staircase
Dian Diaz
12/30/2005:
Helloween
PTI
The Crimes of Ambition
Karl Blau
Rosetta
Gary Noland
12/29/2005:
Tommy and The Terrors
Blacklisted
Bound Stems
Gary Noland
Carlo Actis Dato and Baldo Martinez
Quatuor Bozzoni
12/28/2005:
The Positions
Comet Gain
Breadfoot featuring Anna Phoebe
Secret Mommy
The Advantage
For a Decade of Sin: 11 Years of Bloodshot Records
12/27/2005:
The Slow Poisoner
Alan Sondheim & Ritual All 770
Davenport
Beaumont
Five Corners Jazz Quintet
Cameron McGill
Drunk With Joy
12/26/2005:
10 Ft. Ganja Plant
The Hospitals
Ross Beach
Big Star
The Goslings
Lair of the Minotaur
Koji Asano

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