As temperatures steadily fall in metro Detroit and we begin to grapple with the realization that warm weather won’t return anytime soon, it’s another kind of “cool” that hometown indie-pop duo Dale Earnhardt Jr Jr are interested in. On “James Dean,” a new single released to promote an extensive national tour this fall, the group both pays homage to the title figure (September 30 marked the 59th anniversary of his death) and plays up their more low-key vibes.
The track — our first taste of new music from the band since 2013’s The Speed of Things — starts off bare boned, as if aurally depicting the narrator’s state: unsuccessfully in his attempts to quit smoking and lying “in the moonlight, in a freezing house.” To chase away his ennui, he puts on a record — and here his vocals become double-tracked as well as pitch-shifted, while drums, hand claps, and gentle synths join the hitherto stark bassline — and goes into a reverie.
Rather than trying to parse the meaning of the lyrics, it might be best to let band member Joshua Epstein explain:
‘James Dean’ is a song meant for a world that, for all its immediacy and convenience, has possibly lost some of its mystery. We all have a relationship with ‘cool’ — or whatever we define as such. Dale Earnhardt Jr Jr began as a basement recording project in which we were determined to be unbound by ‘cool.’ We were intent on never trying to chase it. But there is a push/pull with forces such as these, and, as our band has grown and mutated, cyclical thoughts persist. It can drive you away from (or toward) your truest intentions. And so, this relationship remains a dance that we engage in. Shadowboxing with ‘cool,’ while keeping it at arm’s length.
Dale Earnhardt Jr Jr go on tour beginning October 17. Their tour closes in Detroit with dates at The Crofoot Ballroom on November 22 and 23.
Listen to “James Dean” below: