Dntel

A conversation with Jimmy Tamborello

(May 2007)

Interview by Adam McKibbin

As the beatmaking half of The Postal Service, Jimmy Tamborello helped bring laptop pop and electronic music into the mainstream, thanks to a gold-selling debut record (Give Up) and its ubiquitous single "Such Great Heights."

Prior to that success, however, Tamborello had already established a presence in the genre with his work as Dntel and Figurine, and the seeds for the successful Postal Service collaboration (with Death Cab for Cutie's Ben Gibbard) were planted on Dntel's Life is Full of Possibilities.

Nearly six years later, Tamborello dusts off the Dntel moniker again on Dumb Luck, a semi-solo album that again finds the talented studio wiz getting by with lots of help from his friends—friends like Jenny Lewis, Conor Oberst, and Edward Droste (Grizzly Bear).

The songs on Dumb Luck were recorded between 2002 and 2006—a pretty wide range. Were the songs coming to you slowly, or was it more a matter of struggling to find the time to work on them?

It was more the first thing—it took a while for me to get the songs together. I was distracted a lot with other projects, too, but a lot of the reason that I started other projects was to get away from this one, because it was giving me trouble.

Were you writing songs that just didn't fit with the overall aesthetic?

Yeah, and sometimes I wouldn't even start working on songs because I didn't have any ideas that I thought would be exciting to do.

You started Dumb Luck essentially right after you finished the last Dntel album. Are you doing the same thing this time around, or are you taking a little break?

I'm already working on some new songs. I'm trying to not think about albums as much anymore; I think I get overwhelmed when I start thinking of it as a big project. I want to try songs for a while and not get stuck in one certain sound. I need to figure out what I want to do next. I'm also working on Postal Service stuff, too.

When you're writing without thinking about albums, are you also writing without thinking about which umbrella it will wind up underneath—whether it's a Dntel song or a Postal Service song or a Figurine song?

Yeah, I'm trying to do it a little more blindly—to just work on songs and see where they go.

You've said in different interviews that you don't have the same confidence level in your vocals and lyrics as you do in your music, and that's what initially led you to seeking out collaborators to fill those roles. Was there ever the thought, though, that Dntel would be an entirely instrumental vehicle? On this album, there are no instrumentals.

I like instrumentals, too, and I liked having the instrumentals on Life Is Full of Possibilities. But for this album, for some reason, all of the songs felt like they needed vocals. There was one instrumental that almost went on.

Does the title track feel closer to you because it's your voice and your words?

I guess a little bit more, but I feel pretty close to all of them—pretty close to ownership, even though the singers all wrote their own lyrics and vocal melodies. I still feel like it's mine. And theirs, too.

When do you start matching singers to the tracks?

It varies. Sometimes a singer will be interested and will have some time, so I'll try to write to them. Sometimes I'll have instrumentals lying around and will think of someone that would be good for it.

I assume the Jenny Lewis song worked differently.

Yeah, that was the only one [like that]. She came to me with the song.

Was that written specifically for Dumb Luck?

I don't think so. I gave her this really meandering ambient track to write to, and she wasn't really feeling that one, but she had this other one and said "What about this?" I think she's always writing songs, so I don't think it was written at first with Dntel in mind.

What was the decision-making process in choosing the title track as the single?

I knew I didn't want to have a real single, something that would be released on its own. But you have to get something out to promote the record, and I felt that track summed up the album, and was kind of the blueprint for the album. It was the first one I finished. And I liked that it was the song that I sing, so it didn't feel like I was using someone else to get attention.

How come you didn't want a single that would be released separately?

Nothing really stuck out. And I didn't feel like making a statement like "This song is ready for the radio." Once I get an album together, I get insecure picturing the songs separately.

I assume that song isn't entirely autobiographical, but there's a striking line about waking up and wishing you had the talent and the courage that you had in the dream you've just awoken from. Was there some creative paralysis because of how well the Postal Service was received?

Yeah, it's hard to really tell what happened. I think there was some of that—and I exaggerated and simplified it for that song. But there was a little bit of it. The lyrics were written before the Postal Service took off. I felt really successful with the first Dntel album and how much attention that got—which was nothing compared to the Postal Service. But it was more of a reaction to [Dntel's success].

How much did the attention and success change your life?

Well, just in the fact that it made music my job—which is good and bad. I mean, most days I'm really glad to be able to just do music. But you do start feeling that pressure of "Keep going!" I sometimes forget that I don't have to do music. You feel a little bit trapped all of a sudden. It had always felt like a hobby, like what I did after school in high school and what I did for fun. When it became my job, it felt a little weird, and I feel like I have to work to keep it fun.

When that Postal Service record really hit, I remember several moments of hearing a song somewhere unexpected and thinking "Man, the Postal Service are everywhere." Were you encountering your music all the time?

Yeah, there was a lot of that—a lot of friends and family letting me know when they were hearing it. (laughs)

And it's also an album that pops up a lot as a reference point in press materials for other bands. Do you hear bands sometimes and think "Hmm, that sounds a little too familiar?"

I don't, really. Sometimes someone will point something out like that, but I haven't heard anything that I would be offended by. I mean, I didn't come up with it out of thin air, either.

As a listener, if you hear a compelling beat or a unique flourish in a song, do you jump to dissecting it and figuring out how it was made, or do you turn that switch off?

I don't know that I get that scientific about it. I definitely remember little things about other songs and try to recreate them, but I don't go back and listen to it a million times and try to figure out exactly how they do it, because I want it to be my own version. It's better to do it from kind of a vague memory, to just get the basic thing of what you liked without recreating it exactly.

Are you playing any shows for the album?

No. I'm going to do a little bit of DJ stuff, but no shows. I couldn't figure out a good way to do it live.

What's the quick rundown on the other projects? You're already working on some new Postal Service stuff; is there anything on the horizon for Figurine?

We've talked about that a little bit. There's a compilation we might try to do a track for, but it's hard because the three of us are in separate cities. Meredith doesn't really have access to recording equipment as much as me and the other guy, so that makes it really slow. But we've been talking about it a little more.

I read in an interview from quite a while back that you had some chimpanzees commissioned to do the Dumb Luck album cover. I guess they didn't come through for you?

Yeah, I had it done, and they're good on my wall, but they didn't come out in a way that would look good on an album cover. I couldn't figure out how to do it without altering them, and that would've defeated the point.

Were they kind of Jackson Pollockian?

(laughs) Yeah. I think one of the problems was that I gave them the paints to use, and I went to the store and got some paints that were just the basic colors and they didn't look that good. A lot of it was just blank canvas.

On your MySpace page, I saw a lot of comments like "I love your stuff—check out my stuff!" Do you ever actually check that stuff out?

Sometimes. I feel guilty every time I don't, but MySpace is so glitchy; usually I click on something and it freezes my computer or takes five minutes to show anything. If I could just click the button and it would just start playing the song, I would do it a lot more. I definitely feel bad right now. There wasn't MySpace when I started out, but I remember sending a CD to Trent Reznor when I was in high school, asking if he needed an intern. (laughs) And I never heard back from him.