Dean Wareham (Luna, Dean and Britta, Galaxie 500) has shared “Cashing In,” the track of his forthcoming release, I Have Nothing to Say to the Mayor of L.A. The song was written in reflection of a playful comment made to Wareham by the artist Richard Kern, which was adapted for the chorus: “I’m not selling out / I’m cashing in.” He shares, “musically I was inspired by Michael Rother’s great, late-‘70s instrumental guitar records. And also by Peter Hook; I played the new ‘Hooky 6-string bass’ I bought last year, it’s a big part of that early New Order sound.” I Have Nothing to Say to the Mayor of L.A will be released on October 15 via Double Feature Records

Since the release of his last solo album, 2014’s Dean Wareham, Dean scored a film — Noah Baumbach’s Mistress America — with his wife, Britta Phillips, released an album and toured with his recently reunited group Luna. With Phillips he has also been doing regular livestreams from their home in Los Angeles (a collection largely culled from those sets, Quarantine Tapes, was released in 2020). Yet I Have Nothing to Say to the Mayor of L.A. marks the first new songs Wareham has written in almost seven years. Considering a possible reason for the delay in original material, Wareham jokes “maybe it’s just too sunny in L.A.”

When it came down to it though it was really all just a matter of putting an album into the calendar and committing. A week of studio time opened up at Panoramic House in Stinson Beach, so he kicked it into high gear and got to work. “The hard thing is just to start,” he says. “When I sat down and did it, the songs came pretty quickly.”

For the album sessions, Wareham decamped to the studio with producer Jason Quever (Beach House, Cass McCombs) and a tried and true duo of collaborators: Phillips on bass, vocals, and keys, and Roger Brogan on drums. Quever, an accomplished performer in his own right via his band Papercuts, also plays considerably on the album across a variety of instruments.

The studio’s setting is reflected on the album which moves like an easy breeze, the reverbed guitars pulsing pleasantly in conversation throughout. But with the pandemic raging on while they had to safely put it all together, there’s tension and anxiety in there too. “We were all inundated in politics, all swimming in that,” Wareham remembers. Of course, if you want to talk politics, the mayor of Los Angeles is mentioned right there in the title of the album, which is itself the first line on today’s single “The Past Is Our Plaything.” Wareham knows people are going to ask him about that — what would he have to say to the mayor, if given the chance? “It’s gonna happen,” he shrugs. “But the answer is right there too — I have nothing to say.”

Dean Wareham
I Have Nothing to Say to the Mayor of L.A.
Tracklisting

1 The Past Is Our Plaything
2 Cashing In
3 The Last Word
4 Robin & Richard
5 The Corridors Of Power
6 As Much As It Was Worth
7 Under Skys
8 Red Hollywood
9 Duchess
10 Why Are We In Vietnam?

Pre-order I Have Nothing to Say to the Mayor of L.A by by Dean Wareham HERE