Jason Narducy has spent more than four decades playing music, as a frontman, as a sideman, as a collaborator, and now, as an author. He's the songwriter and frontman of Split Single, and has been the touring bassist for Bob Mould since 2005. He's filled in for Superchunk, toured with Sunny Day Real Estate, and recorded with Mike Mills, Britt Daniel, and Jon Wurster, among others. Last December he published Mostly the Van, the first volume of a planned trilogy of stories from a life spent largely on the road.

But what I find most interesting about Jason Narducy is something harder to put a title on. It's the quality of attention he brings to the people and moments around him. The way a story about taking your daughter to a music festival becomes something that says everything about what music is actually for.

Jason Narducy joined me to talk about finding music as a kid, what it means to spend a career doing the thing you love on your own terms, and what it looks like when the people you've raised start finding their own version of what you found.

Purchase Mostly The Van

Songs of Protest, Sounds of Freedom @ Evanston Space

Michael Shannon & Jason Narducy and Friends play R.E.M.’s Lifes Rich Pageant