If there was an indie-rock Jeopardy! category, the following would certainly be a question: “Who is the only musician to have played with Bob Mould, Robert Pollard, Superchunk, Britt Daniel, and Telekinesis – and served as the inspiration for Dave Grohl to devote his life to playing music?” If you answered Jason Narducy for $5,000, you’d probably win that episode. “Watching Jason was the first time I thought I could start my own band, and write my own kind of music,” Dave Grohl says. “Jason totally set my life in this new direction. It wasn’t a Jimmy Page or KISS poster I had – it was fuckin’ him!”  Indeed, if indie rock has a Zelig, a Forrest Gump, it’s Narducy. “Jason's been doin' the rock since he was a snot-nosed little punk,” Robert Pollard notes. “And I can attest from his work with me on the road that he's got it down. And it's not going to stop anytime soon.”   Narducy’s career in rock does prove uniquely epic upon inspection, and continues as such to this day. He first appeared as a co-founder of Verböten – one of the seminal acts in the Chicago punk scene that produced groundbreaking bands like Naked Raygun and Big Black. Narducy then went on to become frontman/songwriter/guitarist for Verbow, another beloved Windy City outfit who signed a major-label deal with Epic/Sony during the ‘90s alt-rock bubble. He followed that up with an ongoing, nearly decade-long run as indie-rock’s secret weapon – serving as bassist and backing vocalist for indie-underground icons like Mould, Pollard, and Superchunk, as well as Seattle’s indie power-pop faves Telekinesis. Now Narducy is returning to center stage as a bandleader with Fragmented World – the debut album from Split Single. A new project formed with fellow travelers Britt Daniel (Spoon, Divine Fits) on bass and drummer Jon Wurster (Superchunk, Mountain Goats, Bob Mould, Ben Gibbard, Robert Pollard), Split Single proves equal parts solo project and collective. “I liked the concept of a split single,” Narducy says. “It’s a communal thing: two bands have to work together in this handshake commitment, which then exposes each band to the other’s audience. It’s also the name of a two-stroke motorcycle engine invented at the turn of the century to be more efficient and powerful than previous engines. All those things together seemed to really reflect the spirit of what we did.”   The nucleus of Split Single came into being during a rare lull for Narducy at the end of 2011. Narducy hadn’t written new original material for eight years – until an unexpected challenge popped out of the ether: a friend, Steve Dawson, asked Narducy to do a solo set to support Dawson’s band Dolly Varden at famed Chicago venue Schubas in January. “I thought, ‘What if I wrote and played ten new songs?” Narducy says. “The show went well, and three songs I’d written for it – ‘Never Look Back,’ ‘Love Is You,’ and ‘My Eyes’ – actually ended up on Fragmented World. I was happy being a band guy, and still am – I’ve had enough day jobs to realize this is the best one ever – but I ended up writing forty more songs. I realized I had to do something with them.”   “I’m used to hearing Jason making me sound better, but it’s funny and familiar as well to hear his voice standing out in front again,” Bob Mould says. In fact, it was during recording sessions for Mould’s Silver Age album in San Francisco that February, Narducy played the demos for bandmate Wurster, creating additional momentum. “Jon really responded to the material,’” Narducy recalls. “Playing with him so much, I’ve learned he’s the best type of drummer – one who raises the energy and really pushes the song along into a complete whole.” “I think a drummer’s job should be to support the song and not get in the way of it,” Wurster says. “And these songs were so good I really didn’t want to get in the way of them.”   “Britt Daniel was then the first person I thought of to round out the recording collective,” Narducy continues. “We’d known each other a long time, and had talked about collaborating after playing together at this L.A. Bob Mould tribute concert in 2011. He’d told me bass was his favorite instrument, and I knew what Britt would bring to the arrangements and backing vocals would be invaluable.” “The songs were great – I wasn’t sure what to expect, and there were some curveballs!” Daniel says. “I’m always wearing so many hats, so I loved the idea of being in a band where all I do is play bass on someone else’s stuff. I felt like a session musician, which was so cool. Still, I got pretty in depth: there were no preconceptions, which is what collaboration is all about.”   After a single impromptu practice – “We rehearsed at Britt’s house for a couple hours the night before we started recording,” Wurster says. “Jason was playing acoustic guitar, Britt was on an unamplified bass, and I kept time tapping on my knees” – the trio settled in for a brisk four-day session overseen by studio guru Ken Sluiter (Jerry Lee Lewis, Kelly Hogan, OK Go, The Mekons). “There was no time to second guess,” Daniel laughs. “I haven’t made a record that fast in the last fifteen years!” Recording took place at Los Angeles’ hallowed Sound Factory, whose pop cultural bona fides proved inescapable. “There were a lot of Linda Ronstadt records on the walls,” Narducy notes. “All these records from our childhoods were made there,” Wurster adds. “It was fun to open the bathroom door and see a gold record for The Four Seasons’ ‘December, 1963 (Oh, What a Night)’ – one of the first records I ever bought – hanging in the corner.” Daniel, meanwhile, had to cope with an onslaught of hilarity from Narducy and Wurster (who’s becoming as well known for his comedic work with Tom Scharpling and writing for TV series like Tim and Eric Awesome Show as for his percussive skills). “They were constantly making spur-of-the-moment, funny videos,” Daniel says. “It’s their routine that they clearly do all the time: someone will say something humorous, and Jason will instantly document it. It was a lot of laughs.”   Fragmented World also represents Narducy’s new artistic growth, as his peers and bandmates recognized immediately. “I’m a fan of Jason’s work – it’s classic late 20th-century pop music songwriting,” Mould says. “We both share a real deep respect for popular music as an art form and its history – from The Who to The Beatles through Cheap Trick, punk rock, and all the things we’ve done.” “I love the record – it sounds like a band playing together, which is something I don’t hear a lot recently,” Wurster says. “Jason is a fan of great songwriters like Pete Townshend, Lennon & McCartney, Bob Mould, Robert Pollard, and Strummer & Jones, so it would only be natural that he’d write such well-crafted, memorable pop songs.” “I know that if people appreciate what I do, then they’re going to appreciate what Jason does, because we all do the same things,” Grohl notes. “We write songs that mean something and play them as fucking best as we can, with everything we have.”   The material on Fragmented World ultimately spans the breadth of Narducy’s history, while artfully exploring a gamut of styles and emotions in ways he’s never approached before. “Never Look Back” and the title track, for example, evoke the entire legacy of power-pop in short, sharp blasts. “There’s a lot of early Cheap Trick in the song ‘Fragmented World’ – along with Nick Lowe, The Beatles, Big Star, Guided By Voices,” Narducy says. “I laugh when I hear it; I could probably go through every part and tell you what song it came from. The short arrangement is very Pollard, and the guitar solo very Doug Gillard. You can’t help touring with great songwriters like Mould, and Pollard, and Superchunk and not learn something about songwriting!” “Monolith,” meanwhile, updates Narducy’s punk roots: “It’s a snarl song – the record needed a little piss and vinegar.”   Elsewhere, Split Single songs like “Waiting For The Sun” and “Searches” ring out as updated tributes to the golden age of indie that inspired Narducy’s evolution as a musician – blending melancholy vocals and chiming psychedelic jangle with more jagged post-punk influences. “There is something about those songs that reminds me of the ‘80s – those kind of hooky R.E.M. choruses mixed with the darkness of The Wipers,” Narducy says. “‘Searches’ is one of my favorites,” adds Daniel. “It’s got a moody melody, but lots of nervous energy – the way those Wipers’ songs were still pop songs, but there was something so dark and heavy about them.”