Can’t Slow Me Down: A Chat with James Menefee (River City High/Fun Size)

Fun Size Discography:

Pop Secret (BOB Records, 1996)

Glad to See You’re Not Dead (Fueled by Ramen, 1996)

River City High Discography:

Won’t Turn Down (Doghouse, 2001)

EP (Doghouse, 2004)

Not Enough Saturday Nights (Takeover Records, 2006)

James Menefee is a Virginia music legend. He’s been a music lifer since the early ‘90s playing with Fun Size, before moving on to River City High and since then he’s been in so many different bands and projects, most recently Long Arms. He’s got a fascinating story to tell and he’s been so busy that I was fortunate when he was able to take some time out to answer some questions and tell his entire story.

Pete Crigler: What got you interested in music?

James Menefee: The Beatles, age 2! Some kids are fascinated by recorded sound, and I guess I was one of those weirdos. I wish my parents had conditioned me to love the money looks, but instead I fell in love with harmonies and vinyl. I was totally fascinated by that Beatles collection that had the Angus McBean cover photo of them on the fire escape when they were young and the back cover was when they were "old" (taken like six years later). I thought that nobody liked them when they were older because they looked homeless to me. Beards do that to a child. 

Pete: How did Fun Size come about and what was that experience like?

James: Allen Skillman grew up across the street from me and moved away when I was in seven, but moved back when I was 12. That coincided with me wanting to start my first band, since by then I was itching to show off my piano skills from all the lessons I had been taking. Allen had never played drums but my brother had a drum set so we started to horribly annoy my parents and our neighbors. Allen brought back punk rock with him when he moved back to Richmond from Wisconsin, and it took a minute for me to latch onto it but once I did I was hooked. This would be when I was 13. Brian Owen was one of Allen's skate friends from school and would come over to skate the ramp I had in my backyard and he joined up with Allen and I in that liminal musical space we occupied of 12–14-year-olds listening to 50's rock (in my case) and punk (in Allen's and Brian's case). When I picked up a bass guitar after realizing that most bands didn't have a keyboard player and I asked a guy playing a neighborhood block party how to tune his, we started to really annoy everyone. We had a couple of names until we settled on Fun Size in the winter of 1993 after we went to see the Doughboys play and John Kastner, their singer asked us what we were called and when I told him we were thinking about Fun Size he said "cool name." Our extra guitar spot was filled in by our friend Orice Collins in the spring of 1994 and that was our line up until we played our last show four years later. That entire experience changed everything about my life. We did five tours total (the first one was when I was still 17), and I got to spend an inordinate amount of time with my best friends playing pop punk. I can't even imagine a better teenage experience. I was so lucky.  

Pete: What was it like working with Ramen?

James: The story of Fueled By putting out our stuff is so great. I loved Less Than Jake and one time when they were playing Twisters I gave Roger a tape of what would be the first half of Pop Secret. He handed it off to Vinnie who had just started Fueled By with John Janick. I just Googled John's named to make sure it was spelled with one "n" and it autofilled with "CEO of Interscope Records" so...in case you were wondering where John is now. Vinnie called me and said they wanted to release a 7" for us, which was called The Process of Selling Out. That was 1996/1997, a time when punks were very touchy about their favorite bands signing to majors, as Less Than Jake did, and everyone was getting simultaneously called out for selling out or cashing in, while gaining zillions of new fans, and punk was officially mainstream. I didn't live through that occurrence in the 1980's with Husker Du and other bands moving to majors, but I definitely bought Green Day Kerplunk the first week it came out on Lookout, and then it was off to the races for them and tons of other bands I loved. After our 7" came out Vinnie agreed to do what would be our final full length Glad to See You're Not Dead. At the time Fueled By was just a label run by two great dudes who just wanted to put our records by their friends. It was great to be on the label, and later when I was in River City High and Fall Out Boy joined us for a tour and told me they were on Fueled By I was thinking "aww that's so great" and like two months later they were gigantic and then Fueled By went to a level where they had five records in the top ten. That obviously did not happen with us haha.

Pete: What caused the band to split?

James: We were ages 19, 20, 21, and 22 and were at this critical point in our lives where we needed to decide if we wanted to tour more, be a band more, or focus on things like school and work. Unfortunately, we did not have a mentor who could tell us that disbanding would be a big mistake but we were young. Vinnie did call me after our last show and told me we were stupid, but he was like two months too late. We had some problems with our van on our final run of shows down to Florida with Ben Grim that made us all think the world was ending when in fact we were just entering what should've been a new stage for us to get a new van, write songs, and keep it going, but we were dramatic and naive. Our final show is on YouTube and I actually watched one song from it today and people are genuinely excited and singing very loudly, and why we didn't say "OK this is dumb, we shouldn't stop" is beyond me.  

Pete: How did River City High come together?

James: I wanted to take the momentum I had from Fun Size and keep on going. In my mind I was convinced that that meant touring nonstop and getting our name out more, because this was pre-internet, and that was the only way I knew how to promote your band. Mark Avery and I came up with this battle plan that was inspired by other bands that had done the same thing (like he had done with his former band Inquisition) and that plan was just to stay on the road and tour tour tour. To be honest, it actually worked, in that it got us signed to a couple labels and we ended up playing tons of shows to varying degrees of success for like four years.  

Pete: What was the scene like around this time and did you find it welcoming?

James: The scene of high school kids that had nurtured Fun Size (that included me) was something I was very much a part of, and I felt very included in it. I lived at shows at that age and all my friends did too. So when River City High started, that scene still existed and we played to lots of the same people. But when you're on tour for almost eight months, you come home and find out that everyone has started doing other things, new bands have come along, and then eventually you have no idea what the hell you are doing and where you fit in. That took a little bit of time to happen, but it was kind of isolating when you realize that what you thought was keeping you slightly grounded was no longer there. I was in my mid-20's and at least locally I felt very out of touch with what was going on.  

Pete: What was it like signing with Doghouse and making Won’t Turn Down?

James: Doghouse was one of a few labels that were interested in signing RCH and we went with them mainly because they promised to give us "tour support" which just means they would front us money that we would have to pay back. I mean, anybody could have bankrolled our touring habit but that was the most attractive thing to us at the time. They wouldn't release our first installment of tour support (which I think was $500 to cover our van payment) until our lawyer (who was working for free of course) would look over the deal, and Dirk from Doghouse called him to say we were on our last pack of ramen and desperately needed the $500 and to send us our contract after he had a chance to look it over haha. To us, an astronomical sum. To Richard Grabel (our lawyer, who worked at a big entertainment law firm) it was laughable and he called it his "ramen deal" for years.

Pete: How was it dealing with lineup issues?

James: Painful!  You start a band because you want to make music and you have these BIG DREAMS. You line up people who you know and who usually in town who need to agree with you musically in terms of genre and then skill. Then you want to play shows. Then you want to play many shows and not get paid to live so everyone has to find tricks to live (living for free with your parents, etc). Then you burn out all your tricks and you're broke and testy while you are touring. And then you have to live in a van with these people. It's tough, and mostly impossible if something doesn't happen for the band sooner than later.

Pete: What happened with the MCA deal?

James: Well the sad thing is it actually happened. It wasn't prospective. MCA wanted to sign us as early as Won't Turn Down, and while they were courting us we started to get a buzz but we were already bound to Doghouse and Doghouse didn't want to release us from our deal. We were contractually bound of course. And MCA offered to buy us out, but it wasn't enough money for Doghouse to release us. We were sad about that, because here we were thinking this was going to be our big shot and we were missing it. We released Won’t Turn Down on Doghouse, and it did well enough and we toured hard enough to where MCA agreed to buy out our next record that was also contractually bound to Doghouse. This part of the story is something I could talk about in great detail. But to sum it up: we met with a ton of producers, made a bad choice (like every choice we made haha), went to Canada to record it, and then when we are done and hit the road we get a call when we are on our way to a show in Hollywood of all places that MCA is done. No record, no deal...and just like that we were major label casualties. The thing that Steve Albini warned everyone about, and we hadn't even had a chance to release it. MCA going bankrupt never really fit into our master plan.  

Pete: Was it a good feeling signing with Takeover and finally getting Saturday Nights out?

James: We were extremely lucky to get a chance to release some of the songs we had written for our MCA deal, albeit in a much rawer form, and as a band we had changed shape both in lineup and style at that point.

Pete: What did it mean to win the MTV Dew Circuit Breakout contest?

James: I got to be on the jumbotron in Times Square and we paid off this huge debt we had acquired from years of credit card spending that we were always encouraged to do, as MCA would eventually "pay off the debt." Again, them going bankrupt wasn't in the cards. Also, if you're reading this, never use a credit card that you can't immediately pay off. Never ever do that. It also gave us a much-needed ego boost after such an awful year or two. When it happened, we were ready to change our name and start a new band, and winning it forced our hand to stay together for a bit longer and release the record and do more touring. We had a lot of fun, but it delayed the stagnating inevitable!

Pete: What is the current status of River City?

James: A fond memory. I can't even imagine we will ever play a show again. Mark and I are still best friends. He has an incredible career as a stylist for the stars, and lives in Hollywood.  

Pete: How did you come to join Positive No?

James: I actually didn't join but played on their first few releases as a studio bass player. We played one show with that line up for fun, and I love Tracy and Kenny and saw them the other night actually. I was happy to help out.  

Pete: How did Long Arms come to be and what’s next for the band?

James: When RCH got done with the last tour, I was home and had a ton of time on my hands and was writing a lot of songs and Pedro had just set up his studio in his backyard, which has now moved to a different backyard (and is a legit great studio for a band to track), and he was nice enough to let me come over and put down some initial ideas and we went from there. It was actually all thanks to him. I was at a strange point in my life where I was considering throwing everything away and not making any music ever again because RCH had really been through the ringer, and it seemed like I was just torturing myself. The first long arms record was made at a nice calm pace, and probably nobody will ever hear it haha, but that and our subsequent two releases which nobody will also ever hear are streaming where people wanna stream. Who knows what's next, but I love playing with those guys. Phil and I have gotten really close during pandemic times, and Greg played in RCH for a bit so I've known him since 2004 and Alex and I grew up together, so it's just a crew of old friends.  

Pete: Tell me about Higley.

James: A dream come true! The person responsible for getting Allen into punk rock, who then got me into punk rock is this dude named Pete Nehring. Pete is friends with Kevin Carl, and Kevin had tracked some stuff at The Blasting Room with Bill Stevenson and they needed a singer. Pete suggested I do it, and I was honored, but was sure Kevin wouldn't be into it. For some strange reason he liked the scratch vocals I put down on a couple of the songs he had, and then I begged him to fill out the five songs and make it a full length. We went to The Blasting Room to finish it off, which is not only a world class studio in its own right but the best experience I have ever had making any type of record because the staff was just so accommodating and nice and truly about making everything go so effortlessly. It also helped that Jason Livermore was remastering Descendents Everything Sucks in the A room, so I would sit outside of the door so as not to bother him, but listen to him isolate tracks from a record I know forwards and backwards. I was shocked when I heard Chad Price singing backups on Rotting Out as I thought it was all Milo. And in a wonderful TS Elliot circle this was all thanks to Pete, and I arrived where I started, only to know the place for the first time, that is end up in an amazing studio with Bill Stevenson at the helm, making any trepidation I had about being in the studio erased by my total excitement, like the first time Fun Size went to Charlton Recording Studios on Cary Street underneath Guitar Works and Ricky Tubb recorded our first four song demo (Which can be found on you tube for anyone that wants to hear what a 14-year-old sounds like writing and singing pop punk).

Pete: What are you currently up to outside of music?

James: I've made a record with my friend Andreas on drums that is very very pop/punk. Andreas has recorded all the stuff I have done in the last ten years so we are always active doing some project. We are putting the touches on it now. It's what he and I did during lockdown. We went back to the music of our youth to make us a little less fucking terrified when everything was totally insane and I didn't know if I would ever be able to play a show again. And since I work in service, I was wondering if I'd ever hand someone a shot of whiskey again either.

Pete: Do you keep in touch with bandmates and what are they up to?

James: I don't leave anyone alone or forget anyone I've played with. They have to put up with me forever. The list is long and varied of folks I've shared the stage with or shared liner notes with, but there is not a single one that I don't talk to still. All the Fun Size guys live here in Richmond and Allen and I are still best friends and he lives in my neighborhood and Brian does too. They all have kids now! It's so cool. Bob and Jay from the classic RCH line up joined up with Andrew McMahon to form Jack's Mannequin and they still tour with Andrew and live in NYC and LA respectively. 

Pete: What has it meant to you being a musician from Virginia?

James: I was able to come of age in a great punk rock scene. Twisters and The Metro booked some mind-bendingly amazing shows when I was young, and I was lucky enough to see a lot of them.  It was still a pretty small community then, and there wasn't a massive theatre that hosted these kinds of things, and not like anyone would go to them if they did. We also got the trickle-down DC thing here in Richmond, as opposed to if we lived somewhere close to LA or NYC, so I always felt the presence of at least the ethos of DC punk, if not a lot of the sonic underpinnings were always present around here. At the same time, Richmond was never a big touring market so we had to travel to bigger places to play, but Richmond is notoriously famous for being a very liveable city if you are trying to make your way in something a little more challenging (I'm trying to avoid saying "if you want to be an artist" but there's no way around that).  

Pete: What do you hope your musical legacy will be?

James: I watched that YouTube video today of Fun Size playing "Scene" at our last show, and I felt like that was a pretty solid thing to be proud of. It was a small club 23 years ago with maybe 200 people, but it sounded like a zillion and that's how I remember it. I haven't stopped writing songs or recording them so I hope that whatever I end up doing fills out the other stuff well enough so that when someone looks at the material at a glance they don't puke. Anything from that to someone actually being super into the songs is ok with me.