HOLLYWOOD, CA - SEPTEMBER 20: Jakob Dylan attends the 2018 LA Film Festival - Opening Night ... [+]
Though it's been nine years since the last Wallflowers album, frontman Jakob Dylan has been anything but silent, keeping active with touring and most notably, hosting the 2018 film, Echo In The Canyon, a look at the music and history of L.A.'s Laurel Canyon scene.
Dylan did double duty, as the host/interviewer and singing lead on the soundtrack, which featured covers of some of the most iconic songs from that scene and era including the Beach Boys, Mamas And The Papas, the Monkees and more.
But after exploring the music of Laurel Canyon, Dylan turned his attention back to the Wallflowers for the superb Exit Wounds, out today (July 9). Exit Wounds is a smart, strong, musically rich collection from track one, "Maybe Your Heart's Not In it No More," through the closing "The Daylight Between Us."
Whether it's the brilliantly titled "My Heart Is A Dive Bar" or the rollicking "Who's That Man Walking 'Round My Garden," which Dylan explains is a nod to Tom Petty, Exit Wounds is a testament to the masterful songwriting of Dylan.
I spoke with him, interestingly 25 years to the day of the release of the band's hit second album, Bringing Down The Horse, about the new music, that seminal album, things he's learned from Neil Young and Bruce Springsteen and songwriting, a lot about songwriting.,
Steve Baltin: It's been nine years between Wallflowers records. So were these songs written in a condensed period or over several years?
Jakob Dylan: There were a couple that had been around a little bit earlier, but I revised them, updated them and changed my mind. Until you hit record and someone says "Time's up," I'll never be done refining things. So there were things I went back to revisit. And I learned that lesson from Neil Young years ago. He'd put songs on records that were 34-year-old demo tapes and he found them just as relevant today. And I tend to have thought in the past that my newest song was my best song. And that's a mistake. But most of it was relatively new though. There are a couple that have hung around, but I'm not somebody who thinks everything I write is worth recording. I don't record songs all day long like other people do. I just don't do that.
Baltin: Do ou worry about the delay between albums or not at all anymore?
Dylan: There's nine years since the last Wallflowers record, but really I finished this record over a year ago. But with the pandemic we decided to hold it. So maybe it's more like eight. But that's Echo In The Canyon in there, that's a lot of touring, but also after this many years I think it's okay to step off the treadmill. I think the last thing people should do is feel the pressure to make records when they don't really have the ideas or the creativity or inspiration. Those records usually aren't very good. So I think I have the luxury now, I'm not worried about time. Bringing Down The Horse, that's 25 years ago, from today actually. So I'm not losing any momentum from that. If there's any momentum to be lost from that record I already lost it, so I'm not worried about it too much (laughs).
Baltin: Counting Crows’ Adam Duritz, who I know you have known for many years, and I were just talking about rediscovering his passion for music after seven years between albums. So does the time between records and doing something like Echo In The Canyon, which was different for you, help you in a similar way?
Dylan: Yeah, it does. But when you're young and starting out you need songs to fill a set. You're gonna play for two hours, you get your first record you only got 10 songs. You're frustrated, like, "I need 15 more songs to get through a set." So over time I realized, "I've got plenty of songs now. I've got all these records, I don't need new songs to play sets. If I don't make new records I think that'd be fine. If I'm not inspired to do them I can still work. But that's not enough obviously." But it's okay, when you have a catalogue of music. I want to play, I want to make records and write songs, but really I want to play and travel and I need songs to do that. The best is when you're inspired to make them and then you can go out and play them. You add a couple of new songs to your set. But if you're not inspired with the new record I can still go out and play. I've got plenty of songs to draw from until I am inspired.
Baltin: Were there one or two songs that jumpstarted this album and made you realize you were inspired to do a new album?
Dylan: Yeah, it's usually like that for me. There's usually one song. You have all these ideas and you look down in your notebook and they're all over the map. You just can't figure out where's the through line, what am I doing, which of these songs is it, which of these songs I think is really good is not gonna fit. It's like you've got a pin board in a crime lab and you're pinning everything to something else trying to find a location to start, And with this record I'd say the first song, "Maybe Your Heart's Not In It No More," and "Roots And Wings." When those songs both showed up I realized those were the songs I was gonna base the record on.
Baltin: I also have to give you kudos for the title "The Dive Bar In My Heart." That is so good that as a writer you're envious.
Dylan: I know the feeling, believe me. Because the feeling is, "Damn it, that's been sitting there. How come I didn't find that?" That's what that feels like. And that's what I look for, and what a lot of songwriters look for. You're looking for that thing where the other songwriters say, "Damn it, it was sitting there." There's a lot less fruit on the vine you'd say after this many years of rock and roll to find that thing. But I know the feeling you mean. I got one for you. Mike Campbell, from the Heartbreakers, he's got his band, the Dirty Knobs and he's got a song, "F**k That Guy." It's really good. It's a great song and a great hook to put your song on and I heard that and I thought, "Alright, Mike, good for you."
Baltin: So what is the dive bar in your heart?
Dylan: That just came to me, I'm sure at some point. And it struck me, that title just came to me at some point and I started to think, "Well, what is a dive bar? Where is it in my heart?" You start to break it down and then you realize, "I could fashion a whole story around a dive bar in my heart. So what is a dive bar?" Well, a dive bar is typically a place you want to go to be left alone with people just like you who also don't want to talk and they want to be allowed to be miserable and not be revisited by bulls**t or your memory. And you wake up the next day and try not to go back that dive bar, but you're probably gonna go back to it at your weakest moment. So I can build a song on that. But where it comes from is just being receptive of a title popping into my head, "Dive Bar In My Heart." I hear that and I think, "Ooh, that sounds like something Paul Westerberg could have had on Pleased To Meet Me." Every song is different, but the best ones usually begin with something like that, that you just receive. And it's an opportunity, that now that you have the beginning of a song if you want to.
Baltin: Are there songs from this album you are particularly excited to bring to the stage?
Dylan: Yeah, "Who's That Man Walking 'Round My Garden" for sure. I'm stunned that song seems to be interesting to people, just that it's not obvious what the intent of the song is. It's a typical rock and roll, blues message you could say. That song was really a tip of the hat to Tom Petty's middle career really — Full Moon Fever, Into The Great Wide Open — the Jeff Lynne records. And those songs are deceptively so difficult to write. They just motor along and they truck. And I think we realized we had something similar then. We pursued that sound with that song. But there's something of a tip of the hat. And I think I even say, "Long after dark." That's a tip of my hat to the incomparable Tom Petty.
Baltin: That song specifically jumped out at me because of the sound.
Dylan: I don't want to hear production, I'm tired of hearing production. I just want to hear a band playing and I want to record that. I don't want to hear too many bells and whistles. It's not a raw record, I don't care about that term, I don't care about live. I don't care about any of that stuff, I just want it to sound good. I don't want to hear the record-making part on this record.
Baltin: Are you able to step back and look at Bringing Down The Horse 25 years later and see why it was so successful?
Dylan: Fortunately Bringing Down The Horse still sounds like a really modern record. I don't know why that's true, but it sounds less dated than records I made just recently. It sounds really good. We were out not long ago and "One Headlight" came on like a really nice sound system in a bar and I was genuinely kind of knocked out. And I did not feel connected to it. I did feel like a fan listening to it cause I'm so far removed from it. It doesn't even sound similar when we play it today, I can sing it lots of different ways. But when I heard that I heard myself, I recognized myself, but I could sit back and go, "I understand why a lot of people like this, this is really good."
Baltin: Are there songs for you that you maybe years ago you were sick of playing and now you don't mind them anymore?
Dylan: Yeah, that was more true years ago. I think a lot of bands go through that stretch where they're resentful of their own successes and they resent many people coming out that are just casual fans, they hear one or two songs. You're disappointed that is happening but it happens to everybody. And then eventually you might get down enough where you don't want to play those songs. I certainly went through a stretch of that, but then you wake up and realize how f**king lucky you are to have a record anybody cares about in this world that is so clogged up with so much stuff. You've got a record that people are casual fans of, they know your music, they like it and it has a nice place in their lives, so don't be such an arrogant prick and think that's not really valuable and special. So you actually begin to like those songs even more and you have a lot of gratitude that people want to hear them. The only song I have that sometimes I question I know people want to hear is "Three Marlenas," which I feel totally disconnected to. I don't really know what that song is about anymore, I'm not really sure why Lou Reed didn't come after me. But I know people want to hear it, so I can do it. Nothing's that precious.
Baltin: Are there artists then who have become the benchmark for you in the way they revisit or re-imagine songs?
Dylan: Bruce [Springsteen] is a good example. Bruce reinterpreting those songs and what he's saying is, "This song is flexible and pliable and I can do something else with this today that I think you'll find interesting and I want to sing it. I'm now reinvigorated to sing it this way." And I think we go through that ride with them when they explore those things.
Baltin: You are playing BeachLife here in Southern California in September. Talk about that.
Dylan: I think Men At Work is on that same bill. You think 10, 15 years ago Men At Work was gonna be on a summer bill along with myself and Counting Crows? Probably not, but it's because it took a long time for them to get out of that '80s ghetto and they're just great songs and people can readily admit that they f**king loved those songs when they were teenagers and young and they're great. They don't need to know what the band has been up to lately, they don't need to know any of that. They just need to know these songs are great.
Baltin: When you listen to Exit Wounds all the way through as a complete work what do you take from it?
Dylan: I'm really satisfied with the record, I'm really happy with it. There's a purity to this record, something I needed to get back to, which I did not have on the last record. This is very cohesive, this is really a through line, this is really my voice up front, there are no distractions, it's a real pure record. And I do believe it's very singular to me. I don't think there's any confusion who's behind this record. Short answer, I think it's great and I think you should get it (laughs).
