THE WALLFLOWERS

6.21.96 By Jim Nelson for Album Network

"It’s bringing down something that’s bigger than you, and that’s how it felt making this record," says Jakob Dylan when asked about Bringing Down The Horse, the title of The Wallflowers’ new CD. "The years that it took, with the group falling apart, trying to get a new record contract, trying to find a [producer] who wanted to make this record, spending 8 months making the record…I was trying to tackle this thing [that was] apparently bigger than I was."

To hear Jakob tell it, The Wallflowers virtually had to claw their way back into the game these past fur years. Or, to be more precise, Dylan and keyboardist Rami Jaffee had to claw their way back into the game. Since 1992, when The Wallflowers put the Kibitz Room at Canter’s Deli on the map with their stellar debut, three fifths of the band that started in the late 80s as The Apples have moved on, and as you’ll soon discover, just finding the right guitarist was a headache in itself.

Things are different now. Back in 92, the organ/guitar-based rock that The Wallflowers make was termed "retro" and very much not in style as grunge was reinforcing its stranglehold on the airwaves. Of course, playlists have loosened up to include Counting Crows, Hootie & The Blowfish, Blues Traveler and others over the past 2 years, opening a door for The Wallflowers that didn’t exist in 1992. That, coupled with Dylan’s compact, accessible and memorable new songs, make Bringing Down The Horse one of the finest new albums of 1996. Already, "6th Ave. Heartache" has achieved far more exposure at radio than anything on their previous CD, and "One Headlight," "The Difference," "Angel On My Bike," and "Laughing Out Loud" should keep The Wallflowers exposed for the rest of the year and on into 1997.

Recently, I had the pleasure of spending some time chatting with Jakob Dylan about The Wallflowers, and this is a portion of that conversation.

You told Jon Young in a recent article in Request Magazine that you had struggled with admitting that you wanted to be a songwriter.

"Yeah, I don’t think I really had a problem [with] being a songwriter, because you are what you are. It’s just a matter of what you want people to think you are, and I’m many things that people don’t know about and I don’t particularly need to let them know about.

"I was reluctant to admit that I wanted to be a songwriter, ‘cause I understood what that was gonna appear like and the scrutiny that is obviously still there. I mean, I still say if I get offered a pretty decent job, I’m out. I don’t consider writing songs my job. I will always write songs and will always play in a group. It sounds ike it’s some kind of demise of what I’m doing, but it’s not….I’m just saying that making records doesn’t necessarily have to go hand in hand with making music. I [just want to do] what I like to do and put food on the table. I don’t think I should be denied that, as anybody shouldn’t."

Growing up, were you either encouraged or discouraged from making a living in music?

"I don’t think it really ever came up, to be honest. It was something I brought upon myself when I was older."

How difficult have these last few years been for you, in terms of putting the band back together while you waited, trying to get a new record deal?

"It’s been uphill. People have an easier time assuming that everything’s handed to me, but in a lot of ways I’ve had it more uphill than people would like to imagine and I’ve had it more uphill than people who are not in my shoes would have it. I don’t have any self-pity about it; I mean, I just do what I do and I work hard at it, and when I didn’t have a contract we played those shows, two a week, and kept real busy. I don’t think groups should exist to make records. I hate to give people the impression that it’s about the music business, ‘cause I don’t really think it is…we’d gotten off our contract with Virgin and we were gonna get a new contract — that’s what we set our sights on, and it took a lot longer than we thought.

"You know, you lose a lot of confidence when people are not responding at all — I mean, secretaries wouldn’t come and see us. There were still Wallflowers fans coming out, and that was great, but there was nothing going on, nobody wanted to talk to us, nothing. This would be a great story if I [sell] a lot of records. The fact that a lot of people didn’t want to work with me isn’t incredibly self-flattering, but that’s the truth."

The break-up of the original Wallflowers lineup happened over how long a period of time?

"Oh, four years. Greg [Richling, the bass player] moved in immediately — he’s a friend of mine from way back. Barry Maguire was out of the group on the first record, and Greg just came right in and finished touring, so he’s been there for three and a half years, something like that. And then [drummer] Peter [Yanowitz] left a little over a year and a half ago, so a friend of ours, Matt Chamberlain, played on the record, but he was never really gonna be a member of the group; he was helping us out ‘cause Peter quit pretty close to the beginning of the record. During mixing, our friends’ group broke up, and the drummer in that group was Mario; he kind of joined during mixing. And when we made this record, we didn’t have a guitar player, ‘cause Tobi Miller quit."

But Tobi played on the record.

"Yeah, but it was like, ‘Hey, you wrote those parts, you should play ‘em.’ We struggled to find one or two guitar players that could do the whole thing. We started out with Fred Tackett [from Little Feat] and a fellow named Jay Joyce, from Nashville, who’s like a real innovative-noise kind of player. He’s really great, but we were kind of missing everything in the middle. We had Fred, who has, like this incredible traditional–I mean, he’s just fantastic–and then Jay’s off the wall. We had the crust and the frosting, but nothing going on in between, so we had a lot of different players, and everybody that played was somebody we knew or somehow related to somebody in the group. A friend of ours suggested [Michael Ward], and he played, actually, on every song on the record, except for ‘Invisible City,’ and he just kind of stuck around after."

Back in 1992, when we talked about your first album, you seemed a little defensive when I brought up the sound of the band as it related to some of the things that might have influenced you. In fact, you were very hesitant to talk about the "R" word–as you called it–Retro. A lot of people must have been referring to your music as "Retro" at that time.

"Well, in retrospect, I think that record probably deserves some of the attention that people gave it for being that, but it just seemed to be a bad word. When people said it, it was not like, ‘This is a really fantastic retro record,’ it was always like, ‘It’s a retro band,’ you know? It just kind of had a sticky feeling when people would say it. I think you’ll still hear that about this new record at times, and I think the majority of that [is because] I’m a fan of actual songs and songwriting, and I try to do that. I don’t really get off on noise and vibe, as much. I spent a lot of time working on these songs, and I think that as a songwriter that’s all I’ve got.

"The grunge thing was just fully bombarding everybody then. The last thing anybody wanted to hear at that time, or see, was a flower shirt next to a [Hammond] B3. That wasn’t really appealing then, and I didn’t necessarily understand why. I still do the same thing I did then, really, but it just seemed like then it was a bad word."

I don’t even hear that word anymore, I think partially because bands like Counting Crows…

"Have had success with it."

…Hootie & The Blowfish, Gin Blossoms, Blues Traveler–the mainstream isn’t so much dominated by grunge, punk, and alternative anymore.

"I think a lot of it is the instrumentation–the B3 and the piano, I mean, rock n’ roll really is guitar, bass, and drums. If you’re gonna add something, you add horns and then you’re gonna be Stax, you’re gonna be R&B, or you add an organ/piano and you’re gonna be classic rock. If you add xylophones, then you’re doing something else. But once you step outside that, then it’s time to categorize somebody, and I always loved the keyboards. I always admired Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers’ set-up. I mean, they were so unlimited."

There are some connections between Counting Crows and The Wallflowers: T Bone Burnett produced their first album and this album for you, and Adam Duritz sings on "6th Ave. Heartache." People who don’t know better are probably going to listing to Bringing Down the Horse and think it was influenced by the Counting Crows, but actually, I think your first album might have influenced them.

"I wouldn’t know. I do know Adam a little bit, but I wouldn’t know if I [influenced him] or not. But when [their] record came out and it was on the radio, I remember I was frustrated. I didn’t feel like anybody took anything from my group, I just felt like that was kind of the record we were trying to make. Ultimately, I think they may have made a better record, ‘cause their record really is great, and I think they knew how to pursue their ideas a little better than we did. I think we had a lot of unfinished business on our [first] record."

When I saw The Wallflowers four years ago, you opened with a song that you’d been kicking around a bit at that time, called "6th Avenue." Somewhere in the last 4 years you’ve added the word Heartache to the song title. How else has it changed since then?

"I don’t think it’s probably changed a lot. I think it’s just being played better. It’s the same four chords, no words changed, nothing."

Who’s doing that George Harrison slide?

"It’s Mike Campbell. He’s one of the best, you know."

When you sing in the chorus, "The same black line that was drawn you/was drawn on me," what are you talking about?

"[I’m] speaking symbolically. In a nutshell, I lived in New York for a short time and there was a homeless guy who lived on a stoop right out my window, and I’d wake up every day because he’d be playing songs. All his stuff was right there on this little corner, and he had his guitar, he had pots and pans, jackets and shorts and notebooks. He lived right there and he’d wake up and play songs for money. He played Beatles songs and whatever, and he was in his 50s, or so. I didn’t know him, but I just felt like I liked this guy. He disappeared one day, and everyone just stole his stuff over, like, the next week. I never knew if he had been in an accident or if he’d left, or what, but shortly after that I came back to LA, and I just felt, in some kind of way, similar to him, even though I fortunately wasn't a homeless person. I just felt like that was kind of irrelevant to both of us on a certain level. All he had was what he had right there, and all I had was the few things I had with me, and we were both not from there and I just felt something about it, you know? So, ‘The same black line was drawn…’ I just felt very similar to him in some ways."

Special thanks to Heidi, Olivia, and Blackbird for this article