Young Dylan built 'Breach' on faith

12.10.00 By Larry Nager for The Cincinnati Enquirer

A famous father can be a tough act to follow. Second-generation careers can be painful; just look at our presidential combatants.

“Yeah, they're not having quite as easy a time,” says Jakob Dylan, one “son-of” who's doing pretty well for himself.

His band, the Wallflowers, suppressed the son-of-Bob-Dylan media barrage with 1996's multi-platinum Bringing Down the Horse. The disc included the hit “One Headlight” that won Grammys for best rock song and performance.

The two-year tour that followed helped, and now the Wallflowers are back with the well-received Breach, which has spent the past six weeks on Billboard's album charts.

One factor in the younger Dylan's success has been the low-key approach to his career.

“The first record (1992's The Wallflowers), was somewhat intentional on my part to be a very uncommercial record,” he explains by phone from a Salt Lake City tour stop. The Wallflowers play Bogart's Tuesday.

“I just wanted to make a record with my group, and that was before you could put your own (homemade) CDs on your stereo. We just wanted to hold a CD in our hands and go on tour. And simultaneously, I figured if we did it that way, nobody was gonna care, as far as what they were looking for.”
       
Name only helps so much

A famous name seems to be a quick way to get noticed. Then the notoriously short American attention span kicks in. After people notice you, you'd better be good or wind up in the cutout bins next to Julian Lennon and Wilson-Phillips.

“At this point, more than anything, it's kind of a nuisance,” Mr. Dylan, 30, says of his famous name. “I don't think it determines the outcome, as far as people buying (CDs) or not.

“People aren't going to buy records for any reason other than the records are good. Regardless of what the situation is, it does come down to the material. And in that regard, I'm solely responsible for it being good or bad, and it doesn't really matter where you come from at that point.”
       
Punk influence

The youngest of five children of Bob and Sara Dylan, Jakob grew up in L.A. idolizing the second-generation punk bands of the early '80s. At least the ones that pushed the punk envelope by adding other musical influences.

“When I started playing (at age 12) I was trying to be in the Clash or the Replacements or something,” he explains. “I was always very interested in who those people learned from. I was never really interested in imitating them as much as I wanted to know how they got so good.

“And if you read those people's interviews, they would talk about people like ('60s radical rock band) the MC5 or (New Orleans R&B singer) Lee Dorsey or (Texas bluesman) Lightnin' Hopkins, whatever. The Clash, even though they were termed a punk band, they were playing organs and harmonicas and tambourines.”
       
Seeking original sounds

It sounds similar to what his father did 40 years ago. Growing up in the budding folk revival, he never copied the Kingston Trio or Burl Ives. Instead, he went back to the sources: Appalachian ballad singers, Delta bluesmen and folk icon Woody Guthrie.

That sense of continuity and the oral tradition in American music is something both Dylans share. But it's a different musical climate today, Jakob believes.

“I think right now, people are afraid of tradition,” he says. “They're ignoring some incredible teachers that have come 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 years ago. They're not taking advantage of that. People aren't getting better by just moving forward; you've got to go backward also.

He looks back to his father's youth as “the good old days.”

“I think it was more predictable 30 years ago, 40 years ago, that everybody was being influenced by the right stuff. And I think it was in the late '60s, early '70s that people stopped learning as much.”

But he's no scholar, he admits. “I don't claim to be the most well-learned person, it's just something that I may be a fan of.”

Even though the history of pop, blues, folk, jazz and rock can be had on CD, it's hard to get a well-rounded musical education, he says.

“It takes a lot more interest now. People's ears are being desensitized to quality. They're used to being hit over the head fast and hard with something. Usually things now come with the visual also. A lot of CDs you can put in your computer and you can watch them also. People's imaginations are being shortened.”
       
Searching for quality

That lack of perspective isn't limited to the audience. When Mr. Dylan was looking for a lead guitarist he heard it in his fellow musicians as well.

“That was one of the things that appealed to me about Michael (Ward, Wallflowers guitarist) when I first started playing with him,” Mr. Dylan explains.

“A lot of guitar players nowadays, they don't have any education, they don't have history to what they're playing. They're just strictly trying to be inventive. I just think when people spend a lot of time being original, you may be original, but you may also be terrible.”

Mr. Ward, who had played with eclectic singer/songwriter John Hiatt on his Perfectly Good Guitar album and tour, had a wide background in everything from distorted noise rock to Mr. Hiatt's folk, blues and country styles.

He and drummer Mario Calire joined when the Wallflowers were still relatively unknown. “They had just joined up at the finish of that record (Bringing Down the Horse). We toured for 2 1/2 years after that and another two years playing at home together.”

As a result, he says the Wallflowers have never sounded better.
       
Fans of clubs

He's looking forward to touring on Breach for a long time to come, and specifically, to returning to Bogart's

“I'm actually glad to hear we're playing there,” he says, even though the bulk of the tour is in small theaters. “A lot of times they (theater audiences) are standing up, but you're in these kind of really precious houses, it just feels very professional. It's good to wind up in a club once in a while.”

That's where rock 'n' roll was meant to be played, and Mr. Dylan is happy making contemporary music the old-fashioned way, one gig at a time.

The man who name-checks soul pioneer Sam Cooke in the Wallflowers' hit “Sleepwalker,” lately has been revisiting the music of a certain singer and songwriter from the '60s.

“We've been listening to the new Merle Haggard (CD) on the bus,” he says. “A great singer and an amazing songwriter, and he was far more dangerous than any of these guys today. Those guys were the original dangerous people. People had a reason for their kids not to listen to those records. It's much more entertainment nowadays.”

IF YOU GO
• What: The Wallflowers and the John Doe Thing.
• When: 8 p.m. Tuesday.
•   Where: Bogart's (2621 Vine St., Corryville; 281-8400).
• Tickets: $28.50 at Ticketmaster (562-4949).