Jakob Dylan may be throwing up in the dressing room, but relatively speaking, everything else at Denver’s Red Rocks Amphitheater is fine. There’s a warm breeze blowing, a perfect starlit sky, and there’s a packed house, so just because Dylan-the leader of the Wallflowers, a virtual poster boy for VH1, and the oft-questioned son of perhaps this century’s most important songwriter-is puking his guts out in the dressing room shouldn’t worry anyone. Everyone knows that rock & roll stardom is inextricably tied to blowing chunks. The show must go on. You can’t blame Dylan for hurting. The Wallflowers have played over 200 shows during a relentless 18-month tour, a tour that’s seen them crisscross the US and much of Europe in support of Bringing Down The Horse (Interscope), their multi-platinum sophomore release. But that can’t be bad, right? It’s not.

They’re grateful that so many people want to see them play because there was a time not so long ago that no one cared, so you won’t hear the Wallflowers openly complaining. But if you privately ask any one of them how they feel about touring, they’re all give you the same exasperated look and tell you the same story about how they don’t remember what it feels like to sleep in their own bad at home.

Self-deprecating sob stories aside, the Wallflowers have been hitting the road hard, just like their label wants them to do. And they’re paying the price for their obedient work ethic; the entire band is rapidly losing a long battle against exhaustion and persistent colds. So it comes as no surprise when the staff doctor says that Dylan needs a few minutes alone with an oxygen tank-he’s suffering from altitude sickness. But after a few minutes, Dylan’s nausea subsides, which is a good thing, because 10,000 screaming teens can get pretty obnoxious.

I, on the other hand, wasn’t doing much screaming. I spent much of the flight from New York to Denver bracing myself for imminent disappointment. Fearing that the Wallflowers would be mediocre and that I’d have to tell the band they rocked even though I was sure they wouldn’t. Call it pessimism, call it envy, but some part of me expected them to bomb, proving once and for all the popularly successful bands are shallow and can’t really play. I was wrong.

The fact that Dylan wiped away the puke and went out to perform impressed me, but what won me over was the band’s talent. These guys are players, and their success is no accident. The Wallflowers play whatever the songs need. Nothing more nothing less. Guitarist Michael Ward attacks his guitar with tasteful authority, bassist Greg Richling’s purposeful bass lines meld seamlessly with Mario Calire’s propulsive drumming, and keyboardist Rami Jaffee’s gurgling B-3 organ offers rhythmic strumming and simple vocal melodies. Function before form. Pure and simple.

The Wallflowers are not the most experimental or chic band around, but as I found out over a 24-hour period, they have a lot to offer as a band. They may be on the mountaintop now, but they’ve struggled through years of ill-attended gigs, signed a deal only to part with their label (Virgin) after their first record flopped, and lost band members along the way through attrition before rebounding with a new record deal and an album that’s sold through the roof. They made it work. They’re about talent, faith, perseverance, and integrity. This is not your typical son-of-a-famous-guy with a band of hired guns-no, the Wallflowers are a cohesive unit of skilled musicians whose music is full of a sincerity (live, on record, and in principle) that’s undeniable. Whether you like them is irrelevant. Respecting them is the key, and if you don’t, you should.

Bringing Down The Horse is a huge success, but by industry standards, your first record, The Wallflowers, was a dud. What did you do differently?
Dylan: I think we did okay on the first record. We were all 21 years old, and it was done live in the studio. That’s the kind of record you should make at that point. We didn’t have too much record company involvement; they were supportive of us in the beginning, but nobody got in our faces and told us how we had to make the record. They let us do it.

A lot of people make records and they let everybody get involved and they compromise and don’t sell anyway, and then they’re completely miserable. We never had that kind of pressure. We got to make the record we wanted to make.

While I’m proud of that record, it never had a whole lot of potential. I never really thought about selling the record. I was just excited to be in a group that could make a record and go on tour. Radio and MTV never even crossed my mind until everybody started wondering why we weren’t on the radio or MTV, and I was like, ‘Well, I didn’t know we were supposed to be.’

In between those records, we lost our record deal and we had a lot ofo problems within the group. Basically, the stakes got very high. I don’t complain about it, but because of who I was, myself being in the group there was a lot of…

Who you were?
Dylan: Yeah, you know…my family relation. Because of that, it was a unique situation. I was who I was, with out a record deal, dropped after one record-not two like most people-and with a reputation for being very difficult. And my group was falling apart for the same reasons that most of them do when you put them together at twenty years old.

Most groups are always changing while they’re starting out because you gotta learn who you want to be in a group with, and you gotta learn who’s good. After a while that becomes clear. And we were having a lot of problems within the group. I decided that I really wanted to keep doing this, but I was dug down into a hole, with a long way to go up. And the stakes were going to be very high. That helped solidify the group and it helped edge out people who weren’t as serious as other ones.

But I knew we were never that good as a group. At most, I thought maybe we had some character. That’s okay when you’re a certain age, but when you’re in your mid to late twenties, charming is not longer funny. It’s not charming to screw up at shows and have a whole song fall apart on stage; it’s embarrassing and you just shouldn’t do it. You should go and get a different job or something. So I had to really focus on my thing, and learn to work a lot harder. And I had to ask myself if I was really willing to do it. I know it was going to be hard and I knew it wasn’t going to be okay to be the age I am now and not be a quality of some kind. I mean, Bruce Springsteen made Born to Run when he was 26 years old…

So I realized the stakes were high, and I wasn’t willing to take anybody’s faults anymore. If there was someone in the group who wasn’t up to the par of the whole band, I just couldn’t fight for them anymore. I took it very seriously because I knew this was an important record for me as far as whether people were going to be willing to hear my bands after that. If this record had done as poorly-commercially speaking-as the first one, I don’t think anybody was really going to give me another chance.

So did you purposely change the way the band worked?
Dylan: We went through a lot of changes in between the record, and at times I didn’t really feel like we had a group. There were four of us. But it seemed to always be rotating, and it did leave me feeling a little bit alone in the group. But I never wanted to be the only songwriter in the group. Now, Michael writes, and Rami started writing music. I don’t always want to be the focus of the group. I know that I can do it, but I think the band has more to offer as a full group.

So up to this point you’ve written the songs. Has it been the kind of situation where you’ve had to say to the other guys, “Don’t’ play that. Could you try this?”
Dylan: Yeah. That’s a normal position for the songwriter, because when I write something I hear the whole song already. I hear very vaguely what I want. I know that I don’t want to her this [taps hand in a shuffle beat] as opposed to this [plays funkier beat on table]. I’ll hear the basic drum beat. I’ll hear if I want Greg to play sixteenth-notes or eight-notes. I’ll give everybody basic blueprints. I’ll suggest to Mike that he might try playing slide, and then he writes his slide part; I only gave him the suggestion of playing the slide. The main reason I do that is I like what they write, I like what they play, and I think it would be hell and pointless to be in a band where you had some guy telling you, “I wrote your bass line for you. Here it is.” No matter how cool or popular your group is, it’s totally belittling and it would give those guys no output. I obviously get a lot because I write the songs, so if these guys didn’t get to at least do their jobs, which is why they’re in a group to begin with and the reason they fell in love with playing music, it’s pointless for everybody.

Is this your band, are you just a member of the band, or is ther e something that we’re missing?
Dylan: It feels like a real band, and I think it is, but when you have a situation where there’s a guy who’s always written the songs, the only guy who’s been in the group the whole time, who stands at the center microphone…because from the beginning of the group I’m the only one who’s really still there-except Rami, who joined right at the tail end of the original group-I’ve been the one thing that’s been very consistent within the group, meaning the vision of the group and the ideas of the group, as well as the obvious meaning of the songs. This group has been playing for a while now and it finally feels like a real group. I think because of the role I’ve always had in this group, the guys trust me with a lot of stuff, which is frankly boring and nobody would want to be a part of if they didn’t have to be. You know, a lot of stuff you have to deal with on a day-to-day basis that they don’t always hear about because somebody’s got to do it.

Like what?
Dylan:Just menial business stuff.

You mean like money stuff?
Dylan: No. Not really money stuff. Just decisions. Should we do an interview for Musician magazine? They’ll [management] come to me first, and I’ll think about it. My immediate answer would be, ‘I’m going to check with the guys, see what everybody wants to do.’ I think that they trust me with a lot of that stuff. Where I think it'’ a creative decision or an important decision, then they’re always involved.

that sound pretty democratic, but at least from a media perspective, it appears as though this is your [Dylan’s] band. Is that accurate?
Ward: Sometimes it’s a drag that the focus is on one guy, you know, but most of time, on a day-to-day basis, it’s just a relief to us. I think that we can go and get on with our lives, you know what I mean? I wouldn’t want to necessarily be in Jakob’s position.

Calire: He [Dylan] has obvious advantages to being the songwriter, but there’s a whole other side of it, which is more work, less privacy, and so I’m really happy with my role. I can walk around and most of the time people don’t bother me or recognize me. But if you go with Jake, everybody hounds him. That’s just the way it is. That’s the flip side to success.

Ward: And we get enough attention to satiate our individual needs, so at the same time, it’s fine.

Calire: It doesn’t create any tension in the band or anything like that. We all understand our roles and I'’ glad that I'’ in a band with somebody that has accepted that role.

So what’s your role
Ward: Obviously we’re up there to support the song and the singer, but also we’ve got our own little statements to make and personality and all that shit, so at this point it’s really about Jake’s songs. Jake and I have done some writing together, and I hope that it’s going to get a little more into a band collaboration thing. I mean, Jake’s a great songwriter, and he’s got success now with his songs. And because we’re getting more established as a band, hopefully we’ll be able to start doing more of the band thing. That’s what’s going to be interesting, to see how it all shapes up. I’m hoping we can strike a fine balance.

In its current form, this band has barely been together for two years. How have you grown?
Richling: This band basically learned to play together on the road over the last year and a half, and that feels good. It feels like a band. We were going through a lot of changes during the making of the album which is the way things go, but it feels good to have the same group of people working together for a long time; you sort of read each other better. You always hope that happens.

that’s kind of an opposite way of what people think is going to happen, that you’re going to be this band that’s going to start out together and grow with each other. Instead, you guys came in separately and filled in the spaces and made it work. Did it take a different mentality to do that?
Jaffee: I see what you mean, and yeah, you’re right-bands usually start and just turn into nothing, and now we’re turning into something. I think it’s going to continue. It feels great, because it’s just the evolution of a band that had to happen. Fate has worked out perfectly, and we’re really focused and psyched to do the next record.

So what do you do if the next record bombs?
Dylan: It’s entirely possible. Ultimately, I don’t think it’s about the records. We’ve been on the road for a year and a half, and I think that’s it’s always been more of a goal of mine to put together a good show that people will come back to see. If you look through all pop music, it’s never really been about the records. There’ve obviously been amazing records, but those records were originally [intended as] promotion for those tours. It’s kind of unfortunate that there’s so much stock put into the records now. If our next record flops…I don’t know. I guess it depends on what the standards of success are.

You guys are a big act unto yourself now, but I’m wondering if you’ve learned anything from the Counting Crown while touring with them? Ward: I personally think they’re really good at what ehy do, and I didn’t know what to really expect. Adam [Duritz] and the rest of the band know how to rise to a certain level and they’re not afraid of being a little bit animated and working that 10,000-person venue, whereas we’re a little more understated. Jake’s not really huge and over the top onstage. He’s actually opened up a lot over the last couple of years. He was kind of quiet and withdrawn, but he’s gotten really good at dealing with the crowd and everything in a natural kind of way. I mean, I think we’ve learned that It’s okay to go out to go out and play at a huge arena and make a big gesture and be a little animated and not feel like we’re really cheesy.

Like you’re a dope…
Ward: Yeah, like grunge rockers of ’96 would have my head on a platter. It’s entertainment, and if you feel good, and you feel like doing shit like that, then throw a drum stick into the crowd, you know, throw a guitar pick, stand on the monitor, do whatever…you don’t need to be afraid of that kind of thing.

Was there a moment when you realized that the Wallflowers had made it, that you were going to stick?
Dylan: I remember touring behind this record and playing to 60 people, then 100, and then 200. Then I remember our road manager telling me we’d sold out a certain venue. I asked how many people, and he told me something like 4,000. We’ve been out here a long time, too, and we’ve been here [Denver] four times now, so I’ve always related it to the actual shows. I think as far as how many times you get played on MTV or how many times you’re on the radio, that stuff’s not reality when you’re living on a bus with the same guys for a year and a half. When you roll into those towns and you see a lot of people that means a lot more. That shows you more about how things are going.

Is there a lesson to e learned from this?
Dylan: It’s a lot of things. Our record doing well this year doesn’t give me the attitude of, “Geez, we really are an amazing group.” All any band can really do is their job. That means you write the songs, you rehearse them, show up for gigs, and entertain however you want to entertain. I can deal with all the other bullshit that goes along with it, like what interview do you do. But the main thing is you have to show up and do the work. I have friend back home who I think are better at this hob that I am, but I think the band has worked hard. I think we have a really good record company that has done what every record company says they’re going to do.

Which is what exactly?
Dylan: Promote you, put you out there, give you the work, and do everything they can for you and fight for you and respect your craft. I got that pitch from every record company I ever met with. When I went to Interscope, I’d already gotten that speech from everybody else, so I never really imagined they were going to do it and they did.

I talked to a lot of different people before this interview because I wanted to hear other people’s opinions of you, to find out what is it about your band that they like. In doing so, I kept hearing that you’re the new old-guard for a retro, classic-rock movement. Are you conscious of that?
Dylan: it doesn’t surprise me to hear those things, but in no way am I interested in holding a torch for any era of music, I think there are a few reasons why people have put us in that category, but I think “retro” is a negative word.

Sure, we have a Hammond B3, we have a piano, and not a lot of bands have singer/songwriters today. These just aren’t the most popular things anymore. I think the arrangement of our group makes people think of Tom Petty, makes them think of Bruce Springsteen, makes them think of the Band. I always thought that this band setup would be the most productive for making rock & roll. A lot of today’s bands-the four-piece guitar bands-go into the studio and they hire Benmont Tench to come in a play an organ. They hire somebody to come in a play saxophone. They come in and they hire everybody; but they don’t want those people in the band and they go on the road and they have to hire anything musician to come out. I always thought that when this group started we were a guitar band. I was writing organ parts and a Wurlitzer. I just thought that it made the most sense to put one of those buys in the group. I think that’s been one of the reasons people have kind of given us that retro tag.

There’s also the family relation thing, as you put it. You dad’s impact on popular music is undeniable, and I’d imagine his impact on you has been considerable. Is it unfair that some people judge your band’s music using your father as reference point? Is that comparison fair in the context of this whole retro, classic-rock thing?
Dylan: I think the only fair comparison in that would be that he was a singer/songwriter also what in a lot of ways invented the job that I have. I think anybody in my position could right fully be compared to him as a singer/songwriter. But comparing my music to his? I don’t know [laughs]. I’m not concerned if it’s fair or not, and I don’t really know if people still do that to me anymore, but if you think about it, it’s completely insane to compare anybody to him. Forget about blood lines or styles. It’s just totally impractical. I wouldn’t wish it upon anybody.

And it definitely wouldn’t make any sense to do that because it’s not like you’ll come to the conclusion, like, “Wow, he is better.” That’s an impossible judgment in the end. So it’s not really comparison. You’re not comparing. You’re basically pointing out my shortcomings, saying why such and such person was better. That’s what happens when they compare me to him, Elvis Costello, Neil Young, or anybody. When people do that, ping-ponging somebody else’s career back and forth against his, that’s all it is. It’s pointing out the other person’s shortcomings.

But people somehow need to pigeonhole bands. The have to say, “They sound like this, or they look like that.”
Dylan: I think that’s unfortunate, but it’s a major source of how people get their information. You can’t hear everything, and you can’t watch everything, so you have to get some information to guide what you’re about to buy. I think it’s unfortunate that it happens, but it seems to make sense. It isn’t a good thing, though, because giving people labels can be misleading. Sometimes people don’t fall into categories, and I’m not saying we do or don’t, but a lot of times people just don’t fit into categories. When you try to say, “That’s a cross between this and that,” it might not make any sense if you were to add it all up. It might turn somebody off from even wanting to hear it because they don’t like the comparison.

What do you think is the greatest public misconception of the Wallflowers right now?
Dylan: I’m honestly not that aware of how we’re perceived. We live pretty much sheltered out here. But I’m very curious.

I think it’s that some people think you suck as musicians.
Dylan: That we…suck [nervous laughter]?

Yeah, that you suck from a musicianly perspective
Dylan:Is that critics or other musicians in other bands?

I don’t’ know. Maybe it’s a critic thing. What I gathered was that some people don’t’ place a whole lot of value on the musicianship of the band, and I think that’s because of the simplicity of the songs. They’re very straightforward.
Dylan: It’s traditional music, and it suggests musicianship, but a lot of popular music today isn’t about musicianship. It’s mostly about the vibe and the character. Nobody argues about whether [R.E.M.’s] Peter Buck is a great guitar player. I’m not saying he is or isn’t, but because he’s got such a style and he’s within this group that isn’t necessarily the most traditional group, nobody’s worried about whether he is or isn’t a great musician.

I think it’s much safer for people today to come along and not bother studying actually how to play music. There’s been a lot of artist who, while they may have been really great, I think they’ve suggested to a lot of people that you don’t have to know how to play an instrument. You don’t actually have to sit in your bedroom and practice. All you gotta get is the right jacket, find a couple of guys with some great hair cuts, go listen to a bunch of indie rock and you’re going to get a four-star review in Rolling Stone.

That’s what happens. If you look at the way those things are run, the harder you try and the more you say this matters to me, the bigger your stakes are, but if you don’t try very hard and you just go out there with your character, play what naturally falls out of you, that’s genius. That’s how it seems to be a lot of times. I think the Wallflowers for the most part are a traditional rock band. I’ve never done an interview where I’ve said we’re changing the world. I don’t remember that interview. I think its pretty basic. It’s pretty simple. It’s easy to understand what we’re trying to do.

So you’d rather be perceived in a different way?
Dylan: I’m not concerned with how people perceive me, because I know what my music has been worth. I know what I’ve offered. I think I can offer more, and I think the band can.

It’s not really about where I fall short because as far as what I’ve taken on up to this point-what I’ve set my goals on-I’ve done. I wanted to write songs. I did that. I’ve done the basic things that got me where I am today. It’s a matter of what I can do with it after that. That’s what selling records allows you to do-to get people’s ears for a little while and see whether you can do something with it, or if you’re just going to bomb out and disappear.

I don’t know if you guys are even aware of this, but at this past CMJ convention, Moby was the keynote speaker, and in his address he told a story about how he was listening to the radio while driving across the country and he couldn’t believe how much the radio sucked. He said the dee-jays sucked, and the music particularly sucked. In his words, the music being played was “soulless and anemic.” He followed by saying that the music wasn’t the Wallflowers, paused, and admitted that, yes, he actually was talking about you guys. Obviously a lot of people don’t believe that, so what is he missing?
Calire: Well I’m pretty close to being anemic [laughter]. I know that we are conscious of-and afraid of-the fact that we are very exposed and we get a lot of spins on every radio station imaginable. We’re aware of overexposure and ti’s something that we’re afraid of. I totally agree with Moby in that radio used to be more diverse and eclectic, and it still should be today, but I do think there’s room for bands like us.

Ward: First of all, I totally agree with what [Moby] says, too. It’s fine. I like and respect what Moby does, and he’s taken a way more modern approach to making music. Right on, Moby. But if that’s all you heard-Moby, Aphex Twin, the Chemical Brothers, and who ever the hell else-and then you heard the Wallflowers, we would probably sound pretty refreshing. Ours is a slightly more tradition type of songwriting with guys just playing their instruments; it’s not really electronic, it’s a little more organic.

I thinkt he point that Moby is making-or this is the way I chose to interepret his point-is that there are a lot of bands who for one reason or another sound similar to what we do. You have the counting Crows, you have the Wallflowers, you have you Uncle Tupelo offshoots [Sun Volt, Wilco], and then I’m sure there are fifteen more bands that are going to come out next month who are just waiting to spring that sound on you. That’s one of the most heinous natures of this industry; by the time everybody clones what’s kind of happening and it comes out two years later, it’s so played out and so over done that you’ve just had it, you know? So probably by the time Moby is in his car driving across America, he’s hearing a lot of shit that sounds like the Wallflowers or whatever, whether it’s just the Wallflowers or ten other bands that sound kind of similar. Too much of anything can get to be a drag.

I’m sure there’s plenty of people that could call modern electronic music the most soulless thing they’re ver heard. I like it. We put it on and dig it. It’s just a sign of what’s going on. But you’ll get the same type of shit for a couple of years and then the next wave will come. I mean, think of all the shitty wannabe grunge music you heard after something great like Nirvana came along. It just sucked. I just drove you up a will and you’re still hearing it.

Calire: Just to backtrack, I don’t take it personally, because we’re an easy band to point a finger at right now cause we’re all over the radio. But we won’t be next year. There’s always someone on the radio that’s getting a lot of spins. His point about the radio sucking [is valid]. My parents have told me how it used to be, where you might hear the Beatles, Ravi Shankar, classical music, or old folk tunes on one station. Radio station didn’t always have such a narrow focus, but now there are a very limited bunch of formats. Luckily, we fit into a lot of them but there are a lot of people who are making great, creative, new music who don’t have a place, and it’s important that they be heard. I think that’s Moby’s point. I totally agree with that. I don’t think that means there isn’t a place for people like us, though.

Dylan: I don’t think I’m qualified to give a discussion on techno, and I would imagine Moby’s probably not a great spokesperson for rock & roll, either. You set yourself up when you become a popular band. A lot of people-including Moby, who probably wishes he was selling a lot more records-wish they were a lot more popular, and they can get very defensive and ten to slam at everything out there.

I don’t take it personally. I just think that’s the position that bands like the Wallflowers get in. This is clearly not something that Moby’s interested in, regardless if it’s soulless. He probably wouldn’t know if it was or wasn’t. Was his problem that we’re on the radio a lot?

I think so. I think he saw you as poster boys for what he thought represented evilness in music.
Dylan: It’s always been like that. What can I say? You can’t be liked by everybody. The only thing I find interesting about it is when people generalize music, they draw lines. There’s a lot of stuff out there I don’t particularly like, but who is it going to benefit if I talk about it [negatively]? It doesn’t help if I do an interview where I say, “here’s what I don’t’ like, I think that guy’s terrible.” To pick anybody out and do that [isn’t] productive, and it just draws lines and makes people dislike other people.

I don’t know. I’d imagine that he’s probably frustrated and probably would like to sell more records. That’s how people get, especially if they’ve been around for a while. My group’s pretty young. People don’t like to see you come out that quickly and do well.

Why is that?
Dylan: I think a lot of it is just purely jealousy. He probably genuinely doesn’t like my band and my music, but the source of it is anger. If my band wasn’t selling any records and we’d been on the road for 15 years, we’d be really cool. Personally, I don’t think there’s anything cool about being broke and unexposed and having nobody hear you music. I don’t think that’s very cool, but you get to a point where if you become a popular band, a lot of people just don’t like that. It’s always been like that. Popular music by theory is not the good music. It’s almost impossible to be.

That’s indie-credibility. What do you think about the phrase “indie-cred?”
Dylan: I never understood that [indie-cred]. It never applied to me for whatever reason, whether it was where I come from, or what music I wrote, or where the band played. It’s like that Woody Allen movie where he said he’d never want to be a member of a club that would accept him. I don’t understand that club very much, and I don’t know if it’s cool to be in there or not. I don’t understand it.

The most you could ask for is to have a lot of people be exposed to your music. I know that disqualifies you from having “indie-cred.” A great example of that is Soul Asylum. They were stocked with “indie-cred” through the Eighties. They kept making records, and they wanted to get more popular, but once they got there and had a huge hit, all those people just said they sold out.

There’s also a great quote about this from Nash Kato [Urge Overkill]. People were accusing him of selling out, and he responded by saying he was the first guy in line to sell out. I think I have a pretty clear understanding of what my record had to offer and whether or not it was important.

What do you mean by important?
Dylan: You know, was it pushing boundaries? I don’t have illusions as to whether it did or didn’t. I know what my record did and what it sounded like. I’m a big consumer. I know where it fall. I’d like for the band to grow, for the band to get somewhere that’s a little more powerful as far as music going forward. I don’t think of this music as retro music or progressive music. I think it’s just music right now.

I’d like to think of us in a line of a lot of rock & roll groups. I think people need rock & roll groups. There’s a place for Kiss, a place for Moby. There’s a place for everybody.

There’s no reason we can’t all have a job here. Obviously, the Wallflowers have sold a good amount of records this year. Obviously, somebody likes it. Who am I or you to say that those people are idiots? Like, the first 50,000 people who buy your record really like it, so they’re cool. They’re smart. And then, from there on out, everybody else who buys your record is somehow and idiot. That’s the idea that people give you.

I’ve read that the song “Bleeders” was your response to people thinking that you are in music for the wrong reasons. What are your reasons for being a musician? What are the right reasons?

Dylan: I don’t know what the right ones are for everybody else. For some, it’s money. For others, it’s fame. For some people, it’s music. I don’t know why anybody else does it. I wouldn’t be the one to tell people the right or wrong reasons. I only know why I do it.

I do it because I went and saw the Clash when I was 12 years old and it was the coolest thing I ever saw. It’s as simple as that. I started to listen to all kinds of music and it occurred to me at some point that I was going to do this whether it was in my garage or from a tour bus. I was going to be doing it. Who doesn’t want to make a living doing what they love doing? It wasn’t a massive cerebral effort to [decide to] do it or not. You wake up every day and you do what feels right. For me, picking up a guitar and playing with four guys in a band has always felt right. I’d be lying if I said that growing up around it had nothing to do with it. If a kid grows up and one of his parents is a carpenter, they might become interested in making tables, too.

Last night I was talking with Greg and Mario about your dad, and we were wondering if the day will come when you’ll play together on stage. The it occurred to me that you two must have played together in the privacy of your own home.
Dylan: sure, as a kid. There was a point where I took this on my own, though. It’s been a long time. Since I was a kid.

But playing music together was once a family thing. That used to be a way that families entertained themselves before TV came into play.
Dylan: yeah. The funny thing about family traditions is that if I was going to hire a plumber, I’d want to hire the guy whose family’s been doing it for 120 years; he’s probably going to know something the others don’t. But when it comes to art and music, people just have a really hard time with that. They get angry a tyou for having the nerve to do it, too! But it’s another craft. Playing guitar and songwriting are crafts, just like making a table is. I’ve seen it for many years, and it’s just something that was implanted in me and that I wanted to continue doing. I liked the way it sounded and the way it looked and just wanted to be a part of it.

So do you think that moment will come when you think you and your father will ever play together publicly?
Dylan: I guess anything is possible.

What song would you like to play?
Dylan: That’s the thing. [smiles], regardless of the actual interesting side of it, which is why we would or wouldn’t…

“I got you babe?”
Dylan: I don’t know. I don’t know what the purpose would be, to be honest. It would just be spectacle.

But if you were going to do it…
Dylan: Who wouldn’t want to do it? You can’t find a singer/songwriter who wouldn’t want to. As far as why I would be doing it, I’d have to know why. It’d have to be interesting circumstances.

Well, who would you want to sing with?
Dylan: Willie Nelson, George Jones, one of those kinds of people. Moby. Maybe we’ll do something together [laughs]. I can take some of the blood out of his music.