Steve Wynn - Fluorescent Dreams

The Italian leg of Steve Wynn's long 2016 European solo tour also brought the American singer-songwriter to small towns not usually touched by major international events. We caught a stirring voice-and-guitar-only performance by the Dream Syndicate frontman at the Circolo Hemingway in Latina. The venue's intimate atmosphere gave us the perfect chance to get to know him up close and to strike up an interesting conversation, which continued remotely in the days that followed. What emerged was an authentic, candid, all-encompassing portrait, touching on music, memories, experiences, emotions, projects, politics, and the inevitable mention of a great band about to make its comeback…

Hi Steve, thanks so much for your time. We're meeting at a very particular moment in your career: Dream Syndicate are about to come back with a new album. What was it like getting back into the studio with your longtime band?

Well, we got back together and started playing a few shows together about four years ago. Since then we've done around fifty gigs, and we've been playing really well together.

But above all, we've already managed to build a proper sense of identity in this moment, in this space. We feel like a living, capable band, not the stars of some nostalgia show.

Who in the band pushed hardest to get back together after all these years?

Given the promising circumstances, we all agreed it would be a great idea to make a new record, one that could properly reflect exactly where we are right now.

We had the freedom and the luxury to feel that if the final result hadn't turned out good enough, if it hadn't lived up to what we'd done in the past and to what we're doing today, we could have simply walked away from it. And guess what? It might be the best record we've ever made. We're really happy.

When will we get to hear it?

I think it'll come out in spring, followed by a run of shows right after its release. That's the plan, for now.

Your excellent solo career has often suffered, overshadowed by the weight and importance of Dream Syndicate. Even today, fans who come to your shows hope to hear more than just a few songs from your old band. And those songs are often the ones that get the biggest applause. Is that a source of pride for you - for what you accomplished in the past - or a frustration?

It's certainly not a burden to carry. I'm proud of my old band. And I'm always happy to work songs from that catalogue into my sets. But I also believe the records I've made since Dream Syndicate broke up, especially the ones from the last fifteen years, are among the best I've ever recorded.

The nice thing about the Dream Syndicate reunion is that in my solo shows I'll get to play fewer of those old songs. The setlist keeps changing depending on whether I'm playing with Dream Syndicate, with Miracle 3, with Baseball Project, or if I'm out on my own.

At least one generation grew up listening to your records: when you wake up in the morning, do you ever feel like a sort of father figure to a generation of musicians?

Oh! That's a feeling that goes really well with a nice strong cup of coffee! (laughs, ed.).

The Paisley Underground movement (of which Dream Syndicate was an integral part) helped, back in the '80s, to make the majors realize the commercial potential of the alternative rock scene. Without those premises, would Geffen ever have taken an interest in Nirvana and Sonic Youth?

It's all part of a beautiful, ever-evolving, interconnected thread: from Charlie Feathers to the Sonics, from Big Star to the Stooges, from Gun Club to Nirvana, right up to some new bands like 75 Dollar Bill or Elephant Stone.

We're all part of this jagged, indestructible little line.

In the '90s, while the leading figures of the grunge scene were cashing in on their efforts, you preferred to tone things down, recording first "Dazzling Display" (in 1992), and right after that an intimate record like "Fluorescent" (in 1994), both decidedly less electric works than Dream Syndicate's early records. Was that a deliberate choice, to keep yourself out of the grunge frenzy?

I have to say I don't think of those records that way. Actually, at the time I was searching for new sounds, listening to bands like My Bloody Valentine, Primal Scream and Dinosaur Jr. But I was also aware that I didn't want to record songs that sounded like Dream Syndicate.

It's a style I love, but I thought it would have been stupid to break up such a good band just to keep making the same kind of music with other musicians, especially because I adored my bandmates in Dream Syndicate. We didn't stop because of personality clashes: it was simply time to do something else, to move forward. Playing more than one type of music seemed like the best way to proceed. At least for a while.

During your recent Italian solo tour you actually performed away from the buzz of the big cities. You played in many small towns, like Eboli, Teramo and Latina, which don't usually host international artists of your standing. You spent a night in Sermoneta, a lovely medieval village, places that obviously don't exist in the United States, where you can breathe a unique atmosphere. What's it like playing in such intimate places and visiting such distinctive spots? What did you feel?

Wow! Sermoneta is amazing. I feel truly lucky to get to visit towns like this. How do I feel? I feel like my career is the perfect way to live the way I love to live.

I'm popular enough to manage to play in so many places that a lot of fellow touring musicians never get to reach. But at the same time I'm not so popular that plenty of managers and agents keep telling me I should be spending more time in Cleveland. Ha! Ha! Just kidding. I love Cleveland.

You closed your thrilling solo show at Circolo Hemingway in Latina with a goosebump-inducing version of “Sunday Morning” by Velvet Undergound, delivered sublimely with just guitar, voice and nothing else. But it got me wondering: why does a musician with a repertoire as vast as yours decide to end a show with a cover? I'm not just thinking of you, but also, for instance, of Pearl Jam, who have closed hundreds of shows playing Neil Young's “Rockin' In The Free World”. Is it better to sacrifice your own songs from a setlist in order to play someone else's?

I've written and recorded around 350 songs. And there are so many that I never play. So doing a cover might look like a perverse choice.

But covers are fun to play, they show a little taste of what I love and demonstrate how I relate to those songs. They're also a way to help me share some personal and nostalgic sides of myself with the audience. I like doing that.

When will we see you in Italy again?

This year I did 26 solo shows in Italy, plus another sixty or so across the rest of Europe: I think I'll take a year off from solo shows to focus on my bands, especially Dream Syndicate.

Everything needs to stay in balance. Everything I do is a kind of reaction to what I did before. It's always been that way. Sometimes I wear the clothes of the lone troubadour, other times I feel the need for my gang. Right now I feel it's time for the gang.

Given everything you've written and recorded over the years, do you ever think you deserved bigger success? Or are you happy as you are, believing that having less success is the fair price to pay in order to preserve your artistic integrity?

Ha! Ha! What did Clint Eastwood say in “Unforgiven”? “…Deserve's got nothing to do with it”. That's pretty true, don't you think? You play your music, you try to get as close as possible to a certain kind of truth, purity and transcendence, and that's the measure of your success, not the numbers.

I've got 35 years of career behind me, spent playing, making a living from my music. How many people get to do that? I consider myself pretty lucky. And I'm just getting started.

Meanwhile, about ten years ago, despite your still-young age, you were the subject of a tribute album, “From A Man Of Mysteries”, a great act of love put together by many artists. It was a project secretly organized by your wife, Linda Pitmon, who among other things often plays drums alongside you. How did that make you feel?

Hmmm… that's actually a really good question…

The tribute album was a huge surprise, truly thrilling. It was presented to me during a surprise event held at my favorite venue, the Lakeside Lounge, which sadly doesn't exist anymore. I miss that place.

What does it feel like to listen to a tribute to yourself?

The party went on until 4 in the morning, then I went home and listened to the record until the sun came up. It brought tears to my eyes that so many friends and so many people I admired had not only taken the time to record my songs, but had even added their own unique touch and personal interpretation.

Honestly, I like some of those versions better than my own!

Now that Dream Syndicate are back, could there be a chance of hearing new songs from Gutterball too?

I doubt it. We played a show last year, our first in 15 years. It was explosive. But those guys rarely like to leave Richmond, Virginia.

So a tour doesn't seem like something they'd be interested in. Too bad. Playing with them feels as good as with any other band I've ever played in.

I love Baseball Project's work. Are you writing new material? Can you give us a preview?

With Baseball Project we make a new album every couple of years or so. Usually Scott McCaughey and I each write half the songs. But now we also have Mike Mills, who can write too. With that in place, a new album could easily come together at any time.

It's a pretty weird band, isn't it? We sing songs that have nothing to do with baseball, but if you pay close enough attention you'll find the songs are about baseball far more than they might seem. And baseball becomes a starting point for talking about other things. I hope we'll manage to tour Italy sometime.

Do you usually like reading what the specialized press writes about you?

Damn, nobody's ever asked me that before! Well, I read some of the articles. You know, when I was young I worked as a journalist, writing mostly about sports, but also about music. So I'm aware of the process, and I'm often curious to see how journalists approach what I do.

I think music criticism is valid and can be considered an art form in its own right, just think of Lester Bangs' writing. I like it when someone approaches me with intelligence and genuine interest in my music.

Many music magazines are shutting down, and by now almost all industry coverage has moved online. Does that please you or worry you? Is it a sign of changing times?

Everything is changing. Everything! There weren't even iPhones a decade ago, actually, less than ten years ago! And everything keeps changing. Music. Journalism. Politics. Everything. And it all changes faster than it used to. But you know what? People will always need music, especially live music. And personal creative expression.

There will be ways out of it. I think about it a lot. There was a period of about thirty years in which records came in 78 rpm format, then another thirty years of LPs, then about another 25 in which the CD became the reference format. Today it's the age of downloading and streaming. Who knows what might happen in the future? But it's still music: people still listen to a song and thanks to that song they fall in love, find motivation, or burst into tears. That will never change.

Are you curious enough to keep looking for new bands to listen to? Do you follow the contemporary music scene? Do you have time to do that? And where do you get the information you need? Pitchfork? Tips from friends? Good old radio? YouTube videos?

All the usual means. Everyone finds the filters that work best for them. Among magazines, I like Uncut. Online, I follow Aquarium Drunkard.

I listen to some radio stations like KEXP, WFUV, WFMU and WWOZ. And then friends. You can never go wrong if you trust your friends.

What are your favorite contemporary bands?

I like artists who write good songs, like Bonnie Prince Billy, Bill Callahan, Courtney Barnett or Phosphorescent. And there are some great new psychedelic bands like Elephant Stone or, of course, Tame Impala.

Then there's Wilco, who are always doing something interesting. Oh, and I like Ryley Walker. He's great.

Can a singer-songwriter today still have the power to become your hero? Or do you feel you're no longer young enough for that kind of thing?

Oh, I still love hearing something new and getting excited about it. It's fun. Music hits you differently as you get older. Or maybe it would be more accurate to say that music hits you differently when it's what you do for a living, when it's the object of your work.

So, if I had to put together a list of my twenty favorite albums – and believe me, I have done things like that – a lot of those albums would be from the Sixties and Seventies. That's just how it is. But that doesn't mean I'm not looking for new thrills whenever I can. It could be a jazz record I'd never heard, or a guitarist from Mali.

Let's get down to the present with a couple of concrete examples. I'll pick two names more or less at random. What do you think of Jeff Tweedy of Wilco and Matt Berninger of The National? Two artists who, in the new millennium, have helped legitimize certain visions within their respective styles – Americana in his case, and wave in the other.

As I mentioned earlier, I like Jeff Tweedy and Wilco. As for the second name you mentioned, you know which record I've been enjoying most this year? "Day Of The Dead", the Grateful Dead tribute album, which was pushed hard for precisely by The National.

It feels like a statement from the whole group of singers who took part. And it all fits together beautifully: you can enjoy it even if the Grateful Dead never interested you.

Does it happen that up-and-coming bands come to your shows and leave you their demos to listen to? Do they ever ask you to help them out in some way?

Yes, they leave them. And I always hope I'll get to hear something great. Sometimes it happens. I try to help them with some advice, when I can, but these days the only advice I feel I can give is: "Play the music you love, take it on the road, have fun."

Maybe you'll get lucky. But "lucky" can also simply mean "loving what you do". Hey, that's exactly everything we tried to do with the Dream Syndicate. I'm not kidding.

These are indeed tough times for rock bands. Records barely sell anymore. The only way to survive is to keep touring constantly. That's great for fans, who get to see lots of shows. But for the bands?

Well, you've pretty much nailed it. You're right. But I can consider myself lucky, I still love touring and playing live, both as a form of artistic expression and as a way of life. It's fun, it's a challenge: every show is like resetting everything and getting the chance to rewrite the book all over again. For me all of this is genuinely exciting.

And besides, hey, if I've got new songs I've recorded, that means I can bring them straight to the audience that comes to see me play. In that sense I become my own best distributor!

Just these days, Bob Dylan was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. Can we read this as the definitive recognition of the song format as a work of art?

I wonder why it took so long!

I hope Leonard Cohen can be next.

In your opinion, what should a musician do and not do after so many years of career?

Any musician, any singer, any songwriter, any artist, whatever they do, should create the sounds, write the songs, play the covers and do the shows they have in mind.

Want a great quote? "Siate voi stessi. Everybody else is already taken".

You've played with hundreds of musicians. Who were the best for you?

I love every member of my current band. Linda, Jason, Dave, Scott, Mike, Peter, Dennis, Mark, Chris.

That's nine. I intend to keep going with them.

So tell me who you've had the most fun playing with...

Honestly, I have fun with all my bands. Really. Maybe they're different kinds of fun. But I don't play, and I would never want to play, with someone I don't like on a personal level, or someone I don't enjoy hanging out with. I bet I'm boring you with these diplomatic answers. But it's the plain truth.

I can tell you that in three years of touring with Gutterball we had a blast. We were still young enough to live it up wild and reckless, but already old enough to know we had to enjoy every minute of it. And we did.

Tell us the name of a musician you could have played with, but for some reason it never happened.

It's a horrible story. Dream Syndicate were playing in San Francisco on their last tour. Someone we knew came up to us during the soundcheck and told us he was a friend of John Cipollina, and that John would have liked to play with us. But he asked for cab fare and a hundred dollars.

Honestly, money wasn't the issue. But the very idea of having to pay someone to hang out with us somehow made us feel sick. So I said no. John Cipollina is one of my five favorite guitarists of all time. I really wanted to play with him that night. Damn it.

Who would you like to play with in the future, then?

If I had to name just one, I'd say Kamasi Washington. That would be incredible.

I'd really love to play in his band, even just for one night. A great band, and they clearly have a blast doing it.

At this point, what are your next challenges?

I'll probably write a book over the next year, a kind of memoir. And let me tell you, that's going to be a real challenge. I feel very comfortable making records, and I think I've just finished one of the best of my career: the new Dream Syndicate album.

But a book? I think I can pull it off properly, but taking on this experience makes me a little anxious.

Let's talk elections for thirty seconds. Clinton or Trump?

Oh, I imagine you know who I'm backing. I've always been a Democrat.

And I think Hillary - isn't it funny how we always call her by her first name, while we call Trump by his last name? - will be a great president.

And Trump?

Well, as for Trump, I think we should all thank him for doing everything he could to bring down an increasingly deteriorating Republican Party.

Let's move over to the British side. What do you think about the “Brexit” chaos?

The future will be built on inclusion. And on diversity. Not on “circling the wagons” (an idiomatic phrase used to describe a protective, defensive attitude, also put into practice by cutting off communication with anyone outside one's own group, ed.) and shutting out anyone who looks different or thinks differently.

I live in a neighborhood in Queens called Jackson Heights, which is the most ethnically diverse in the United States, and maybe in the world: 167 languages spoken by a population of 70,000. Crazy, right? And everyone gets along, works hard and has fun. It can work. It should work. I feel bad about what happened in the UK. This situation can't be good for all of them.

You've never liked talking about politics in your songs. You've always preferred to talk about the internal conflicts that define the human soul…

You're right. Although I do sneak politics in here and there, subtly. “Dazzling Display” comes to mind, the song I wrote about the first Gulf War.

But everyone who knows me knows I'm not shy about my opinions. I prefer to write about personal themes, about small details, favoring the micro over the macro. But in the end it's the same thing. Everything is political.

Aside from the ones you've put out yourself, what are your five favorite albums of all time?

Five? Damn, that's a tough one. Let's make it my five for today, okay?

“Marquee Moon”, “Exile On Main Street”, “Big Star 3^rd”, “Tonight’s The Night” e “London Calling”.

Do you know any Italian musicians?

I've been very lucky to meet, play and spend time with some really great Italian musicians.

For instance, Antonio Gramentieri (of Sacri Cuori, ed.), the guys in Afterhours, my friend Federico Braschi, the great Cesare Basile. Those are all the ones that come to mind right now. Great guys and talented musicians, really.

You're a huge fan of film and literature. Give us the titles of three films and three books that you think everyone absolutely must watch and read.

Okay… Let's see… Films? Well, I'd say “Network”, “On the Waterfront” and, of course, “The Godfather”.

Books? “The Quartet Of Rabbit Books” by John Updike, “Indipendence Day” by Richard Ford and “Why Are We In Vietnam?” by Norman Mailer. Which could be retitled “Why We Have Donald Trump”. Timeless subjects, that keep repeating themselves over time.

We say goodbye with this sarcastic quip about American politics, just days before the presidential election. After all, Steve Wynn himself is a constant that has kept repeating itself – pleasantly, in his case – for over 35 years.

Ride the wave of great music

Add OndaRock to your favorite sources on Google Discover. Don't miss our reviews, milestones and latest news straight in your feed.

Follow on Google