Steve Wynn is an alt-rock hero. He launched the Dream Syndicate in 1981, bridging a gap between the exploratory, improvisational music of the late ‘60s and the visceral immediacy of punk rock. Though he was a key figure in the so-called “Paisley Underground” scene of the ‘80s, Wynn successfully avoided getting pigeonholed. Whether with the Dream Syndicate, as a solo artist, composing film soundtracks, or helming indie rock supergroup the Baseball Project, again and again the prolific Wynn has channeled his creativity into multiple directions.
More from Spin:
- Fatman Scoop, Veteran New York Rapper, Dies At 53
- Laurie Anderson Soars on ‘Amelia’
- Tom Petty’s ‘Long After Dark’ Expanded For Deluxe Reissue
And now he’s done it again. Drawing upon his finely-honed skills as a storyteller and communicator, Wynn has penned a compelling memoir, I Wouldn’t Say It If It Wasn’t True. And he’s also crafted a superb new album, Make It Right, his first solo release in years. It’s a companion of sorts with the book, and while experiencing one isn’t strictly necessary to understand the other, interested parties will want both.
Ahead of a limited songs-and-stories solo tour that includes dates in nontraditional venues, Wynn spoke with SPIN about his new book and album.
Your story is a personal one, but it also captures an era. Was that by design?
Yeah. I’ve found that with people of, let’s say, a certain age—however you want to put it…boomers, whatever—are reading it and seeing their story in the book as well, which is great. When I wrote the book, I wanted it to be about a lot of things. It’s about my music career, and the early days with the Dream Syndicate. But it’s also about being a music fan growing up at a certain time, how I embraced the ‘60s music explosion and then punk rock, and how that all melded together to lead me to writing a bunch of songs and forming a band.
As you chronicle in the book, you were a sportswriter for a while. Do you feel that endeavor uses a different part of your brain than songwriting does?
They’re obviously different in plenty of ways. I was never an athlete, but I liked all the numbers, the stats, and the history. I liked all the musty, dusty archival tomes sitting on bookshelves, and knowing about what happened in a game in 1913. And that’s the same muscle that makes me want to know about every Charlie Parker recording session or who John Coltrane played with before he played with his quartet. It’s an obsession, and it’s a way of understanding history and finding connection to it.
So as a songwriter, my initial draw to that wasn’t just, “Oh, I want to be a rock star riding in limousines down Sunset Boulevard.” The initial attraction was, “I love music so much, and in a kind of a cocky way, I know what’s good and what’s not good. And I want you to know about it too.” On one hand, the Dream Syndicate was a band that thought we were better than a lot of bands that were around, but also, we were a mouthpiece for the music we loved.
The Dream Syndicate: Steve Wynn
Photo gie Knaeps
What artist made the biggest impression upon you as a live performer, as someone who gets out in front of people?
Bruce Springsteen. The guy is amazing.
When [my friend and Dream Syndicate co-founder and bassist] Kendra Smith and I saw him play in 1978, he had just put out Darkness on the Edge of Town. He was big, and he was playing the Forum. And I had never seen anybody on stage play in a way that connected so direct and viscerally. “He’s on stage talking to me like we’re hanging out together in his living room!” Of course that was a well-rehearsed, formulated thing, but it came from a real place.
If nothing else, Springsteen convinced me that I never wanted to play a subpar show, never wanted to play a show where I didn’t give everything I had. I would be present and aware and take into account what’s happening. Every night, people in the audience are making a choice to be there with their time, with their money, with their clutter of things they have going on in their lives. With all the music they could see, they’ve chosen to come see me. So I want to give a great show.
I mean, I’m a decent guitarist. I can sing a tune pretty well, and I know how to write a set list. But I try to make each night something really special, something that didn’t exist before.
Make it Right is your first solo album in more than a decade. How has your approach to making a solo record changed in those intervening years?
When the Dream Syndicate broke up, I made…I forget the number…maybe 15 solo records over the next 20 years. I had always been in a band; when I went solo, it was “kid in a candy store” time. When I started making solo records, I viewed them almost like a casting director. “I’ve got the idea in my head; now who’s gonna play on it?” That was liberating. “This year, I’m gonna go to Spain and make a record, and next time I’m gonna go to Slovenia, then I’ll make a record in Norway.” I’d just follow the whim of the moment.
But after about 20 years of doing that, I kind of missed being in a steady band. There’s all the camaraderie that you have; you’re part of a gang. You can all keep in touch and have inside jokes and all that. So I spent the following 10 years doing nothing but the Baseball Project and the reunited Dream Syndicate. And that was great. I almost didn’t need solo records anymore.
But I’m kind of missing that now. Luckily, in this day and age, now you can be in five different projects at the same time. It wasn’t that way in the ‘80s. Back then, you were kind of expected to do one thing. I get that, but it wasn’t the way I liked working. It was a very frustrating time for me to be a musician because I just want to crank out a lot of stuff. And so right now it’s nice—I can do everything at once.
Wynn’s book, ‘I Wouldn’t Say It If It Wasn’t True,’ his new album ‘Make it Right,’ and a full list of tour dates can all be found at stevewynn.net.
To see our running list of the top 100 greatest rock stars of all time, click here.
