Has it become easier for the Wallflowers' singer Jakob Dylan to deal with the legacy of being the son of the greatest songwriter to ever live and the only rock star nominated for a Nobel Prize in literature, Bob Dylan?
"I don't know that I am waiting for it to become easier," says Dylan. "In terms of having the last name ‘Dylan' and making records and being in this business—and it is a business—some part of that is never really going to evolve, it will always remain at a certain point. But I think I have always been aware of that since I began. To even do this many, many years ago I had to consider that a non-factor."
Still, the questions about his father (even from me; I can't stop myself) keep coming and over the years, Dylan has learned to control his answers and deal with the reality of the situation:
"To some degree, I've (talked about Bob Dylan) at the appropriate times. It is really just not that appropriate most often," he explains. "I am not stupid. I do understand there is a consistent curiosity about it. And to some degree, there is relevance, just like anybody else you listen to. Their background can be important in understanding their material and motivations. But that is kind of the end of it. My focus is still on the band, the songs and touring. This won't be the tour where the Wallflowers go Oprah or something like that."
Not that the Wallflowers would object to playing music on Oprah or doing any of the industry promotions to help sell records, scorned from back in the day by many bands. That, more than Jakob's dad, is why the Wallflowers are one of the few '90s bands to still have a major-label deal despite the current woes of the recording industry.
"We do feel better when more people are listening. And I say people listening over (words like) ‘copy' or ‘product,' because those are just nasty words if you are actually somebody who creates. I make music to listen to, and the more people who hear it, the better. That's the nature of it. If you are a painter, the more people to see your art would probably be more satisfying than keeping it a secret. My preference is for more people to hear it than less. Your opportunities in this business have gotten very, very slim unless you want to be an outlaw and work at the fringes."
That means the Wallflowers do videos, Saturday Night Live and even tour press around the country where Jakob Dylan knows that, once again, he will be battered with questions about his dad. As a result, the Wallflowers have been around for 15 years now and have earned a loyal fan base and ultimately developed into the most reliable band to come out of the '90s rock revival.
But there are limits. "There are compromises you can make that you can't come back from," Dylan notes. The most important: Jakob Dylan has never dumbed down his songwriting or changed his straightforward rock sound to reach a broader audience. The Wallflowers' latest release, Rebel, Sweetheart, the band's fifth disc, is filled with a dozen of Dylan's earnest, thoughtful rock songs about making it through a difficult world while tackling subjects from war to religion. On standout track "God Says Nothing Back," Dylan offers up a lyric that hints at deep existential anguish: "Death says nothing back but I told you so."
Of course, Dylan remains quite vague on his own spiritual views, noting of "God Says Nothing Back": "What I put in the song doesn't necessarily follow any guidelines. It is more of a curiosity. And that song is certainly open to interpretation, but it's more about a condition than it is about guidelines for anybody or myself."
I try to follow up but, of course, asking him about his religious background—such a normal question to ask a songwriter who on his new disc authored the track "God Says Nothing Back"—brings back the shadow.
"I think most people know I was raised Jewish," Dylan says. It isn't that he really thinks anyone has bothered to remember that the author of "6th Avenue Heartache," "One Headlight" and "3 Marlenas" was raised Jewish. Jakob simply has to operate in a universe where even a topic as broad as religion has been narrowed into dangerous territory by his lineage, since his father is the author of "Knockin' on Heaven's Door," "I Shall Be Released" and "Every Grain of Sand" and the elder Dylan's faith is among the fiercest and most active areas of Dylanology and the subject of websites and books. (For those not in the know, Bob Dylan was born Jewish, turned up once in a yarmulke at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem and another time on a Hasidic sect's cable telethon, released a few born-again Christian discs in the late-'70s and early-'80s, and toured as a hectoring evangelist, but his current religious views are a wide open and heavily argued mystery).
I admit it flat out: "It is difficult to interview you."
"Why's that?" Jakob Dylan says.
"Because so much of your background is known through your dad."
"At least they think they know."
Of course, by "they," he means people like me and I don't blame Jakob Dylan for shutting right down on the topic of his legendary and reclusive father. Yet I can't resist one final question when Dylan mentions in passing how much he likes the instrumentation of The Clash classic, "London Calling."
"Is it true you took your dad to a Clash concert?"
"Well I was too young to drive. So he took us."