I spoke with The Wallflowers’ Jakob Dylan on the phone during some rare downtime for the band in New York City. The Wallflowers will play The Commonwealth Room on Saturday, Aug. 23 2025.
We could have spoken entirely about his dad Bob, and it’d have been perfectly appropriate to do so. Instead, we talked about songs that became radio staples in the late ’90s and never stopped getting played. We agreed that The Clash’s London Calling sounds as fresh now as it ever did. He also shared that it’s best to never, ever stop touring. Lucky for him, he prefers it.
Q: How’s your tour going?
Dylan: It’s really good. My preference is to tour a lot these days. As long as we find places to play, we stay out. It’s good to be busy.
Q: Is that tied to new music at all?
Dylan: I’m hoping I’m past that. The last record came out in 2021, but I want to get to the point where I don’t have to have a new record, just a body of work that allows us to tour anytime we want.
Q: You’ve been at this for a minute, after all. You have plenty of songs.
Dylan: I do, you know? When this band first got really busy, we had one record to play. And records are usually 12 songs long. If you only have a dozen songs to play, you might not want to play every one.
Q: I read you got into music because of The Clash. Any truth to that?
Dylan: When you’re 12 or 13, you discover bands and they have a different power over you. When you’re older, you don’t need it as much, but it still influences you. In my earlier years, I got jolted by what I heard. The Clash are considered a punk band, but I never thought of them that way. They were the best rock and roll band out there, and I haven’t changed my mind about that.
Q: I played The Clash and London Calling over and over. Joe Strummer’s the greatest.
Dylan: They all were, and it’s their writing that sets them apart. They had the best drummer, Topper Headon, and he could play differently from his peers. Listen to London Calling and it does not sound dated. I still can’t believe it was released in 1979. It sounds like a brand new record!
Q: And you think you’re not as influenced by what you listen to as you get older?
Dylan: You’re just not as pliable. You take on information and are always learning. I still do that. But I don’t listen to music the way I used to. I don’t know if anybody does. Our brains are putty, soaking up information differently. My brain still is putty, actually.
Q: Mine, too. I’m curious: when you have a song like “One Headlight” or “6th Avenue Heartache” and you hear it either on the radio 25-30 years later, what’s the reaction?
Dylan: Hearing them played never gets old. Just like that, I’m a kid again. I grew up listening to the radio, so the first time your song gets played, it’s stunning. And 30 years later, it still feels the same.
When people still listened to the radio, everybody knew the same songs. Even if it wasn’t my favorite band playing, I listened. Everyone did. It was a special time, coming up in the early ’90s. The radio was a monster.
Q: And you came up in the MTV era. I constantly wonder how music gets discovered now, but did your having music videos in heavy rotation help?
Dylan: [Music is] a free fall. Anyone can get lucky, and everybody else follows, trying to figure out how they did it. They try doing the exact same thing. Bands I’ve never heard of are playing arena shows. Thirty years ago, there was no way you didn’t know the bands playing those venues.
There’s room for everybody—and I don’t want to be the old man on the lawn and screaming at younger generations—but it’s changed. When I came up, people ahead of me thought it had changed then, and they didn’t know how to make videos for MTV. It keeps evolving, and we keep trying to adjust. What else can you do?
Q: So it’s harder now to be a career musician?
Dylan: Undoubtedly. The only advice I can give is to learn how to play your instruments well and get off the computer. Stop working alone. Tour. Travel. It’s what you have to do. You won’t make a living staying at home and making records. It’s a touring business, and it works for me.
Q: And what is it you like about being a road warrior?
Dylan: Every day is different. I came up touring, so I like waking up in new places all the time, meeting people. Something great could happen daily. That’s the troubadour experience, and it’s been around forever. In your early 20s, it sounds exciting, but in your 40s, you might grow out of it. I’m just one of those who haven’t.
Q: Have you done it long enough for people to stop asking questions about your pops?
Dylan: I never expected that to go away, but there’s not a lot to talk about when you’re a new artist. If you interviewed me 30 years ago, I was well aware of the elephant in the room then. I thought if I put my head down, it would go away after a certain amount of success. But I live with it, and have no complaints. There’s a lot worse baggage you could have strapped to you. It’s complimentary when people mention him, so it’s nothing to be upset about. We won’t get a better artist [than Bob Dylan].
Q: Have the things you liked about playing and recording changed?
Dylan: When you write songs for a living, there’s more than a few exit strategies. Pay attention and you can stop along the way. Plenty do. Those who still do it years later do so because they can’t stop. It’s like anything else you do for 30+ years, though; you keep it interesting.
Sometimes you’re happy to do it and other times you’d like a break, but it’s what you chose to do. Why would I ever stop doing this? Life is hard. You have to get through it doing something you enjoy doing. I have nothing but gratitude for being here this long. It’s joyful.
Q: Is part of that an attempt to chase another colossal hit, on the radio or otherwise?
Dylan: Name me a rock band that’s had a colossal hit recently.
Q: Good point. Maybe The Killers?
Dylan: And how long ago was that? It’s been a while. Am I craving a big hit? I mean, sure. Who wouldn’t want one?
Q: So maybe rock music isn’t exactly thriving right now, is that it?
Dylan: Rock bands are around, but not the way they were when we grew up. The genre is back where it belongs, on the outskirts, like when it started. It wasn’t always popular, and people seem stunned that it’s back on the fringes.
When I started, a songwriter wrote songs, worked with a band, and tried making a demo tape. They went to a record label. You rehearsed more. You entered the studio and recorded. And, if you were lucky, you landed on the radio. How do bands do it today, though? I wish I knew.
Q: Many want that quicker path to success, no?
Dylan: There’s always an overnight success. We didn’t have that. People considered us a failure at the beginning. But younger people or bands see their peers get so rich, so quickly, just by hitting send on the computer. Telling them about hard work at that point is asking a lot, especially when they see others find success so easily.
Q: And not comparing yourself to others is hard to do.
Dylan: It is. There’s more content to make now, and a lot of space to fill. We don’t all share the same music now. There are younger people who know all the new songs and music and they’re great, but I don’t hear those same songs. Maybe it’s because I don’t sit on a computer all day.
Q: Thanks for taking the time to connect today, Jakob.
Dylan: If you can drag a good line out of our conversation, send it to me. Maybe I can be an overnight success all over again!
Q: I’ll do my best.
Dylan: That’s all it takes.
Come see the Wallflowers do what they do best on Saturday, Aug. 23. Tickets are still available!
- Who: Jakob Dylan and The Wallflowers
- Where: The Commonwealth Room
- When: Saturday, Aug. 23, 2025
- More info: TheStateRoomPresents.com
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