“For me, everything is improvising,” Steve Wynn, the one-time frontman and main songwriter for The Dream Syndicate, said talking about his new book, “I Wouldn’t Say it if it Wasn’t True: A Memoir of Life, Music, and the Dream Syndicate,” from his home in Queens, New York. “All my favorite things, everything day-to-day life, cooking, walking down Roosevelt Avenue here in Queens, getting on tour, obviously music recording in the best of circumstances, everything, all my favorite things are jamming.”
For those who were not in LA during the 1980s or a fan of what was the first inklings of Alt-Rock or Post Punk bands, the Dream Syndicate (Wynn, guitar and vocals, Karl Precoda, lead guitar, bassist Kendra Smith and drummer Dennis Duck) were part of the early 1980s LA scene, alongside the Bangs (later the Bangles), the Rain Parade, Green on Red and the Three O’Clock), dubbed “The Paisley Underground” for the groups’ shared love of mid-60s pop.
The Dream Syndicate (who took their name from LaMonte Young’s early 1960s ensemble) were both a success story and a cautionary tale. They were signed, first to local powerhouse Slash Records (home to many of LA’s most popular post-punk bands, including the Blasters and Los Lobos), and in 1983 released their debut album, “The Days of Wine and Roses.” Taking advantage of the newly formed infrastructure of clubs, booking agents and radio stations that nurtured non-mainstream bands, they earned a reputation as a solid live band, mixing the aggressive thrum of the Velvet Underground with the sprawl of Neil Young and Crazy Horse.
The band then ascended to the holy grail of rock bands — a major label contract with A&M Records. Paired with Sandy Krugman (best known for his work producing Blue Öyster Cult and the Clash), the sessions for their sophomore album, “Medicine Show” were a monthslong slog that left Wynn alienated from his band (Wynn admits he has not spoken to Precoda in over 30 years), and himself, shuttling between apartments, drinking a bottle of bourbon a day.
One thing he really wanted to get across in the book “is how quickly something that’s really so wonderful and improbable as you and your close friends and people who you are aligned with musically and philosophically about music, how quickly can go from incredibly wonderful and magical and successful to within a year or two falling apart.”
The band — who took it as a point of pride in never playing the songs the same way twice — were a tough fit for the majors, a point Wynn learned when he approached his A&R (Artists and Repertoire) exec with what he considered a can’t miss proposition: “We’re a touring band with a good following,” he said. “We can go into the studio, make an album for a modest budget, get out there and tour our asses off and sell 50,000 copies, which means everyone would turn a profit.” The response: “We’re not in the business of selling 50,000 records.” The band continued releasing two studio albums with a new line up before splitting up in 1988.
“LA is in my bones and my DNA. I can still picture what it was like to be there.”
Wynn, who once had ambitions of becoming a sportswriter, and considers himself as, more than anything, a writer, is a deft storyteller, one not afraid to call out his own bad behavior. Although he’s been a New Yorker for 31 years, he said “LA is in my bones and my DNA. I can still picture what it was like to be there.” He takes readers on a tour of 1980s LA club scene, as Wynn either performs, DJs or sees bands at Raji’s, Club 88, Hong Kong Garden and Cathay de Grande, and works at the Rhino Records store in Westwood. There are behind the scenes stories of tours with a pre-superstardom U2 and R.E.M. He’d been thinking of writing a book for years, but it took the COVID pandemic to get him to knuckle down. “I had the time. I’m not going to be on tour, so it’s a good time to see what I can do.” He originally had as goal of writing 500 words a day, but he ended up writing around 3,000 each day. The hardest part, he said, was editing.
The time it takes to write a book was also daunting. “A lot of my favorite songs I’ve written in 10 minutes or less. I mean, when you get inspired, when you hear the song in your head, when you kind of know what you’re going for when you’re just not filtering yourself. Songs come quickly and you say, yeah, I’m game with that. That feels good. You can’t do that with a book. It doesn’t matter how inspired you are, now much coffee you drink, how early you wake up, you’re not going to ride it in 10 minutes or 10 days even. So that’s a big difference. I hadn’t done this before.”
Wynn, who has been releasing albums steadily since 1988, and touring as a solo act, fronting his own band, the Miracle Three (which includes his wife, Linda Pitmon, on drums) and a revitalized Dream Syndicate, and various side projects/collaborations, including the Baseball Project, featuring Pitmon, one-time Young Fresh Fellow Scott McCaughey, and former R.E.M. guitarist and bassist Peter Buck and Mike Mills, which has released four albums of original, baseball-themed songs.
He turns philosophical when discussing his current attitude toward the music business. If he’s learned one thing, it’s not to let others impose their views on your work. “There are always going to be bumps in the road,” he said, “but at this point, I play music with other people my age, and we all know how to roll with things. And if somebody says something kind of annoying in the van one day, you go, he just didn’t get enough sleep. Or I’ll steer clear that guy for a couple hours.”
Wynn, who said he’s been a “working musician” since he was 25, is currently on tour, promoting both the book and his latest solo album, “Make it Right.” He’ll be performing an acoustic set and reading from the book. His favorite part of these shows is when he brings someone from the audience on stage to ask him three questions. He’s playing a McCabe’s Guitar Shop in Santa Monica Jan. 31, with Thee Holy Brothers — Willie Aron and Marvin Etzioni — opening.
Wynn’s McCabe’s show is sold out, but his book, “I Wouldn’t Say it if it Wasn’t True” can be purchased at Amazon or through Wynn’s website, https://www.stevewynn.net.
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