by Jonathan D. Wright

With 25 albums and recently married to his drummer, Steve is currently out on tour in support of his newest CD Crossing Dragon Bridge. In honor to celebrate The Medicine Show CD release from his former Los Angeles band The Dream Syndicate, Steve played two shows performing the songs from that CD which is now 25 years old. I caught up with Steve before his rocking two set sold-out packed show at The Rock 'N' Roll Pizza in Canoga Park, CA.

So why after 25 years did you want to revisit The Medicine show album?
I wanted to do something special for it with this trip to the Los Angeles area. It had been 25 years and so I wanted to make something significant with it. It's also a record that I like a lot. It's my favorite Dream Syndicate record. I would stand up for that record. The album divided a lot of people in a big way. The album The Days Of Wine And Roses everybody loved it. Even every review I ever saw of it was over the top. With The Medicine Show, some people loved it and some didn't understand what we were doing with it. But overseas they really loved The Medicine Show record. So any chance I get to show the record in a new light I show it and play it.

Do you still stay in touch with anyone from your old band The Dream Syndicate?
Denise Duck the drummer was at the show at The Echo. He ended up playing on one song on stage with us. With him we played Armed With An Empty Gun. We are actually still very good friends and still play music together. We would play music more together but I'm married to my drummer and that's her full time job. Mark Walton our old bass player for The Dream Syndicate will be coming to the show here tonight; driving in all the way from Las Vegas. So we are all good friends. So when I broke up The Dream Syndicate, it wasn't because I hated them or had bad feelings towards them. It was time to move on and I'm glad that I did. I have had a lot more other experiences that I would have if I hadn't moved on otherwise. I wouldn't trade that for anything. Kendra and I are also very good friends still too. She was an icon.

In your song Merritville, on The Medicine Show album, where is Merriville exactly?
It's very much inside my own head. It's more of a mental state than a physical state. It's a place for dread, ruthlessness and bad behavior. If anything, it was inspired by what I was reading at that time - William Faulkner, American gothic writing. I was very inspired by that kind of thing. As you do when you're young trying to balance things inside your head, I was pushing my life really hard. Pretty much trying to kill myself off on a daily basis. So a lot of the songs for The Medicine Show record came from out of that extreme behavior. With an added combination of anarchy and self-loathing, that was my way of reacting to all of it. The success of The Dream Syndicate came from out of that behavior for its songs. It made for a bit rockier kind of a record. It made up of a few years of my life, but I made some great music out of it.

Do you still play songs from you other Dream Syndicate Ghost Stories record or even listen to them? Or is there a chance in a couple of years when that record turns 25 are you going to come back here and revisit it and play that record all the way too?
It's funny you ask that. I tend to play more songs off of The Days Of Wine And Roses and from off of The Medicine Show these days. I don't play as much off of the other two albums. But I do like them quite a bit. I would like to do some of the songs from them. I do like the Ghost Stories album. We sometimes do The Side I'll Never Show and Whenever You Please now and then. But really that record is due for a revisit to it as well.

Since the industry was in such a change with MTV and music videos. Did Out Of The Grey and Ghost Stories get lost in all of that in any way? Or lose their meaning because of that?
Oh no, these were there for the right audience to find. I have always found fans that like what I do. Or who at least get what I do. With those records and with the others that I have done, every thing that I have made is irrelevant of the music business. All that I have made has been in my own time. It's wherever I am at in that time musically or lyric. In a various time earlier, like in the 80's, that confounded people going against the grain of music. It managed though, because of that, to give me an extended music career. So if you stick to your guns people will, in the long haul of things, they make good music and you may not get lyric wise what they are talking about or get into it at that time, it makes for a long career. Some people would cash in on the music at that given moment. With that it might give them a great couple of years and that's with any nostalgia act. That's the way I look at it. So I never think about these things. I'm not worried if I am making the right record at the right time. I am just making the record that I want to hear. I just want to make the record that's in my head and want to keep playing it. And then playing it live on a nightly basis.

So where did the song Tell Me When It's Over come from now we know that it's really not over?
We play that one now and again. We played it last night at The Echo Club in the Silver Lake area of Los Angeles. That song is usually in our set about a third of the time. That song was about that kind of feeling you have when you're 20 or 21 years old where everyone who is older than you will give you their advice. They'll tell you, "Look, I'm older and that I have been there and here is what you should do. Don't learn from my mistakes and do it this way and you'll find out and you will see." So when you’re younger, your attitude is like: "And when you're that young, you don’t care let me; live my own life." "So let me live life the way I want to live it." "Tell Me When It's Over, let me know when it’s done." "You say it's a waste to learn from mistakes." This is all you get when you are younger. I am constantly now as a veteran musician when I meet younger musicians I don't presume to say you're doing it wrong. People including young musicians find out in their own way. The only advice I give when I meet young musicians is do what you want to do no matter what anyone ever tells you, because you are doing the right thing. And sometime they don't want to even hear that advice.

Since you play guitar and have been playing it for over 25 year, what would you like to learn from someone like James Burton?
A lot. He's a great guitarist. But I like to learn things from all good guitarists. And of course James Burton is a great one. There are certain guitarists I can appreciate. My personal favorite is Neil Young, John Forgerty, Tom Verlaine, Pete Townsend, Jack White, Keith Richards, Bo Didley, and other players like that and with that I might like to and want to imitate that. I do try and pick up little tips here and there. James Burton is one of those guitar players that I say that I admire. I am not a roots player. I am more of a burn the house down player and see what is left and still standing.

Tom Petty came from out here in the San Fernando Valley and talks about Ventura Boulevard. You have many songs that talk about California - like your song California Style. Was your home. Have family here. You sure do come back here a lot and talk about it a lot - why? Or do you like living in New York more and why is that ok?
I like it here. I lived 34 of my years here in California. It's very familiar and very much home. My band is probably sick and tired of me driving them all around showing them every single place where I have loved and cared for. I drove them an hour and a half to one location between Santa Monica and here in the valley on Lankershim to a very small burrito place to have a burrito from this stand at 2AM. All of those moments of my youth are here that I loved. I love New York too and being out there. I can't see living out here again. But I like coming here all the time.

Does New York with its cold weather compared to our always lit up shining hot sun give you a different way to write songs better than here?
I wrote a lot more songs when I went and moved to New York. It's much more aspiring for me to write there. I haven't owned a car in 15 years. So I walk everywhere there or take the subway. With that kind of life being on the streets, riding the subway, just being around all kinds of people which gives you a sort of randomness about your day - it is more inspiring then being in your car all of the time. Again though, being in a car - it's what you do out here in Los Angeles. If I go out my door and walk down Broadway and spend a good half hour walking around the city I get ideas, as I never did while I was here. For me personally it's just been more inspiring out there. I'll take my second half of 15 years of writing songs over the songs I wrote in my first 15 years.

Crossing Dragon Bridge is a strong written current album that has great production work and deep lyric writing. With such a strong impressive record to date over the others, has this changed your other songs any when you hear or play them?
Crossing Dragon Bridge sounds nothing like anything that I have done ever before. It is a real departure. I am really proud of that record. I was amazed at the way it came out and how it was made. The greatest thrill is always creating something new and having it all work and feeling very natural. When you do something that's unnatural, it's very frustrating and turns out that way too. So when you try a new direction and it comes off, it's thrilling! Where as when you tread over old ground, it wouldn't be that exciting. So yeah, I am very proud of it and the way it came to being made.

From California to New York - 25 years with The Medicine Show, but now back in California in Late August to start his full-length headlining tour. Steve Wynn will be back with his Miracle 3 band and other musicians including Peter Buck from R.E.M doing a few show to promote his new album Crossing Dragon Bridge.

Steve Wynn links

Steve Wynn on Myspace: The Official Myspace Page for Steve Wynn!
The Highwire Daze Home Page: Return to the Main Page!

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