Steve Wynn | |
---|---|
![]() Wynn performing in 2011 | |
Background information | |
Birth name | Steven Lawrence Wynn |
Born | February 21, 1960 |
Origin | Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
Genres | Alternative rock, Paisley Underground |
Occupation(s) | Musician, songwriter |
Instrument(s) | Vocals, guitar |
Years active | 1979–present |
Labels | Yep Roc, Anti-, Fire |
Website | stevewynn |
Steven Lawrence Wynn (born February 21, 1960) is an American singer, musician and songwriter. He led the band The Dream Syndicate from 1981 to 1989 in Los Angeles, afterward began a solo career, and then reformed The Dream Syndicate in 2012. [1]
Wynn was born February 21, 1960, at St. John's Hospital in Santa Monica, California. He played in his first band The Light Bulbs at age 9 and followed with another band Sudden Death Overtime a year later while attending Emerson Junior High School. He later attended University High School (Los Angeles) with classmates Darby Crash and Pat Smear who would later go on to form the Germs. He left Los Angeles to attend the University of California, Davis in 1977.
Before forming The Dream Syndicate, Wynn played guitar in the Davis-based band Suspects, whose members included vocalist Kendra Smith (with whom he later founded The Dream Syndicate), and Russ Tolman and Gavin Blair (who would form True West). In 1979, Suspects released a single, "Talking Loud" b/w "It's Up to You", and the band remained active through 1981. [2]
After Suspects disbanded, Wynn formed the trio 15 Minutes with two members of Alternate Learning, bass player Carolyn O'Rourke and drummer Eric Landers. With 15 Minutes, Wynn wrote and produced the 1981 single "That's What You Always Say," b/w "Last Chance For You," which he engineered with Alternate Learning's frontman, Scott Miller. The A-side, "That's What You Always Say," was later performed by the Dream Syndicate.
The Dream Syndicate's eponymous EP was released on Wynn's own label, Down There Records. [3] They were signed a few months later to Slash Records where they made The Days of Wine and Roses , a record often cited as one of the cornerstones of both the Indie Rock and Americana (music) scenes that followed. In the spring of 1983, they toured the US with U2 for three weeks and then signed with A&M Records. They recorded their second album Medicine Show with Sandy Pearlman and then toured the US for eight weeks with R.E.M. before embarking on their first European tour. Lineup changes followed along with the albums Out of the Grey and Ghost Stories and extensive touring before the band broke up in 1988.
Though they were popular with critics and had an influence on other musicians, the Dream Syndicate were not commercially successful. The band did establish the fan base on which Wynn built his solo career. The Dream Syndicate reformed in 2012 for a series of gigs in Europe and USA. They continued touring sporadically for the next few years and eventually went into the studio in 2017 to record their first album on new material since reforming. [4] The album, How Did I Find Myself Here?, was released on September 8, 2017, on the Anti- label. [5] In 2019 Dream Syndicate released their second album of original material since reforming, These Times. [6] A more improvisational album, The Universe Inside , followed in 2020.
Wynn broke up The Dream Syndicate in 1989 to redefine (or "undefine") himself, [7] and has since released a number of solo albums exploring various musical styles. His first solo album, Kerosene Man (on which Dream Syndicate bassist Mark Walton played also) included a duet with Johnette Napolitano of Concrete Blonde, backing work by bassist Fernando Saunders, drummer D. J. Bonebrake from the L.A. punk band X, Howe Gelb of Giant Sand and saxophonist Steve Berlin from Los Lobos. Peter Buck, from R.E.M., played on its follow-up, Dazzling Display, and co-wrote the title song. After 1994's Fluorescent, he left Los Angeles for New York. [8] Backing on Melting in the Dark (1996) was provided by the Boston band Come.
In 1997, Wynn recorded Sweetness and Light in Hoboken, New Jersey with Rich Gilbert, Armistead Wellford and Linda Pitmon. The record also marked the first collaboration with producer/engineer John Agnello.
Here Come the Miracles (2001) won the American Association of Independent Music award for Best Rock Alternative album in 2002. [9] The record was the first of three albums, later known as the Desert Trilogy, that Wynn made in Tucson at Wavelab Studios with producer/engineer and studio owner Craig Schumacher. He toured behind these albums in the following years with his band the Miracle 3, consisting of Jason Victor, Dave DeCastro and Linda Pitmon, often augmented live and in the studio by Chris Cacavas (Green on Red, The Dream Syndicate) on keyboards. Dutch native and resident Erik Van Loo substituted for DeCastro on several tours and on the 2006 Live Tick album, recorded in Geislingen, Germany.
Wynn's song "Amphetamine" from Static Transmission was re-recorded by the cast of the movie Bandslam and performed in its entirety in the film. [10]
In 1985, Wynn wrote a collection of songs with Dan Stuart of Green on Red, and recorded and released them as Danny & Dusty, The Lost Weekend. The two reunited in 2007 for a second album, Cast Iron Soul, followed by two tours of Europe.
In the 1990s, he was a part of the indie supergroup Gutterball along with Stephen McCarthy of The Long Ryders, Bob Rupe of The Silos and Cracker, and Bryan Harvey and Johnny Hott of House of Freaks. The band recorded and released three albums and toured Europe extensively between 1993 and 1995.
The double CD From a Man of Mysteries: A Steve Wynn Tribute was released by the German label Blue Rose in 2004 and features Wynn's songs performed by the likes of Concrete Blonde, the Silos, Chuck Prophet, The Minus 5, Russ Tolman of True West and others.
In 2007, Wynn formed The Baseball Project with Scott McCaughey, Peter Buck and Linda Pitmon. The band's debut album Volume 1: Frozen Ropes and Dying Quails came out the following April with their first live performance coming on the Late Show with David Letterman . The band has gone on to make four albums about the national pastime, later adding R.E.M.'s Mike Mills to the lineup.
The album Crossing Dragon Bridge, recorded in Ljubljana, Slovenia and produced by Chris Eckman of The Walkabouts, also came out in 2008 and was called "Wynn's masterpiece" by Thom Jurek of AllMusic. [11]
Wynn was hired by Norwegian film and TV director Øystein Karlsen to write the score and provide the soundtrack for the fourth and final season of the hit series Dag and then hired him again for the first season of Exit, which was the highest streamed show in Norwegian history.
In 2020, Real Gone Music released Decade, an 11-CD box set containing all of the official albums Wynn released during his first 10 years of living in New York City, along with 57 previously unreleased tracks of home demos and rarities.
Year | Title | Chart positions | Album | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
US Hot 100 | US Modern Rock | US Mainstream Rock | UK | |||
1990 | "Tears Won't Help" | – | 10 | – | – | Kerosene Man |
1992 | "Drag" | – | 30 | – | – | Drag |
The Dream Syndicate is an American alternative rock band from Los Angeles, California, originally active from 1981 to 1989, and reunited since 2012. The band is associated with neo-psychedelia and the Paisley Underground music movement; of the bands in that movement, according to the Los Angeles Times, the Dream Syndicate "rocked with the highest degree of unbridled passion and conviction." Though never commercially successful, the band met with considerable acclaim, especially for its songwriting and guitar playing. Bandleader Steve Wynn reformed the band in 2012, and four studio albums have been released since 2017.
Here Come the Miracles is a double album by Steve Wynn. It was released in 2001 on Blue Rose Records. It is the first album in Wynn's "desert trilogy".
Peter Lawrence Buck is an American musician and songwriter. He was a co-founder and the lead guitarist of the alternative rock band R.E.M. He also plays the banjo and mandolin on several R.E.M. songs. Throughout his career with R.E.M. (1980–2011), as well as during his subsequent solo career, Buck has also been at various times an official member of numerous 'side project' groups. These groups included Arthur Buck, Hindu Love Gods, The Minus 5, Tuatara, The Baseball Project, Robyn Hitchcock and the Venus 3, Tired Pony, The No-Ones, and Filthy Friends, each of which have released at least one full-length studio album. Additionally, the experimental combo Slow Music have released an official live concert CD. Another side project group called Full Time Men released an EP while Buck was a member. As well, ad hoc "supergroups" Bingo Hand Job, Musical Kings and Nigel & The Crosses have each commercially released one track.
Paisley Underground is a musical genre that originated in California. It was particularly popular in Los Angeles, reaching a peak in the mid-1980s. Paisley Underground bands incorporated psychedelia, rich vocal harmonies and guitar interplay, owing a particular debt to 1960s groups such as Love and the Byrds, but more generally referencing a wide range of pop and garage rock revival.
Robyn Rowan Hitchcock is an English singer-songwriter and guitarist. While primarily a vocalist and guitarist, he also plays harmonica, piano, and bass guitar. After leading the Soft Boys in the late 1970s and releasing the influential Underwater Moonlight, Hitchcock launched a prolific solo career.
Johnette Napolitano is an American musician best known as the lead vocalist, songwriter, and bassist for the alternative rock group Concrete Blonde.
Green on Red was an American rock band, formed in the Tucson, Arizona punk scene, but based for most of its career in Los Angeles, California, where it was loosely associated with the Paisley Underground. Earlier records have the wide-screen psychedelic sound of first-wave desert rock, while later releases tended more towards traditional country rock.
Scott Lewis McCaughey is an American singer, guitarist and songwriter and the leader of the Seattle and Portland-based bands The Young Fresh Fellows and The Minus 5. He was also an auxiliary member of the American rock band R.E.M. from 1994 until the band's break-up in 2011, contributing to the studio albums New Adventures in Hi-Fi, Up, Reveal, Around the Sun, Accelerate and Collapse into Now.
Deer Tick is an American alternative rock-folk band from Providence, Rhode Island, composed of singer-songwriter John J. McCauley, guitarist Ian O'Neil, bassist Christopher Ryan and drummer Dennis Ryan.
Bryan Taber Harvey was an American musician noted for his fronting role in House of Freaks.
True West is a guitar band, often considered part of the Paisley Underground. Singer Gavin Blair and guitarists Richard McGrath and Russ Tolman are the nucleus of the group.
The Baseball Project is a supergroup composed of Peter Buck, Mike Mills, Scott McCaughey, Steve Wynn and Linda Pitmon formed in 2007. The performers came together from discussions between McCaughey and Wynn at R.E.M.'s March 21, 2007 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City. They invited Buck to play bass guitar and Pitmon on drums and recorded their first album, Volume 1: Frozen Ropes and Dying Quails later that year. Their first public appearance was on The Late Show with David Letterman in June of 2008, preceding the release of any recorded material.
Kendra Smith is an American musician who was a founding member of The Dream Syndicate, a member of Opal, and later recorded as a solo artist.
Melting in the Dark is an album by the American musician Steve Wynn, released in 1996. It was recorded with a band consisting of all the members of Come. Wynn supported the album by touring with a backing band that included members of Gutterball, Zuzu's Petals, and Love Tractor.
Out of the Grey is the third studio album by The Dream Syndicate, a Los Angeles-based alternative rock band, released in 1986.
Ghost Stories is the fourth studio album by the Los Angeles-based alternative rock band The Dream Syndicate. It was released in 1988, just a year before the band broke up. The album was re-released in 2004, with eight additional tracks recorded live for radio.
Russ Tolman is a singer-songwriter who came to international attention in the 1980s as guitarist, songwriter, and producer of True West, a band associated with the Paisley Underground.
Filthy Friends is an alt-rock supergroup based in Portland, Oregon. The band is fronted by Corin Tucker and guitarist Peter Buck. The other members of the band include alumni from bands such as the Minus 5, King Crimson, The Baseball Project and Steve Wynn & the Miracle 3.
How Did I Find Myself Here? is the fifth studio album by American alternative rock band the Dream Syndicate. It was released on September 8, 2017, almost 30 years after the band's last album, and after three years of touring. The recording band included front man Steve Wynn and former band members, as well as a collaborator on Wynn's side projects.
Kerosene Man is an album by the American musician Steve Wynn, released in 1990. Wynn supported the album with a North American tour.
{{cite interview}}
: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)