The Wallflowers

The Wallflowers are a rock band from Los Angeles, California, best known for the fact that lead singer, Jakob Dylan, is the youngest son of legendary singer-songwriter Bob Dylan.

The band's self titled debut album was released in 1992 on the Virgin Records label. Although it was praised by critics, it only sold 25,000 copies.

The original members of the Wallflowers include vocalist and guitarist Dylan, bass player and background vocalist Barrie Maguire, Peter Yanowitz on drums, Rami Jaffee on keyboards, and guitarist Tobi Miller. This quintet broke up shortly after the album's release due to conflicts within the band, and with the record company. Yanowitz went on to drum for Natalie Merchant and is currently regaining fame as the bassist for Morningwood (credited as Pedro Yanowitz).

Though they played early positions all around Los Angeles, their favorite venue was the Kibitz room of Canter's Delicatessen, one of the town's more fabled hangouts, where they played every Tuesday night. They soon grabbed the attention of groups such as 10,000 Maniacs, The Spin Doctors, Cracker, and Toad the Wet Sprocket, all of which the Wallflowers were asked to tour with.

The Wallflowers' sound is influenced by a variety of groups including bands such as Counting Crows, The Band, Bruce Springsteen, The Replacements, Elvis Costello, Tom Petty, and The Clash. Springsteen even joined the Wallflowers for a live performance of their song "One Headlight," at the 1997 MTV Video Music Awards. That night they were up for four awards but walked away with only one grammy for Best Rock Song for "One Headlight". Frontman Jakob Dylan said that the most influential album in his life is The Clash's London Calling: "They had something I could listen to that I wanted to associate."

The band seemed to have disappeared for a few years but stormed back on the scene with their double-platinum 1996 release, Bringing Down the Horse, which composed such hits as "6th Avenue Heartache," "One Headlight" , "The Difference," and "Three Marlenas." The band wagged record labels, from Virgin to Interscope. For this retort, frontman Dylan was joined only by keyboardist Rami Jaffee from original lineup. Guitarist Michael Ward, drummer Mario Calire, and bassist Greg Richling were called in to form the new band. "One Headlight" peaked at #2 on the charts and 6th Avenue Heartache peaked at #33 on the charts. Although the band was popular, many critics shrugged at the Wallflowers' laid-back ethos; Trouser Press writer Jason Reeher famously wrote that the band were "the Dire Straits of the Alternative Nation."

After almost four years, the Wallflowers continued work on their next album, (Breach), released October 10, 2000; the first single was "Sleepwalker", followed by "Letters From the Wasteland." The record was featured on MTV's First Listen show. Guests included Elvis Costello, who lent vocals on "Murder 101." The album was certified gold on September 21, 2001.

In November 2002, The Wallflowers released their fourth studio album, Red Letter Days. RLD was the first Wallflowers record that featured Jakob Dylan playing a majority of the lead guitar parts. The album had a much more aggressive sound than any of their previous releases. The first single and only music video shot was for "When You're On Top." The single was a smash hit on AAA radio stations, but received little mainstream attention. Subsequent singles from the album include "If You Never Got Sick," "Closer to You," and "How Good It Can Get" which received radio airplay across multiple formats. The band was a part of many exclusive performances during promotion of the record, including a Live at the Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame concert for MTV, and a special televised concert for VH1, Live at Alcatraz, being the first band to ever play a concert on the famous island.

The band's most recent release, Rebel, Sweetheart was released on May 24th, 2005. This is the first Wallflowers record available as a DualDisc. The DVD included interviews and exclusive performances and arrangements of many of the band's songs. Brendan O' Brien (Bruce Springsteen, Pearl Jam, Train) was called in to produce the record and played guitar as well. Fred Eltringham, the newest Wallflowers member, played drums. A video was filmed for their first single "The Beautiful Side of Somewhere" which hit #5 on AAA radio. The second single released was "God Says Nothing Back." In promoting the record, The Wallflowers performed special televised concerts for the Oxygen Custom Concert Series on the Oxygen channel and were also featured on the PBS series Soundstage.

In conjunction with the release of Rebel, Sweetheart the band released an exclusive iTunes Originals album for the iTunes music store. The album featured exclusive performances and interviews with Jakob Dylan. The band also volunteered to perform for sailors on the aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis as the troops were returning to California. [1]

The song "Into the Mystic" was featured on the American Wedding soundtrack. The Wallflowers also did a remake of David Bowie's song "Heroes" for the Godzilla soundtrack. "Heroes" was also featured in the game NHL 99.

Much to the dismay of longtime fans, the Wallflowers have not toured much in 2006; recently, it was announced that Dylan would be appearing with T-Bone Burnett as a guest musician during Burnett's first tour in 20 years. The two share a long history that extends further than just Burnett's impactful production work on Bringing Down the Horse.

Discography

The Wallflowers · Virgin · 1992
Bringing Down the Horse · Interscope · 1996
(Breach) · Interscope · 2000
Red Letter Days · Interscope · 2002
Rebel, Sweetheart · Interscope · 2005

External links

*Official Site
*Wallflowers Network
*The Wallflowers: A Biography
*Trouser Press entry