Dean Wareham has a long musical history: fronting indie legends Galaxie 500 in the late-'80s and the perennially 'underrated' Luna in the '90s; now playing as Dean & Britta with wife Britta Phillips. His memoir, Black Postcards, catalogues the few ups and many downs of dealing with the music business whilst being in 'cult' bands.
Interview: 8 May 2009
Was it always in the back of your mind that you wanted to write a memoir?
“I think a lot of people have it in the back of their mind. I doubt I would’ve done it if I hadn’t gotten an email out-of-the-blue from an editor at Penguin, Scott Moyers. He said ‘I’ve enjoyed your other writing, have you ever thought about a book?’”
Did you have reservations about publicly airing your dirty laundry?
“I did. Writing it was such a solitary endeavor —I didn’t show it to anyone but my editor— that it wasn’t until it was sent out into the world that it struck me that people in it were going to read it, and some may not like it. But I wanted to do something that hadn't been done in a rock memoir: talk honestly about what it’s actually like to be in a band. Not just the good moments, but these constant, minor humiliations.”
Had you been dismayed by the PR blandness of most rock memoirs?
“Well, usually they’re just ghostwritten, and have the same tone. But I liked Dee Dee Ramone’s book, that was obviously written by him; there was language no copy-editor would’ve ever written. [Producer] Joe Boyd’s book is amazing; he’s someone who thinks seriously about politics, and has lots of good stories about the evolution of the music biz.”
Was your book’s framing narrative —your life mirroring ‘alternative rock’ history from punk through to now— merely an accidental one?
“I think so. It’s only recently occurred to me that the period I was writing about has almost disappeared. Obviously, the book makes the point that the music industry is constantly changing, but no one could’ve predicted the complete collapse of the major-label system. A friend of mine works for Sony, where the ’90s were really the golden age of the compact-disc business. Now, he describes himself as feeling ‘like the captain of a sinking ship.’ The days of succeeding off the backs of those 12-million-selling, platinum albums are gone. Records like that just don’t exist anymore. It almost feels, now, like it did when I started out. Back then, none of us ever dreamt of having a record put out by a major-label, because they put out s**t music and everyone knew it.”
How did you reconcile those feelings when Luna decided to sign to a major?
“Because things changed. Around ’90, ’91, a lot of indie bands started signing to majors. When Sonic Youth did, it was an important event. I didn’t have any problems with it because Galaxie 500 had been on Rough Trade, and they went bankrupt, owing us money. And the last three Luna records, made for various smaller labels, are ‘out of our hands’ now, as they say. So, you pick your poison. In the major-label system, it’s all written out in these 30-page contracts how, exactly, you’re being screwed.”
Does it seem like Galaxie 500’s legacy shall remain eternal, whereas Luna, your ‘underrated’ band, could slide into obscurity?
“Well, in England and Europe, Galaxie 500 was beloved there, and remains so. In the United States, that’s not so true; here I feel like far more people tell me they love Luna. Personally, I love all the Galaxie 500 records, whereas I don’t like all the Luna records. But, I don’t know if you can make eight records, like Luna did, and be totally on top of your game on each one. People always asked me, when I was in Luna, how it felt to be ‘underrated.’ And, y’know, it didn’t feel that way when we were out on tour, playing in front of a lot of adoring people.”
Writing Black Postcards, did you have to weigh up your own place in rock history?
“It’s hard for me to do that. I certainly don’t put Luna up there with The Stooges or the Rolling Stones, but, then again, for a lot of people Luna is their favorite band ever, so maybe they do. But I know Galaxie 500 records have held up really well for, now, 20 years.”
Why do you think they do?
“Because we didn’t sound like anyone else around at that time. We couldn't have been more different from all those grunge bands. Both Galaxie 500 and Luna, too, were very distinctive-sounding. Most guitar-driven bands seem to have the same sound; they’re all interchangeable. We didn’t sound like other people, but just because I wrote a book doesn’t mean I thought about our place in the pantheon. I was just writing a personal story.”
Is it strange to have lived a life so wedded to rock’n’roll?
“Well, I certainly wouldnt’ve guessed it'd turn out that way. At the beginning of Galaxie 500, we were just hoping to make a record and have it sound good. I think the cool thing about rock’n’roll is that if you get together with friends, and you’re lucky enough to come up with something that sounds different and special and good, other people will eventually notice it. Of course, that luck is dumb luck. I know plenty of people who are all smart, all into good music, and they get together to start a band and what they come up with is not interesting at all.”
I interviewed Kristin Hersh [of Throwing Muses] last year and she told me she was "making up" stretches of her memoir. Did you operate with similar poetic license?
“I didn’t make things up, but I did get a few things wrong. I got the final song we played at the final ever Luna show wrong. In my defense, I was working from notes, the set-list as I had written it. That’s what I get for believing in my notes.”
You thank your father for “insisting [you] take notes on [your] travels in music.” How much already existed in diary form?
“I’d say 10, 20 per cent. I had a lot of notes. Also, I could go online to a site that has a list of every show Galaxie 500 and Luna ever played. Things come flooding back to you. But, for about a year the book was just a mess, it was a shambles, it didn’t have any shape. Then one day, it suddenly seemed as if it had a beginning, a middle, and an end. I would’ve liked another year to work on it, but one day my editor called me and said ‘this is going on the schedule.’ I’m glad he did, otherwise I still might be working on it."
