Overcoming Success.

• Author: SWARTLEY, ARIEL
• Position: Brief Article

Jakob Dylan gets more personal--about his childhood, his music, and his famous father

It is now necessary when mentioning a "Dylan song" to specify whether one means the work of Bob, hero of the Woodstock generation, or of his youngest son, Jakob, lead singer and Grammy-winning songwriter for the Wallflowers.

The younger Dylan, 30, was born in the year of Woodstock, 1969, when the elder Dylan was harnessing rock's drive to a sense of moral outrage and fomenting a cultural revolution. The nation Jakob Dylan inhabits, by contrast, is one in which revolution is a fashion label, teenagers are a market force, and musicians align themselves with record executives against supporters of free, online music delivery systems.

Asked if he could pinpoint the moment in his childhood when he became aware of how the world viewed his father. Jakob says jokingly, "Yeah. While promoting my last record. I really had no idea up till then. They sure kept it a secret around the house."

In truth, he says, "I think I was always aware. More than anything, I remember the way people reacted when they were around him. Most kids think their parents are really fantastic, so it made perfect sense. But as I got older, watching musicians who were my heroes, guys who are very cool, very tough, literally sweating and shaking to be around him--I imagine that effect is everlasting. The moment kind of gets stolen, of allowing your heroes to be larger than life."

Himself a father of three, Jakob is healthily lean as opposed to rockstar skinny, and his manner is good-humored, even wry. So many interviewers want to talk about his father that occasionally he has to remind them that the Wallflowers have a new record out, Breach. It is the band's first since the multi-million-selling Bringing Down the Horse in 1996, which established Jakob as a star.

VOICE LIKE HIS FATHER'S

Breach seems, oddly, the work of a younger man, despite the gruff foghorn of Jakob's voice, which is eerily reminiscent of his father's. The arrangements are sparer, with a single guitar line edging toward styles that Jakob likens to the Delta bluesman Mississippi John Hurt.

Writing the songs, he says, did not come easily. Bringing Down the Horse was successful enough to keep Dylan and the rest of the Wall-flowers--Rami Jaffee on keyboards, Greg Richling on...