On Wallflowers’ Latest CD, Jakob Dylan Gets Personal

With both Wallflowers albums, especially the breakthrough 4.1-million-selling 1996 set, “Bringing Down the Horse,” fans have combed through the lyrics looking for juicy lines relating to leader Jakob Dylan’s life.

Dylan expects it to happen again with the band’s third album, “Breach,” which has just been completed and is due in September.

This time, though, there’s a difference. People looking for clues will actually find some.

After years of avoiding topics that could be seen as reflecting his life as the son of Bob Dylan--both in lyrics and in interviews--the young singer-songwriter felt he had both the need and the skills to explore some of that personal territory.

“I came to a place where writing about myself seemed more important,” says Dylan, 30. “Maybe having done it for a while I found ways to connect the dots to those experiences and ideas.”

The desire grew from his experience with the last album. When it was released, expectations were limited for the Wallflowers, whose debut album had so little commercial success that the group was dropped by Virgin Records. But “Horse,” released by Interscope, made the band an international presence, with Dylan a Rolling Stone cover boy and an MTV regular. Now the band’s stature is such that “Breach” is being positioned as one of Interscope’s big three fall releases alongside Limp Bizkit and U2.

But after a demanding two years on the road, Dylan felt distanced from fans and flat-out exhausted, a subject addressed in the opening song, “Letters From the Wasteland.” There’s no sense of self-pity, but there is a longing to invest himself further in his music.

The song likely to get the most attention is “Hand Me Down,” a frank look at what it’s like to follow in the footsteps of one of the most revered figures in modern music.

The lyrics are brutal and direct:

It’s not your fault you embarrass us all . . .

You won’t make us proud.

And, in at least one place, they have a tone that can only be described as Dylanesque.

Look at you with your worn-out shoes

Living proof evolution’s through.

“I wrestled with how much of that stuff people care about and need to know,” Dylan says. “A lot of it I deflected in the past as being not about me but about someone else. A lot of the questions I was asked and things I was expected to write about, people didn’t know who I was and it wasn’t about me. But if you don’t address yourself in some fashion, it doesn’t seem truthful and it seems you’re dodging things.”

Of course, being a Dylan, he knows the risk of people reading more into something than was intended.

“I don’t know if people will be drawn to [“Hand Me Down”] and make too much of it or not,” he says. “If it was [by] other people, they wouldn’t read too much into it. But what I’ve said in it is not exclusive to me. People have an easier time drawing lines in my case, but the song’s about something most people deal with one way or another. Very few people come from nowhere with no expectations on them.”

FLYING LOW

Patrick Leonard is best known for his work with superstars. He’s been Madonna’s frequent collaborator and producer throughout her career, and has recently worked with Elton John. He also just did a session with Placido Domingo for Baz Luhrmann’s fantasy musical film “Moulin Rouge,” and current projects include production for a young singer, Crystal Harris, the first signing by the Backstreet Boys to their new label, and a solo album by Ronan Keating of the English pop group Boyzone.

But Leonard has of late turned his attention to music that flies under the mainstream’s radar. He’s launching a new record label, Unitone, as an outlet for his own projects (he’s planning a solo piano improvisation set, among other things) and for albums other musicians thought no one would ever let them make. Due out July 18 is “Red Heat” by Jimmy Haslip (bassist for fusion group the Yellowjackets), to be followed by albums from percussionist Luis Conte (whose credits range from Ray Charles to Ricky Martin), “experimental cellist” Martin Tillman, trumpeter Jeff Beal and saxophonist Steve Tavaglione.

“I’m encouraging people to explore artistically in ways they normally wouldn’t be encouraged,” Leonard says. “The records are made economically, so the necessity for them to sell enormous numbers is not there.” --S.H.