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I Wouldn't Say It If It Wasn't True: A Memoir Of Life, Music, And The Dream Syndicate
Summer 1984. I’ve got the back lounge of this tour bus all to myself, partly because I’m the lead singer but more likely because it means the rest of the band won’t have to deal with me for the rest of the day. Just two years earlier I was flunking out at UCLA, working the day shift in a record store, living out of my father’s basement. Now I’m living the million-to-one reality of touring the country with my band, The Dream Syndicate, opening for up-and-coming rock darlings R.E.M., and making a big-budget sophomore album for A&M Records. I’m also untethered and unbound, drinking a fifth of Jim Beam every day, barely speaking to my best friend and guitarist, and looking for trouble in all the wrong places. How did I get from there to here? And how do I get out? Stick around and find out. I’ll be here, dreaming my dream . . .
I Wouldn’t Say It If It Wasn’t True is a tale of writing songs and playing in bands as a conduit to a world its author could once have barely imagined—a world of major labels, luxury tour buses, and sold-out theaters, but also one of alcohol, drugs, and a low-level rock’n’roll Babylon.
Beginning with Wynn’s childhood in California in the 60s and 70s, the book builds to a crescendo with the formation of the first incarnation of The Dream Syndicate in 1981 as an antidote to the prepackaged pop music of the era. It charts the highs and lows of the band’s early years at the forefront of the Paisley Underground scene alongside Green On Red, Rain Parade, and The Bangles; the seismic impact of their debut album, The Days Of Wine And Roses; the spiraling chaos of the sessions for the follow-up, Medicine Show; the dissolution of the band’s first line-up and the launch of a second phase of The Dream Syndicate with Out Of The Grey and Ghost Stories; and more, culminating with the release of the landmark live album Live At Raji’s.
This is Wynn’s story, but it also features some of the biggest and most colorful characters of the period, offering a detailed field guide to the music business that manages to both glorify and demystify in equal measure. And, ultimately, it’s a tale of redemption, with music as a vehicle for artistic and personal transformation and transcendence.
I Wouldn’t Say It If It Wasn’t True is a tale of writing songs and playing in bands as a conduit to a world its author could once have barely imagined—a world of major labels, luxury tour buses, and sold-out theaters, but also one of alcohol, drugs, and a low-level rock’n’roll Babylon.
Beginning with Wynn’s childhood in California in the 60s and 70s, the book builds to a crescendo with the formation of the first incarnation of The Dream Syndicate in 1981 as an antidote to the prepackaged pop music of the era. It charts the highs and lows of the band’s early years at the forefront of the Paisley Underground scene alongside Green On Red, Rain Parade, and The Bangles; the seismic impact of their debut album, The Days Of Wine And Roses; the spiraling chaos of the sessions for the follow-up, Medicine Show; the dissolution of the band’s first line-up and the launch of a second phase of The Dream Syndicate with Out Of The Grey and Ghost Stories; and more, culminating with the release of the landmark live album Live At Raji’s.
This is Wynn’s story, but it also features some of the biggest and most colorful characters of the period, offering a detailed field guide to the music business that manages to both glorify and demystify in equal measure. And, ultimately, it’s a tale of redemption, with music as a vehicle for artistic and personal transformation and transcendence.
- GenresMusicNonfiction
250 pages, Paperback
Published August 30, 2024
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72 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
August 31, 2024
The first 25% is about Steve’s pre-band life, mostly focused on his early obsession with music and how that evolved over the years. But, as the title suggests, after that it’s all Dream Syndicate, ending with their breakup in ’88. If you’ve ever read any books on the 80s U.S. underground, the basic beats will feel very familiar: Indie label success, bad experience on a major label, trying to make being an underground band work financially, press praise and backlash, dealing with friends (e.g., R.E.M.) becoming much more successful, etc. The band’s story certainly wasn’t unique, but I still love getting behind the scenes stories to help me better understand records I love, plus they rubbed elbows with a lot of other bands I love (including my current obsession, Green On Red), and it's cool to get pieces of their story too.
From seeing them live, I’d always had the impression of Steve as an upbeat, affable guy, and that’s more or less how he comes across here. His writing is occasionally a little too gee shucks, but he’s likeable. He never comes across as egotistical or braggy, but also not overly modest or self-critical (i.e., he has no problem accepting praise from others). The book is so focused on music, first his musical obsessions and record collecting growing up, then his band, that there’s relatively little about his personal life (aside from the heavy drinking he was doing during the 80s) and he perhaps inaccurately comes across as someone whose entire life revolves around music. It’s actually kind of endearing, though I did wonder if he has more of an inner life than the book suggests.
Anyways, if this sounds like it would be your thing, it probably is.
From seeing them live, I’d always had the impression of Steve as an upbeat, affable guy, and that’s more or less how he comes across here. His writing is occasionally a little too gee shucks, but he’s likeable. He never comes across as egotistical or braggy, but also not overly modest or self-critical (i.e., he has no problem accepting praise from others). The book is so focused on music, first his musical obsessions and record collecting growing up, then his band, that there’s relatively little about his personal life (aside from the heavy drinking he was doing during the 80s) and he perhaps inaccurately comes across as someone whose entire life revolves around music. It’s actually kind of endearing, though I did wonder if he has more of an inner life than the book suggests.
Anyways, if this sounds like it would be your thing, it probably is.
August 16, 2024
Steve Wynn can really tell a story—and I appreciate his reflections on his experiences here. This is a great memoir about music scenes that I’m quite a fan of.
September 22, 2025
Autobiography of the leader of The Dream Syndicate, The Baseball Project, and The Miracle 3. Not a lot of dirt-dishing here, but Wynn is more of a quiet intellectual, and not a wild man.
May 25, 2025
The Dream Syndicate are part of the soundtrack of my life in the first half of the 80s.
Reading their story told by the founder and soul of the band for those who, like me, loved them and continue to love their music was moving. Just as it was a dive into the past to find the dozens of bands from the underground indie scene whose vinyls are in my collection.
I bought Steve's book at his most recent concert in Rome, held at the beginning of April in front of less than two hundred spectators who filled one of the historic clubs of the capital and during which he revisited well-known and lesser-known pieces of the Dream Syndicate, and not only, accompanied by two excellent Italian multi-instrumentalists; alternating the story of episodes that find space in the book. Steve is a quiet 65-year-old gentleman, shy and available and is always proud to be able to say, as he says in the book, that he is a "musician" by profession.
The Dream Syndicate fanno parte della colonna sonora della mia vita nella prima metà degli anni '80.
Leggere la loro storia narrata da chi è stato il fondatore e l'anima della band per chi, come me, li ha amati e continua ancora ad amare la loro musica è stato commovente. Così come è stato un tuffo nel passato ritrovare le decine di band della scena indie underground i cui vinili trovano posto nella mia collezione.
Ho comprato il libro di Steve al suo più recente concerto romano, tenuto a inizio aprile di fronte a meno di duecento spettatori che riempivano uno dei club storici della capitale e durante il quale ha rivisitato pezzi noti e meno noti dei Dream Syndicate e non solo, accompagnato da due ottimi polistrumentisti italiani; alternando il racconto di episodi che trovano spazio nel libro. Steve è un tranquillo signore di 65 anni, timido e disponibile ed è sempre orgoglioso di poter dire, come dice nel libro, che di professione è "musicista".
Reading their story told by the founder and soul of the band for those who, like me, loved them and continue to love their music was moving. Just as it was a dive into the past to find the dozens of bands from the underground indie scene whose vinyls are in my collection.
I bought Steve's book at his most recent concert in Rome, held at the beginning of April in front of less than two hundred spectators who filled one of the historic clubs of the capital and during which he revisited well-known and lesser-known pieces of the Dream Syndicate, and not only, accompanied by two excellent Italian multi-instrumentalists; alternating the story of episodes that find space in the book. Steve is a quiet 65-year-old gentleman, shy and available and is always proud to be able to say, as he says in the book, that he is a "musician" by profession.
The Dream Syndicate fanno parte della colonna sonora della mia vita nella prima metà degli anni '80.
Leggere la loro storia narrata da chi è stato il fondatore e l'anima della band per chi, come me, li ha amati e continua ancora ad amare la loro musica è stato commovente. Così come è stato un tuffo nel passato ritrovare le decine di band della scena indie underground i cui vinili trovano posto nella mia collezione.
Ho comprato il libro di Steve al suo più recente concerto romano, tenuto a inizio aprile di fronte a meno di duecento spettatori che riempivano uno dei club storici della capitale e durante il quale ha rivisitato pezzi noti e meno noti dei Dream Syndicate e non solo, accompagnato da due ottimi polistrumentisti italiani; alternando il racconto di episodi che trovano spazio nel libro. Steve è un tranquillo signore di 65 anni, timido e disponibile ed è sempre orgoglioso di poter dire, come dice nel libro, che di professione è "musicista".
October 25, 2024
Before beginning the review proper, may I offer kudos to Mr. Wynn for the Oxford comma in the sub-title?
The first Dream Syndicate album, The Days of Wine and Roses, came out in 1982, a year when it seemed like every week I was getting bowled over by something new that wound up a major part of my musical life. This had been going on for at least three or four years, but it accelerated that year. That said, I hadn't played it in ages until I read Wynn's account of writing the songs (and the influences on each) and recording the whole record in just three nights.
Wynn is fifteen months younger than me, so his stories about growing up matched certain cultural milestones in my own life - though he is mixed up here and thinks the Beatles cartoon show first aired in 1964 when it was 1967. This made for an interesting compare and contrast thing in reading how he went crazy for music, abandoned it for sports writing, and then went back to music when the punk and New Wave thing caught his attention at roughly the same time it did mine.
Unlike me, though, Wynn had a grounding in playing guitar, and was thus able to form bands and write songs almost from the beginning of the point when punk freed us all up to believe we could do that sort of thing. Within a few years, he was in a band that was a perfect blending of musical personalities - I never got to see the original Dream Syndicate line-up, but that first album is still scintillating, as I reminded myself just a couple days ago.
Wynn is a great storyteller, and his accounts of the ins and outs of being in a band, and then the ins and outs of being in a band that was critically lauded and reasonably successful almost from the day it started, are highly enjoyable. He doesn't shy away from revealing flaws and mistakes, either. And as time goes on, his accounts of musical mistakes (the recording process of Medicine Show, album 2, was arduous and completely wrong for the band) and the rigors of touring offer insights into the way things went that I never thought about.
The Dream Syndicate changed members and musical approaches over the seven years of its existence, and Wynn does a great job of explaining how and why all that happened. I think the book would be interesting to someone barely acquainted with his music, but for me, who has vivid memories of the Paul B. Cutler version of the band playing spine-tingling live shows, and who also lo
The first Dream Syndicate album, The Days of Wine and Roses, came out in 1982, a year when it seemed like every week I was getting bowled over by something new that wound up a major part of my musical life. This had been going on for at least three or four years, but it accelerated that year. That said, I hadn't played it in ages until I read Wynn's account of writing the songs (and the influences on each) and recording the whole record in just three nights.
Wynn is fifteen months younger than me, so his stories about growing up matched certain cultural milestones in my own life - though he is mixed up here and thinks the Beatles cartoon show first aired in 1964 when it was 1967. This made for an interesting compare and contrast thing in reading how he went crazy for music, abandoned it for sports writing, and then went back to music when the punk and New Wave thing caught his attention at roughly the same time it did mine.
Unlike me, though, Wynn had a grounding in playing guitar, and was thus able to form bands and write songs almost from the beginning of the point when punk freed us all up to believe we could do that sort of thing. Within a few years, he was in a band that was a perfect blending of musical personalities - I never got to see the original Dream Syndicate line-up, but that first album is still scintillating, as I reminded myself just a couple days ago.
Wynn is a great storyteller, and his accounts of the ins and outs of being in a band, and then the ins and outs of being in a band that was critically lauded and reasonably successful almost from the day it started, are highly enjoyable. He doesn't shy away from revealing flaws and mistakes, either. And as time goes on, his accounts of musical mistakes (the recording process of Medicine Show, album 2, was arduous and completely wrong for the band) and the rigors of touring offer insights into the way things went that I never thought about.
The Dream Syndicate changed members and musical approaches over the seven years of its existence, and Wynn does a great job of explaining how and why all that happened. I think the book would be interesting to someone barely acquainted with his music, but for me, who has vivid memories of the Paul B. Cutler version of the band playing spine-tingling live shows, and who also lo
February 12, 2025
Great insight and a fun read about a musical life
I always start off with a disclaimer when I know the author personally, so here it is. Steve was two years ahead of me at University High School in Los Angeles, and he was the editor of the school paper The Warrior when I was just starting my sportswriting career. We weren’t close friends and haven’t really kept in touch, although we did have meet for lunch when we were living a few blocks apart in New York.
In any case, I loved this book. It’s a good read about an interesting life, but more than that Steve gives us a view into how the music world works and what it’s like to be part of it. The interactions within the band, the excitement but also the exhaustion of touring, the strain on relationships when you spend that much time together and each have your own ideas of how to make the sound just right.
It’s well worth reading, whether you know Steve or not!
I always start off with a disclaimer when I know the author personally, so here it is. Steve was two years ahead of me at University High School in Los Angeles, and he was the editor of the school paper The Warrior when I was just starting my sportswriting career. We weren’t close friends and haven’t really kept in touch, although we did have meet for lunch when we were living a few blocks apart in New York.
In any case, I loved this book. It’s a good read about an interesting life, but more than that Steve gives us a view into how the music world works and what it’s like to be part of it. The interactions within the band, the excitement but also the exhaustion of touring, the strain on relationships when you spend that much time together and each have your own ideas of how to make the sound just right.
It’s well worth reading, whether you know Steve or not!
November 12, 2025
A fascinating look into the life of The Dream Syndicate's founder Steve Wynn from his upbringing in L.A.'s Miracle Mile to his various musical projects culminating in the Dream Syndicate's breakup in the late '80s and eventual revival in 2012. Many denizens of the original L.A. punk and "paisley underground" scenes and venues from the '70s-'80s are mentioned, a walk down memory lane for me. The book is separated into four parts, seven to eleven short chapters in each. As someone who has followed The Dream Syndicate's career since their first E.P. in 1981, this book is a must read.
Reviewed by Victor, library page
Find it at the library here.
Reviewed by Victor, library page
Find it at the library here.
December 22, 2024
Chances are you never heard of Steve Wynn, but you might have heard about his band the Dream Syndicate, sort of a less challenging version of the early Velvet Underground, and often considered part of the "Paisley Underground" in the 1980s, together with Green on Red and the Bangs (a/k/a the Bangles). It's an engrossing tale of someone who fell in love with rock music and put together a couple of bands to explore it - but mainly, the Dream Syndicate.
DS released about 4 albums before falling apart, but years later - that is to say, recently - Wynn and his drummer put together a new version of Dream Syndicate and made some good albums.
Along the way Wynn drank too much, used too much dope and drugs, and fucked lots of groupies - just the kind of story that seems interesting now.
The book is honest; Wynn is likeable. Try some Dream Syndicate first before reading this.
DS released about 4 albums before falling apart, but years later - that is to say, recently - Wynn and his drummer put together a new version of Dream Syndicate and made some good albums.
Along the way Wynn drank too much, used too much dope and drugs, and fucked lots of groupies - just the kind of story that seems interesting now.
The book is honest; Wynn is likeable. Try some Dream Syndicate first before reading this.
August 11, 2025
I loved this book. Though a few years older than me, his path from being a young music nerd and then growing into an older music nerd parallels mine. He has all the musical talent, though. Still, it was so much fun reading about the rise and fall (and rise and fall) of his band, the Dream Syndicate, as well as reliving the context in which they existed. It's a book I'd recommend to anyone who remembers and loves the music we simply called College Rock.
June 2, 2025
Non è solo la storia di Steve Wynn. E' anche la storia della musica underground, degli appassionati di musica, di un mondo che forse non esiste più.
Steve Wynn, come prevedibile, scrive bene... E ha una fantastica memoria!
Steve Wynn, come prevedibile, scrive bene... E ha una fantastica memoria!
June 30, 2025
Decent biography of Dream Syndicate frontman. If you are a fan of the band you should definitely check this out. If you aren't it might be time to give The Days of Wine & Roses a listen, a great album from the 80s.
August 16, 2024
The book cover looks great and the description is amazing.
November 20, 2024
I enjoyed the read, he writes very well! Only complaint would be the lack of even a simple index. I some times got lost in the minor characters.
October 25, 2025
***1/2
October 11, 2024
Autobiografie van een van mijn favoriete artiesten. Vooral zijn leven vóór The Dream Syndicate als jonge muziekverslinder kon ik smaken. Wachten nu op deel twee.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews