“Believe it or not, I’m not actually an expert on Bob Dylan’s career,”; Jakob Dylan says in an interview with fellow “Wallflower”; Greg Richling. The pair sat down after their reunion on the Late Show With David Letterman to answer some questions about launching their career, getting back together as a band and what it was like playing with Levon Helm.
“We took a needed hiatus, that lasted longer than we imagined, but we started talking about two years ago about getting back together,”; Jakob said of band’s long standing reunion. “But at that point everyone else had schedules that were six months… or a year travelling with other people.”;
Grateful that they were able to reconnect, the guys started thinking back on their humble beginnings. “The Kibitz Room is a little bar inside a Deli that’s open 24 hours… the reality of it is pretty great… we never played songs there, there’s an unspoken rule that you jam with everyone, there’s no gigs there,”; Jakob says. But unfortunately the interactive aspect of the Kibitz Room didn’t stick around. “By the next week it kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger, and we started making our first record. So we couldn’t really go any more on Tuesdays, so by the time we were able to go back it was a giant scene that really had nothing to do with the original scene.”;
On legendary rock drummer and vocalist Levon Helm, who passed away earlier this year, Jakob says: “I was lucky enough to go participate in the “Love for Levon”; show… and I was remembering when he came to see us play in… 1998, he brought his mandolin and he came and played some of the band songs with us being such an up and coming… you know his sign of approval, I still use that momentum from all those years ago.”;
Sharing some more memorable moments from the band’s impressive past, Greg and Jakob think back on how many times they’ve played on Dave’s show. “I actually drove over here today thinking about how many times I’ve played the David Letterman show… I think it’s 10,”; he recalls. “I’m pretty impressed…”;
Watch the full interview with Jakob and Greg below!