are as important as anything . All live from Queens !

ly only temporarily . So I chose that club because I really like what they ’ re doing ( some Impossible Tour pay-what-you-can proceeds benefit the venues , as well ). And at six o ’ clock , we ’ ll stop and have a snack , and then at eight o ’ clock , we ’ ll be in Cleveland , virtually , playing the Beachland Ballroom ( Wynn ' s live stream via SPACE in Evanston is January 31st ). And we ’ ll be trying to give the feeling — between the stories that we tell and maybe a cover song or some inside jokes — that

IE : And you ’ ll try to recreate the ambiance of each nightclub around the world with every show ? WYNN : Yeah . And I think the shows are archived for one hour by StageIt . But at five o ’ clock in New York this Sunday ( Jan . 17 ), we ’ ll be in Milan , as far as we ’ re concerned , spending an hour in Italy playing this club called Germi there . It ’ s kind of a cultural center / cocktail bar / bookstore , and it ’ s run by the biggest rock band in Italy , The Afterhours , these friends of mine . And I feel bad for them — in 2019 , they opened their dream club with all the things they love , like books , music , cocktails , and politics , all in one place . And one year later , they had to shut down , hopeful-

we ’ re actually in these places . It was just a crazy idea . But you try to find something to do to keep the ideas and creativity and whimsical notions flowing until you can go back out on the road again . But the thing I ’ m wondering is , How will this change your approach to what you do when this is all over ? Will you just go back out and get in the van again and go town to town in the same old way ? And just play a gig and go home ? When people start playing live shows again , will things ever be the same ? Or will we feel the need to seriously address what happened , which may change the whole thing ? I don ’ t know for sure .

IE : The toughest part is , your recent Dream Syndicate albums have been some of your best work ever . Which we ’ ve been seeing a lot of lately — longlived bands like X making great albums late in their career . WYNN : Yeah . And I used to think about that . When I was 40 , I did Here Come the Miracles , and I was proud of that — I was like , “ I started doing this 20 years ago , and I ’ ve just done some of my best work .” And I started thinking about it back then , how unusual that was , to be older but come back even stronger like that . Tom Waits had done it a bit , but it was really unusual . But now it seems to be happening a lot ,

The Dream Syndicate , 1984

with artists like X or Bob Mould — his last record was fantastic . A lot of people who ’ ve been around for a long time aren ’ t just doing a pale imitation or trying to be relevant and hip in a way that sounds hollow . And I ’ m still getting off on the same things I got off on 40 years ago — making a little piece of art , or what the Coen brothers call ‘ Playing our sandbox ,’ just doing your own thing . And sometimes , the aggravating thing is realizing that not everything you do is gonna get a lot of attention — you might make something that you think is really great , but if it ’ s your 27th record , people might take a pass on that , no matter how good it is . So I ’ m