The Paisley Underground: Los Angeles's 1980s psychedelic explosion
Think of LA in the 1980s, and you think of hair metal. But elsewhere, the Bangles, the Dream Syndicate and a handful of others were reviving the 1960s and briefly becoming rock's hottest scene. Here's the story in the musicians' own words
All together now … Green on Red play with the Rain Parade's Matt Piucci (second left). Photograph: Courtesy of Dan Stuart
Three decades on, the Rain Parade and the Three O'Clock have reformed, and next week the Dream Syndicate come to London for the first time in 25 years to perform their still-wonderful debut album, The Days of Wine and Roses, in its entirety at Dingwalls – just days after a young group audibly in thrall to the Paisley Underground, Allah-Las, play the same venue. And so we bring you this reminder of something you may have forgotten about – if you knew about it in the first place – in the form of an oral history of the Paisley Underground, as told by its participants.
Steve Wynn (guitar and vocals, the Dream Syndicate): I was born and raised in LA. I lived there my whole youth, then went to college for a couple of years, then came back to LA in 1980. I was there for 77-78, which were the key punk rock years. When I got back to LA, the scene there was kind of weak. It was scattered, without any particular direction. The earliest punk rock years had faded a little bit. There was an art rock scene, a hardcore scene, but there wasn't that much screaming for you to get involved.
Steve Wynn: For the kind of music I enjoyed and the kind of music I wanted to play, I felt there was no place it could be done in LA. The idea that you'd make music with guitars. The idea that you'd make music with long, unscripted and unstructured jams. The idea that you were into 60s garage bands. The idea that you'd play one chord until your arm fell off. All the things that we thought were exciting and cool couldn't have been less fashionable. Think about 1981 and go back and look at any music magazine from back then: you'll be reading about New Romantic bands, synthesiser bands, or bands where if there was a guitar, it was processed through so many boxes and machines that it didn't sound anything like what you might hear on White Light/White Heat.
The way they were … The Bangles joined on stage by Steve Wynn of the Dream Syndicate at the Anti Club in Los Angeles in 1982. Photograph: Courtesy of Steve Wynn
Matt Piucci (guitar and vocals, the Rain Parade): David Roback [Rain Parade co-founder] and I were college roommates. We had both arrived at a very small school in Minnesota at the same time, as did John Thoman – who David refers to as the David Gilmour of Rain Parade, which makes him Syd Barrett [Thoman joined after Roback's departure in 1983]. That's fine. And which makes me Roger Waters. I'm not sure how I feel about that. But anyway. We all ended up at this school in rural Minnesota, and both David and I were assigned roommates who didn't share our life views – let's just put it that way – and so they put us together and I thank them for that. We were roommates and good pals and still are. In April 1981 I moved out to Los Angeles to form some band – it wasn't quite certain what we were going to do exactly, but he and I decided that's what we would do. You can go through a million names until you show up in front of somebody, so we never played as anything other than Rain Parade. I guess we were the Sidewalks just for laughs, though I'm not sure if I just read that and I'm repeating it. We kind of lightspeed forwarded through the 60s: we went from 63 to 67 in six months.
In 1981, the first recorded stirrings of the Paisley Underground occur, when Steve Wynn releases the single Last Chance For You/That's What You Always Say under the name 15 Minutes. The latter song becomes a Dream Syndicate staple. Other groups are beginning to form and gig, too.
Steve Wynn: My idea was that for my 15 minutes [of fame] I was going to make one single, because I wanted something good. I just wanted a single that one day, when I was 53 like I am now, I might be able to hold up my hand and say: "Look what I did back when I was a kid." That's all it was. At that point I was working at the Rhino record store, I was studying at UCLA. I tried to get into a band. I'd answered ads in magazines but nothing was talking to me. So I said: "Dammit I'm just going to make this single and get the hell out." And it preceded the Dream Syndicate by just six months.
All over the place … An early line-up of the Bangles, with Vicki Peterson left. Photograph: Courtesy of Victoria Cowsill
Matt Piucci: We knew Sue Hoffs [of the Bangles]. We didn't know shit [about any of the other Paisley Underground musicians] until we actually played, which wasn't until May 82. For those 14 months we were holed up in a little bubble and we didn't know anything. Except Sue and John, her brother. We knew they liked that kind of music, but we had no idea that stuff was out there. At some point before we played, the Bangles did play some party up in the Hollywood Hills. That's when I began to realise that success was in the future for them: "Holy shit, these guys are going to be popular!" They were basically the Go-Gos, but they could all sing, and it was much more 60s-influenced. They weren't world beaters as musicians, but damn they could sing. That happened some time in 81, but it was an absolute shock to play with Green on Red at our very first gig. And to watch them and go Holy Smokes! No 1 they were great. No 2 they were somewhat kindred musical spirits because at that time they were much more 13th Floor Elevators – heavily droned guitar and organ, and that's always been my favourite version of that band.
Sid Griffin: I think I met Steve through an ad in the Recycler, which was a suburban giveaway paper. You could meet girls, get a boyfriend, sell your car. It was a tabloid classifieds paper, and there was a beloved Musicians Wanted – during my 14/15 years in LA, the Recycler would be responsible for over 1,000 bands easy, even though some of them only lasted a week. I went to meet Steve and he had the template for the Dream Syndicate up and running. He said: "This is what the band can do. It can do long jamming songs, but we're gonna play with the intensity of punks."
Steve Wynn: We put an ad in the newspaper and one of the people who showed up was [lead guitarist] Karl Precoda. He played with us in our basement, and when I walked him to his car, he said: "You know what? I really don't like the people you're playing with, but I think you're pretty cool. You wanna form a band?" Sure, why not? And we spent the next three months hunkered down in the basement playing one- or two-chord jams endlessly. I knew I'd met my soulmate, my musical partner. He was the first person I'd met who was where I was, in terms of music. And from that I ended up calling up my old friend from Davis, Kendra Smith, saying: "You might want to hear what me and this guy are doing together; I think you'll like it." She fell for it, and that was it. We were on our way.
By mid-1982, most of the core Paisley bands have started recording and playing shows together. The Salvation Army, who become the Three O'Clock, lead the charge, releasing a single on the Minutemen's New Alliance label in November 1981, followed by an album in May 1982, before changing their name. The Bangles – still the Bangs – also record a single in 1981. As they become aware of each others' music, they begin to mix socially.
Michael Quercio (bass and vocals, the Three O'Clock): We all had records out, but we really didn't know about each other. The Bangs had a 45, the Salvation Army had an LP, Dream Syndicate had released their EP and Rain Parade had out their first 45, with a song called What She's Done to Your Mind. I heard the Bangs and the Rain Parade on the Rodney on the Roq show in 82, and I was like: "Oh my God! Wow!" I think I met Susanna Hoffs at a show and they were all: "Oh my gosh, you guys are great!" And I was: "Oh my God, you guys are great! Let's do a show!" Near where I live in San Pedro, California, was a place where bands played, and someone said the Dream Syndicate were playing and I had to go see them. So I went, and that's how I met them and introduced them to the others. Then we became really fast friends and by June of 82 we all took a trip to Catalina Island – the Dream Syndicate, the Bangs, some guys from the Rain Parade – we all went out there and just kind of camped out and bonded. There was nothing else like this going on. The new wave scene was over, and even the hardcore scene was on the wane because there was so much violence that the clubs wouldn't let a lot of these bands play.
Steve Wynn: I was in the rehearsal band that became the Long Ryders, after Sid left the Unclaimed [in November 1981]. The Unclaimed were one of the few bands around who were playing the music I liked – I would go see them all the time. So when Sid went solo I said: "I'd like to play in your band," and so I did for a while. I would have kept going except the Dream Syndicate was happening, too, and I couldn't do both. So I already knew Sid, and partially because I was working at a cool record store, I managed to run into people. I met Vicki and Susanna from the Bangles through Rhino. And because I was hip to the Salvation Army single, I tracked down Michael. We all found each other pretty quickly and we were all excited because no one else was doing it and we were all fans of each other. It really was a scene, a movement, we all knew we were doing something cool, and we would do a lot to support each other, hang out with each other. For a full year, all those bands spent a lot of time together.
Dream on Red … Kendra Smith of the Dream Syndicate and Dan Stuart of Green on Red. Photograph: Amy Mehaffey/Courtesy of Dan Stuart
Dan Stuart: There definitely was a social thing, I had big crushes on both Vicki Peterson and Kendra Smith. Steve Wynn put out our first real record after hearing it at one of our BBQs. I thought David Roback was very talented and wanted him to produce us. I'd say we were all finding our way forward in a pretty innocent fashion.Sid Griffin: Everybody would like Eight Miles High – everybody. And everybody had a template. Steve's was the Velvet Underground; the Bangles' was obviously the Beatles; I had this idea, which I said in rehearsals: "Let's take the Byrds' guitar sound and wed it with punk energy." Then Steve McCarthy [joined and] brought in a huge dollop of country, which I didn't see coming.
Matt Piucci: I think most of these people ran into each other when those initial ideas were pretty well formed. They had a shtick, each of us, a musical persona. And yes, I do think that when everyone saw everybody else it did change the way people sounded. I don't think that was the way we sounded – the connection I guess would be songwriting. I definitely was as a songwriter influenced by Dan Stuart and Michael Quercio, and as a guitar player by seeing Karl Precoda make all that noise: "Wow, I wanna do that too!" We were all impressed by Dan Stuart's ability to make lyrics up on the spot – none of us were good at that. I always felt there was a distinction between Green on Red and the Dream Syndicate, which was more of an expressionist music, and the Rain Parade – we always felt we were impressionists. Musically we became more expressionist, but we were very ordered. We didn't and don't do jams and guitar solos. For the most part, instrumental breaks aren't where it's time to whack.
Sid Griffin: Because the weather was so terrific, there was a lot of outdoor parties and barbecues, and I met more friends and musicians through these barbecues. I know it sounds stupid, but a lot of us met at these barbecues – we're all in the same neighbourhood, we're all roughly the same age, and we all like 60s bands, the Beatles, the Stones, the Byrds, the Creation, the Action. I was amazed a lot of these guys knew these bands. It was incredible. All those people – Sue Hoffs, Mickey Steele [of the Bangles], Steve Wynn, certainly Quercio even though he'd been in a punk band – none of us were very good at being punks. My punk band, Death Wish, was really bad. Bad, bad, bad, bad. The next band, the Unclaimed, was already a 60s template, and then the Long Ryders. This is a horrible thing to appear in print, but most of us had pretty decent backgrounds, so there was no cultural or economic status that on a personal level had stung us so much that we wanted to bite back against society. "What are you rebelling against?" "Er, nothing." Most people had a decent enough background and a few years of university. We didn't like Ronald Reagan, but we were not brick-throwing anarchistic punks.
Matt Piucci: We felt we were in this fascist punk environment. I never liked very much of the LA punk scene at all, except for X maybe. We thought punk had become exactly what it rebelled against, which was there was an actual status quo, an actual requirement that you had to do this and that: you had to be loud, you had to be fast, you had to be sweating and screaming.
Vicki Peterson: We played everywhere, so we had kind of an eclectic crowd – everyone from punkers to rockabilly people to really straight people. We were dressing in thrift store versions of the 60s. One of our first big shows we had plastic dresses made – vinyl cut-outs and that sort of thing. Very mod.
Dan Stuart: We were outsiders, cactus heads from Arizona. Some of the others had known each other since grade school. We also played with bands like the Meat Puppets, in fact we had a policy to accept any gig as long as there was beer. One weekend we opened for Berlin down in San Diego then played with Fear at Al's Bar. I still remember those little rich girls spitting and throwing beer at us. Ha!
In late 1982, the term "Paisley Underground" is first used to describe the LA groups. It will later be expanded by outsiders to include a large numbers of others from outside the city – including True West, Naked Prey, Giant Sand and Thin White Rope – largely because the British label Zippo, which released early discs by the Long Ryders, Rain Parade, the Dream Syndicate and Green on Red, starts putting out scores of albums by psych-inflected groups from the western states.
Michael Quercio: We had just put out our first EP, which was entitled Baroque Hoedown. We were being interviewed by a local paper called the LA Weekly, and the writer asked me: So what do you call this new scene of you and the Bangs, and Rain Parade and the Dream Syndicate? At that time it was really just those four groups. And I said, 'Oh, it's the Paisley Underground.' I didn't think much of it – it was just an off-the-cuff remark. The piece came out and it wasn't until a couple of months later that other papers started picking up this name and started to write about the scene and call it that.
Sid Griffin: The Paisley Underground was a phrase of Michael Quercio's. He thought of it. No one else thought of it. It referred to the Salvation Army – his three-piece who had a single out and who became the Three O'Clock – the Dream Syndicate, the Rain Parade and the Bangles. Those four were what Michael was talking about. And because we all lived in the same neighbourhood and were friends, the Long Ryders and Green on Red got thrown into the Paisley Underground.
Dan Stuart: We referred to it as the Paisley Underwear.
Steve Wynn: A lot of people would say the real groups are the Dream Syndicate, the Bangs and the Salvation Army. They wouldn't go beyond those three. Bear in mind, once we started touring around the US, my whole sense of the scene started to expand beyond LA. By that time I wasn't concerned with the Paisley Underground. By the fall of 82, I was less concerned with who was part of our scene than: "What the hell are they doing in Minneapolis? What's Hüsker Dü doing?" or going to Athens and thinking, "REM's cool, what are they doing?" or going to New York and looking at Sonic Youth. So suddenly the whole country opened up for us, and those bands felt as close to our hearts as anybody back home.
Matt Piucci: The term doesn't really mean a whole lot. It's mildly accurate. It addresses proximity and similarity of musical influences and that's fine. People need labels, people need simplification, and that stuck – and it was advantageous in that sense. I didn't feel it was particularly accurate in terms of the kind of music people liked, or at least sounded like. I never really felt any of those bands were really psychedelic, except for maybe the early Green on Red stuff, when it was really keyboard-drenched, and the first Salvation Army record, but really no one else.
As all the groups start recording, more and more attention is focused on LA – especially after the Dream Syndicate release their debut album The Days of Wine and Roses to wild acclaim in 1982. They all become popular in Europe. Over the next two years, all of them will release successful indie albums – except the Bangles, who go straight to Columbia for their debut – before all being signed to major labels.
Vicki Peterson: We were lucky and got some press early on, plus we had recorded a 45 which we did almost immediately. We sort of did it ironically to secure our name, but that didn't work. Someone had told us: "Put a record out and no one will steal your name," which wasn't true. But that did get some airplay on KROQ and Rodney Bingenheimer was playing it. That helped create a little bit of notoriety and we used to get written up in the local paper.
Sid Griffin: The Bangles got hooked up with [the Police's manager] Miles Copeland, and that was the difference between life and death, as far as I'm concerned. He gave them the clout in the industry, the ability to breathe the oxygen of publicity.
Steve Wynn: I've always said I don't think there would have been a Dream Syndicate if somebody else had been making music like that. We just did it to fill that void. We made that music because we wanted to hear it. When we made Days of Wine and Roses I was imagining a record that I'd want to buy, which is not a bad way to go about making music. We made that record in three days. It would not have surprised me if you had told me after that three-day session that 30 years later I would still be talking about that record, because I felt it was something really good. As a music fan, someone whose every living, breathing moment was spent thinking about music, I knew we had made a really cool record.
Sid Griffin: The Long Ryders got signed to PVC [in 1983], which was the label of Jem records. They were an importer, run by Jim, Ed and Marty. They went to Europe and bought all these LPs and they came back and made a fortune. I was working there so I got us on the in-house label, and they did it as a favour. That was the 10-5-60 EP and it did really well, and they couldn't believe it – they did it as a sop to me. There was a bit of stir – people started coming to the shows, and the rivalry started to get in there. We were still close socially, but there weren't so many great bills because no one wanted to open for the Long Ryders, no one wanted to open for the Bangles.
Matt Piucci: Rain Parade never did shit in LA, ever. It was England that made us. All I remember is getting issues of Bucketfull of Brains, reading them and thinking: "Wow – these guys get it." That mattered.
Sid Griffin: By 83/84 we were all getting sniffs from majors. Native Sons [the Long Ryders' 1984 indie debut album] was written about first by a guy called David Bragg writing for some fanzine. He write this wonderful piece and other fanzines saw it. And someone at Zippo saw the fanzines! They got a copy of 10-5-60 and admired it, then Native Sons came out, and when they got that, that was when Andrew Lauder, Andy Childs and Jake Riviera told me: "We were blown away, because we already knew who you were from these fanzines." Not NME or Melody Maker – fanzines. The cover of Native Sons is the rejected album Stampede by the Buffalo Springfield and they immediately got it, being old record collector dogs. It took us forever to find a cabin like the one the Springfield used – it was way out in the desert, rusting apart. It was in the middle of nowhere, a real American west town that was dead. And they got such a kick that we knew the Buffalo Springfield Stampede cover that they thought: "This is a great record; these guys are obviously savvy – call them up." If we'd had a different cover they might have just enjoyed the record, like they enjoyed 10-5-60.
Michael Quercio: By [the 1983 release of the first Three O'Clock album] Sixteen Tambourines we were already headlining 1,000-seaters here in LA, and it was the high-school kids. The first EP had caught on with the high-school kids. We would go around the country and we were really filling big places. It just was this thing that took on a life off its own all over. That's when [the majors] came sniffing around.
Vicki Peterson: Anything that feels like it's getting some traction and getting some attention, they're going to come sniffing around. It's the smell of money, I guess. But it was also exciting: some of these A&R guys genuinely loved music. And they did appreciate what the Dream Syndicate was doing.
Steve Wynn: With this scene happening, everyone wanted to get involved. And the fact we were making a kind of music we'd been missing means most likely other people had been missing it too. And people who wrote about music or worked for labels had cool taste – maybe they were forced by economic reasons to write about or sign music they didn't like, but at heart they liked the kind of music we were doing. We were a critics' band from the start, because critics generally have good taste. You get into that world because you love music. And the Dream Syndicate and the Paisley bands were for people who loved music.
Dan Stuart: Those were the days of A&R guys with hubris. We had been on Slash and Enigma and then a guy at Phonogram who had nurtured Tears for Fears signed Green On Red, Tom Verlaine and Was Not Was in a fit of madness. [A&R scouts] still listened to the street then. You know, Joe Smith at Elektra signed Television, the Dictators and X as well as Mötley Crüe. There was a bit of benevolence. Also, crazy shit did happen, word of mouth could sell a lot of records. As for me, personally the whole process was terrifying and I felt like a fugitive on the run.
Matt Piucci: As usual they got it wrong. I think Island signed six bands, and there was not a psychedelic band among them except for us. They did pick up the Long Ryders, but the other four bands – they were all nice people, not putting them down or anything – were nothing to do with what you're describing. Of course we were appreciative – they put our record out – but of those six bands I think they only put out two of them.
Sid Griffin: In LA, if you get a buzz going in Hollywood the majors will come sniffing and they'll sign you without a clue that it might not play in Tulsa or Kansas City. And of course, from Hollywood to Tulsa or Kansas City is night and day. And many a hip band has gone from Hollywood to the great midwest and the kids there are like: "Huh?" I remember the glorious day – one of the best days of my life – when I sat at the Columbia Hotel [in London] and one by one major record labels came in and spoke to me and whoever I was with. I was feted and courted by Polygram and UK A&M and UK Island and all these other people. I didn't go anywhere for five or six hours because we had one every hour on the hour. They'd leave after a half hour, 40 minutes, and we'd take a break. It was one of the most incredible experiences of my life to have people come in and basically tell you you're great. Late April or May 1985 we signed with Island and that was a mistake – they were nice people but they didn't know what to do with the Long Ryders.
Dan Stuart: It got ugly then. A lot of capitulation. Most of us were raised pretty bourgeois so there you have it.
Steve Wynn: I don't think A&M expected us to compete with [Def Leppard's] Pyromania. I think A&M signed us to be cool. They had the Police, and their big acts, and I think they signed us because they wanted to have a hip band on the label. In fact, one big misconception is that [the Dream Syndicate's 1984 major label debut] The Medicine Show was a reaction to meddling from the label. Couldn't be further from the truth. They left us alone to do what we wanted, gave us all the money we wanted, they didn't care what we were doing, they didn't want to hear it, they said: "Do what you do." I think the label was most excited about John Coltrane Stereo Blues, which was the nine-minute psychedelic jam on the record.
Vicki Peterson: I felt the first Bangles LP [1984's All Over the Place] was too slick for my taste. I listen to it now and it's barely in tune! I fought tooth and nail against having any keyboards on the record, and no synthesisers. If there were going to be strings, they had to be real strings. I was adamant about that. I lost that battle as we went on – my bandmates didn't care and they wanted to change musically. But there was also energy towards: "What's the single?" Which I was never comfortable with. It came from producer and label and my bandmates.
Ryding high … The Long Ryders (Sid Girffin second right) with Gene Clark of the Byrds (centre). Photograph: Gary Nichamin/Courtesy of Sid Griffin
Sid Griffin: So many people were interviewing us so much that I thought I was going to be some sort of spokesperson for a generation – not in a vain way, or with a sense of entitlement – I just thought that was going to happen. I didn't realise that if you don't have any hit records they're going to go away and talk to somebody else. You couldn't get better press than the Long Ryders got. I've got no complaints – even about the backlash over here, which we were warned about. When we came over for the second UK tour, the guy at customs at the airport said: "Oh, the Long Ryders – I've been reading about you. You know what'll happen now? They've set you up and now they're going to knock you." Which is what happened. I didn't care – at least they're talking about us. There's a Hollywood saying that should be etched in marble: If press sold records, Captain Beefheart would be a big star. I tell that to men and women half my age and it goes in one ear and out the other, but it's the truth. Airplay and touring. Airplay and touring. Airplay and touring.
Steve Wynn: There was a period when I assumed any magazine I picked up would have something about the Dream Syndicate. It was that widespread. I could pick up a British magazine, a New York magazine, whatever, and within three pages I would see something about us. So that was pretty overwhelming. It's exciting. It's gratifying. But I would be lying if I didn't say that it makes you more self-conscious and it affects the way you do things. And just as much it can make you suck up to the people that are helping you get there, it can also make you rebel, which it did in my case, to confound people as much as possible. But that kind of thing can be just as much of a compromise or sellout as doing exactly what people want.
In one of the strangest quirks of the Paisley Underground, Prince starts taking an interest in 1986, writing for the Bangles and signing the Three O'Clock to his Paisley Park label, which those concerned believed to have been named after the Paisley Underground. Not only that, he records his own Paisley-coloured album, Around the World in a Day.
Sid Griffin: By this time the Bangles were up and running on CBS and Miles is doing masterstrokes like getting Prince to give them a song.
Vicki Peterson: He saw the video for Hero Takes a Fall and was just intrigued by the band. He started showing up at shows. We'd find out after we left the stage and before we did the encore: "Prince is here and he'd like to play with you." OK, here's my guitar. At one point he presented us with a cassette tape of two songs – "Here: do you want to record these?" And one of them was Manic Monday. We picked that song – it felt pretty Banglesish, like something we could have written. He said if we wanted to use the track we could just sing it. "Well, thank you very much – but we'll re-record it." We were getting a lot of good press and our shows were doing well, but really the idea of getting a single to radio was still a bit of a challenge, and once you have this great hook – "Look! Prince wrote them a song" – it definitely helps.
Michael Quercio: I'm told by one of the Bangles that he saw our video for Her Head's Revolving, which was before Around the World in a Day, and started listening to these bands, and took a bit of it. I'm sure he was a huge fan of that music and I think naming the record company Paisley Park right at the same time … I can put two and two together! I think it really influenced him.
Sid Griffin: Three O'Clock asked Prince for a song. I can't remember if he gave them one. I think he gave them one that had the word Telephone in the title [it was Neon Telephone].
Michael Quercio: He was a distant figure. We met him once. He had opened up the Paisley Park studio complex in Minneapolis and had people come out. We all went to a party after his concert in Minneapolis. I remember being in a shuttle bus from the hotel to the party. I get on the bus, and it's me with George Clinton, Mavis Staples, Wendy and Lisa, and Apollonia. Everybody's very quiet and everybody's staring at me. Finally, Mavis Staples, who's sitting next to me, puts her hand on my knee and very nicely says: "Who are you, honey?" I guess they were all wondering who this kid was. George Clinton was there with his big wig. I explained I was in this band that was on Paisley Park and they were all very nice, but it was very funny.
Sid Griffin: Because I was living with Debbie, the drummer of the Bangles, and seeing Mickey [the bassist] socially, I had a bird's eye view of the Bangles' success. Walk Like an Egyptian was No 1 for three weeks at Christmas 1985 and I was still living with Debbie because the [Bangles'] cheques hadn't come in yet. They'd done a video in our house – and everyone's equipment was there – there was a klieg light. So Debbie got a cheque from Bill Graham Associates who were doing their merchandise, her piece of the pie. My friend said: "How much do you think it is? Do you think she got a million bucks?" "No, she didn't get a million bucks, but I know how we can do it – you pick up the klieg light, and I'll hold the envelope. You turn the light on, and I'll be able to read the cheque." I'd seen it done in the movies – and it works! I held it up – and it was a sizable cheque. And I was so happy for her. I also had the feeling that maybe if the Bangles went through they might drag us on their coattails.
The Rain Parade were the first of the Paisley Underground bands to split, in 1986, followed by the Long Ryders in 1987 and the Three O'Clock in 1988. The Dream Syndicate lasted till 1989 and Green on Red till 1992. Even the Bangles, by far the most commercially successful of the groups, parted ways in 1989.
Matt Piucci: I think there were people – guys like Wynn and REM – who liked the slog, who liked being on the road. You had to do that. That lifestyle didn't appeal to us any longer, and I think it just disintegrated naturally [the Rain Parade split in 1986]. I don't think we had a whole lot more to offer at that time. Though shortly after breaking up I started writing with Steven [Roback] again anyway. I don't think it was any tragedy, it just ran its course. I've always looked at art as a vertical thing rather than a horizontal thing – longevity means nothing to me. If you play for 40 years, but play mediocre music, why?
Steve Wynn: Our last album [1988's Ghost Stories] and our last tour were really satisfying. But I did feel we had done everything we were going to do. I couldn't imagine what would come next that would excite me. So I went solo. It didn't help that I made that decision on the heels of a four-month tour, when I was exhausted, just frazzled. I would say to anybody: don't make any major decisions the first week you come off the road. But that's what I did.
Sid Griffin: We were the best team in the second division. Not the first. Certainly not the Premier League. And we might have gone further with some more oxygen for our publicity machine but we never got it. A band can only exist on a given level for so long – you have to go up or go down. You cannot keep playing the same places. I meet so many people who say: "I got tired of playing the Duchess of York in Leeds. I got tired of playing the Princess Charlotte in Leicester." Every time we played Leicester we played the Princess Charlotte. We must have played it seven times in four years. We were on that level for too long and you start picking on each other and blah de blah de blah.Steve Wynn: I remember Sid calling me on the phone and saying: "My advice to you is don't break up the band. You'll regret it." The reality is, I don't regret it. I've had a real nice solo career, I've had a lot of great side projects along the way that have been really exciting. I really like the music I've made since the Dream Syndicate as much as and more as what I made with the Dream Syndicate. But there have been times down the years when I've missed being in that band, and that's why I'm reuniting it now.
Matt Piucci: I was just grateful I got on for the ride. For some reason, which I cannot explain, we have become to other people what Television was for me. That is for me the greatest satisfaction because those guys, for me, were it. For all the bullshit that's out there, one of the most rewarding things for me has been, 25 years later, to go out and play again. It's almost more rewarding now – I've never been in a room where so many people are so happy to see me. There are people for whom this music means a great deal, and it's very humbling.
Vicki Peterson: I wish more people knew that [the Bangles began as a garage band], and I think the people who do know that about us appreciate us on a different level and in a more full way. To this day, when we play on stage we sound like a garage band. We're rough around the edges and play with that feel. But for all the people who only know Walk Like an Egyptian and Eternal Flame, there's a whole different side to it.
Michael Quercio: The Coachella organisers were big fans and offered us the slot to reform [this spring]. It wasn't calculated! It's just like in the beginning when we didn't know each other. Who knows, maybe there'll be a big package tour!
The Dream Syndicate in 2012, with Steve Wynn right Photograph: Juan Carlos Quindos de la fuente
Steve Wynn: We played five shows in Spain last September and it felt great. It felt like putting on an old jacket – completely comfortable and natural. But it also felt very alive and vital. We did a version of John Coltrane Stereo Blues in Madrid that was 22 minutes. It went by in seconds. I'm still as ready to trip out and go to outer space as I ever was.
Sid Griffin: You know that famous photo of the jazz guys on the stoop in Harlem? And Chet Helms, in Golden Gate Park in 67, got everyone to line up in a row – Big Brother and the Dead and Quicksilver – about five bands in a row. I begged everybody: "Can we do one of those shots? We'll got to Griffith Park and I'll pay for a photographer. Please you guys, can we do it?" And nobody wanted to do it. I wanted that so bad and I told them at the time: "I swear guys, one day you'll look at that photograph and be so glad you have it." I really regret not having it. I had a vague idea that maybe three, four, five of us would break through to the charts and we would be a noted scene in the way LA had the Byrds and the Buffalo Springfield, and San Francisco had the Dead and the Airplane. Of course we didn't. I was wrong. I was a naive kid from Kentucky. But to this day, when somebody's talking about rock scenes, the Paisley Underground makes it.
• The Dream Syndicate play The Days of Wine and Roses at Dingwalls, London, on 24 May. Details: dingwalls.com, box office 01920 823 098.
This article was amended on 20 May to correct the description of Michael Quercio as guitarist of the Three O'Clock. He played bass.
