I Wouldn't Say It If It Wasn't True

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 REM, 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