“I saw the original four members of the Velvet Underground, yet I feel like I saw them at the wrong time.” Dean Wareham recalls over the phone, the morning after his third tour date in Ojai, CA. “I saw them 25 years too late.” It's a notion, or “foggy notion,” that we all can relate to. It goes like this: your favorite band has been broken up for decades. They suddenly announce a brief reunion tour. You drop hundreds of dollars on tickets, sometimes even flying out of town to make it happen. Then finally, when the day comes, you’re happy to hear the songs played live, but you can’t deny the emptiness you feel about the set—the once palpable chemistry of the members has faded. Wareham doesn’t want fans to experience this with Galaxie 500. 

I interviewed Wareham, the New Zealand-born guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter behind influential dream pop trio Galaxie 500, beloved alt-rock band Luna, and enduring indie pop Dean & Britta, ahead of his solo show at the Sunset Tavern on May 21. We covered several topics, including his new album That’s the Price of Loving Me, interactions with his musical idols, and why Galaxie 500 will never do a reunion tour.

What are your memories of visiting Seattle?
Well, I've been there so many times over the years. My first time there was opening for the Cocteau Twins. It was a long time ago. Galaxie 500 toured with them in, well, I’ll look it up…it was 1991. Obviously, we were there at the height of grunge, but it’s not like that did us any good [laughs]! I always say that my favorite grunge band is Screaming Trees. Maybe they're not really grunge, but they were in that world. 

What were your main inspirations for your latest solo album, That’s the Price of Loving Me?
I guess there are a few songwriters whom I pilfered chord progressions from, like the Beach Boys and Serge Gainsbourg…I took a couple of chord progressions from Gainsbourg, which is allowed because he was a terrible thief himself. On “Bourgeois Manqué,” I was inspired by a story I read in high school: Tonio Kröger by Thomas Mann. In it, someone calls him a “bourgeois manqué,” meaning he's sort of bourgeois, but he's not really comfortable around those people. But, at the same time, he's not comfortable around Bohemians either. I thought it was a good phrase. It only took me, like, 40 years to write a song around it. I do like to read. If you're gonna write lyrics, then you have to read.

Lyrically, I don't know. Three songs on the album refer to the trouble in America, particularly trouble on college campuses. Kids are being arrested and policed, which I find kind of shameful; 2024 was a heavy year. It creeps into the songs.

You mentioned that politics comes up a few times on the album. One of my favorite examples is on “Yesterday’s Hero” when you sing: “All your leaders have no hair.” What do you think about the ongoing debate about whether or not it’s a musician’s duty to speak up about politics?
I think about this question a lot. Is it a musician's duty to speak up about it? Is it my dentist’s duty? Why does it fall on us? I usually find a way to put it in my songs and to speak up quietly. I'm wary of using social media as a political platform because when you post something, it just becomes a forum for idiots to argue and insult each other on your post. Social media is so, so toxic.

What's going on in Gaza is so brutal, I don’t know how people can stay silent about it. It's hard to put it out of your head. Sometimes, I'll run a bath and just think of people who, for like, a year and a half, haven't had access to hot water. With “all your leaders have no hair,” I was just thinking about how old our leaders are and how Biden seemed so stuck on concepts from the 1960s or 1970s. The following line is “all our marches got nowhere.” It’s great for people to march, but the slaughter continues. If you get into this topic, you just get totally slammed. You have to be careful. 

I'm not trying to have you slammed by anyone, I promise.
[Sighs] It’s okay.

A thread I see running through your career is covering other artists’ songs on your albums, such as Nico’s “Reich der Träume” on the new album. Out of all the covers you’ve recorded, which is your favorite?
I really like Galaxie 500’s “Don't Let Our Youth Go To Waste,” the Modern Lovers cover. We probably could have claimed half-authorship, because, really, we just took his lyrics and built a song around them. The original is a poem that Jonathan Richman had sung a cappella. We turned it into an eight-minute epic.

What is the best cover you’ve heard of one of your songs?
Sea Power [formerly British Sea Power] did a pretty cool version of “Tugboat.”

I know that Luna toured with the Velvet Underground in 1993 when they reunited. What memories stand out from your interactions with them?
Lou Reed was always very nice to us, even though he had a reputation for being a nasty, grumpy man. I had seen him be grumpy to other people, but he was always good to us. 

It’s weird, I saw the original four members of the Velvet Underground, yet I feel like I saw them at the wrong time. I saw them 25 years too late. Listening to the live performances from that tour, they're certainly not my favorite. They didn’t really sound like a band anymore. Plus, they were missing Doug Yule, who's on the third and fourth albums. They played some of those later songs with John Cale, which was a little anachronistic.

Once you got to know Sterling Morrison, did you ever play “Tugboat” for him?
He certainly heard “Tugboat.” He knew it was a reference to him. I think he appreciated it. He was shy, but once he got talking, he was great. He was kind of like an English professor, very knowledgeable. When he plays, you realize he’s a huge part of the sound of the band. People always talk about John Cale’s contributions to the band, but Sterling's guitar playing is instantly recognizable.

Do you think it's a good idea for fans to meet their idols?
Yeah, I guess as long as you don't expect too much, I suppose [laughs]. I am generally pretty nice to people. Every once in a while, I’ll kind of lose it and get impatient with someone, but I try not to. As I get older, I appreciate more and more that people come out to a show when they could stay home and watch TV.

Have the interactions with your musical idols been mostly positive?
Yes, they have. I got to meet Lee Hazelwood. Everyone told me he would be grumpy and monosyllabic, but he was very sweet. I think it just depends. If you have an interest in someone and know something about them, it tends to go better than if you don’t.

Let’s see who else…Lou Reed and Sterling Morrison, both lovely. Alan Vega from Suicide, too. David Byrne—he was friendly. I also got to know Tom Verlaine. He was a painfully shy person, but once he accepted you, he was great to talk to. People thought he came across as rude sometimes, when really, he just didn’t want to talk to people he didn’t know. As he got older, he went more into his shell. We played a few songs with him for the Andy Warhol Museum—I had to curate the performance. He asked me, “Can I just sit there on the stage in the darkness?” And I said “Nope [laughs].” 

I saw that you will be doing an entire set of Galaxie 500 songs at Woodsist Festival this autumn. What made you decide to revisit those songs?
They asked me to do it. Periodically, someone asks me to play those songs. I mean, I always play some of those songs. For the last 10 or 15 years, they’ve always been a part of my setlist at both solo and Dean & Britta shows. 

Are you planning on playing any Galaxie 500, Luna, or Dean & Britta songs on your current tour?
Yes, all of the above. I usually come out and play six new songs for the album to test people's patience. It just kind of builds nicely that way.

I think I know the answer to this already, but what are the chances that Galaxie 500 will ever reunite?
I'd say very close to zero. It’s not going to happen. We are scattered all over the country. I just think it would be weird. David Byrne’s answer to this about the Talking Heads was something like: “Well, are you going to get back together with your girlfriend from high school?” It's kind of like that. Maybe it'd be fun to see them briefly, but not to be back in that same relationship again. It would be uncomfortable and weird. The times have changed!

Lastly, what advice would you give a teenager who wants to start a band?
Just start a band. Go ahead and do it! But just don't expect anything from it. That would be my advice. Then, if something happens, you'll be pleasantly surprised. It's a tough world. I suppose it's easier to get your music heard these days, but it’s harder to get paid for it. There's just so much out there. But, if you manage to create something really good, I like to think people will notice it and it will get discovered—not that you’re going to get rich or anything. It might take a few years, but people will find it.