Dylan was born on December 9, 1969 in New York City to Bob Dylan and his wife Sara, both of whom are Jewish. The youngest of five children, Dylan spent the earliest years of his life in Greenwich Village. Around the age of three, he moved with his family to the Los Angeles area. Growing up, he listened to English rock records from his older brothers\' record collection, including the Clash, the Jam and the Buzzcocks. Dylan was particularly impressed with the Clash, who inspired Dylan to begin playing music himself. During high school, Dylan played guitar in various bands; he was featured as a guitar player on his friends\' band\'s eponymous 1987 album, Trash Matinee. Dylan was also in a band called the Bootheels at the time with future Wallflowers bandmate Tobi Miller. During this time, Dylan started writing songs and began shifting his focus from guitar playing to songwriting. Upon graduation from high school, however, Dylan decided to move to New York City to attend Parsons School of Design to study art. Dylan subsequently dropped out in his first semester and moved back to Los Angeles to pursue music.\n', '

Upon moving back to Los Angeles, Dylan and childhood friend Tobi Miller formed a new band called The Apples around 1989, along with Luther Russell on bass guitar and Aaron A. Brooks on drums. Both Russell and Brooks departed to start their own respective bands. Dylan and Miller then recruited Barrie Maguire on bass, Peter Yanowitz on drums, and Rami Jaffee on keyboards to fill out the new band. The Apples changed their name to the Wallflowers and began playing clubs in Los Angeles. They were eventually signed to Virgin Records. In 1991, the Wallflowers began recording their debut album. Dylan wrote the songs and the album was recorded live in the studio with minimal to no-overdubbing. The Wallflowers\' eponymous debut was released on August 25, 1992. The album was met with mostly positive reviews but did not do well, commercially, with a reported 40,000 copies sold. Despite low sales, the Wallflowers began touring nationwide, mostly as an opening act for several bands including the Spin Doctors and 10,000 Maniacs.\n', '

Upon return from a tour in 1993, the band learned that management at Virgin had shifted, leading to the removal of Jeff Ayeroff and Jordan Harris, who had signed the Wallflowers to the label. The new executives at Virgin were not pleased with the Wallflowers\' slow sales and the band did not feel they had a future with the label, so they asked to be released from their contract; Virgin complied and by the end of the year, the Wallflowers were left without a label. The band went back to playing clubs in Los Angeles and looking for a new label. During this time, the band went through a number of personnel changes. In 1993, Maguire was asked to leave for undisclosed reasons. However, the band would continue playing shows with another bass player, Jimmie Snider, until May 1993, when the band found a permanent replacement. Greg Richling, whom Dylan went to high school with, became the band\'s new bassist. Richling remained a member of the Wallflowers for the next two decades, until he left in 2013. The band continued to play club shows in Los Angeles through mid-1994; it was around this time when Yanowitz left the Wallflowers to join 10,000 Maniacs, then fronted by his girlfriend, Natalie Merchant. Shortly after Yanowitz\'s departure, the Wallflowers caught the attention of Tom Whalley and Jimmy Iovine of Interscope Records, who signed the band in 1995.\n', '

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