Dean Wareham Q&A: A life in rock is still fun, despite hurdles

Rock veteran Dean Wareham remembers exactly where he was when he witnessed the asteroid that was coming to kill the dinosaurs.

At a party one night in 2001, someone turned off the CD player and fired up a computer running a music file sharing program. As the founder of the influential indie-rock bands Luna and Galaxie 500, Wareham had already survived as a starving artist. But when he heard his first digital riffs from Napster, he realized his entire industry would soon have to figure out a new economic model.

And today, it still does, Wareham told me in an extended interview.