The rhymes they are a-changin' - Jakob Dylan interview

With his solo debut imminent, Jakob Dylan, son of Bob, tells Aidan Smith he's determined to be judged against his peers rather than his father

IT MUST be hellish being Bob Dylan's laddie. Your father is the spokesman for a generation, one of the founders of modern music, a man whose every utterance is preserved for posterity in embossed gilt, and that includes all he says before breakfast. As a consequence, everything you say will sound like you're reciting the contents of a cereal packet.

This will be the case even if you don't make music your life, but especially if you do, because surely only a fool would attempt it. You will never escape comparisons with the old man, indeed you will spend your whole life trapped in his songs – any one of which could be cheaply and lazily applied to your own situation. For want of a better phrase, you are stuck inside a mobile with the Memphis blues again.

But the man sitting opposite does not seem especially tortured. True, he's a bit secretive about his age (he's 38) and his presence in this swish London hotel, so we must talk in a private area behind a heavy curtain. But in every other respect Jakob Dylan is at ease with himself and his tremendous lineage.

Aware that in the past he's walked out of interviews when the dad questions got too relentless, I opt for a jokey gambit. I tell him that on his debut solo album after five records with The Wallflowers, the resemblance to a famous singer-songwriter is spooky, that this troubadour's influence haunts many a groove – and that his name is Elvis Costello.

He laughs. "Thanks, I take that as an honour because I've always admired Elvis. I grew up with him and the Clash and the Jam." In his native Los Angeles, "noo wave" kid Jakob also loved Edinburgh's Exploited. When I tell him they hailed from my home town, he laughs some more. "I had a poster of Wattie (Buchan, the Mohawked ex-squaddie lead singer] on my bedroom wall," he says, then adds in triumph: "And he was spitting!"

A Clash gig aged 12 is "embedded" in Jakob's memory. "I remember combat boots flying over my head. And I play a Telecaster now because Joe Strummer did." It seems legitimate to ask how his father reacted to his punky passions. "Sure, I didn't want to bring home records that were going to embarrass me. But I think he could appreciate them for their spirit." Did the spirit, and the spittle, of the Exploited inspire Jakob to rebel? "You're kidding me. Who was I going to impress? And who was I going to shock?"

Jakob hasn't walked yet so I reckon he's got a sense of humour. Was he amused when an American critic reviewing his album Seeing Things saw fit to mention that one track refers to "Delia" while another mentions "Highlands" – both Dylan Sr song titles?

"As if words can be copyrighted! Regarding 'Highlands', I don't have to point out to someone from your country how inane that is. It's so stupid. If all that subject matter really was out of bounds, what would be left for me? What would I be allowed to write about?" He looks around the room in mock desperation. "'Chair' will be out, I suppose. How about 'pool-table'? There's a 'boat' in that picture there … or what about this?" He's holding a beanie, only too well aware that it pales next to a leopard-skin pillbox hat. But seconds later he's smiling again. "I know, I'll write about crans!" What are crans? "I just made them up so as of this moment the whole crans heritage is open to me!"

Let's get some distracting stuff out of the way. The youngest of Dylan's four children from his marriage to the model (and former Playboy bunny) Sara Lowndes, Jakob has the same proud cheekbones, curved nose and wiry black curls as his father as a young man, but is more handsome. His parents' divorce, when he was seven, was followed by a great Dylan album, Blood On The Tracks – possibly the greatest-ever break-up record. Dylan is supposed to have written the song 'Forever Young' about Jakob but throughout our conversation the latter doesn't refer to Dylan by name or even call him "my father", but simply "he". Or as the man's millions of disciples would have it, "He".

The Wallflowers, with Jakob on vocals, played classic American roots-rock in the style of Tom Petty. They haven't disbanded, but Jakob, a father of four himself, was in need of a break from their routine. Rick Rubin has produced Seeing Things in a spare, strumming style which probably means there will be no break from the comparisons with Dylan, but his boy seems better able to cope than in the past.

"It's been said that I formed The Wallflowers to hide my name but, really, I've always wanted to be in a band – right from the day my friends and I soundproofed a garage with bed-covers for our first rehearsal. I don't seek the troubadour's lifestyle now – it sounds so lonesome. But I know what else is out there and I know my stuff belongs. If I'm judged against my peers, rather than anyone else we could both think of, then I reckon I deserve to make records. I don't know if I thought that when I was starting out."

His poise wavers slightly when discussing the themes on Seeing Things. Some of the songs talk of war but Jakob's reluctance to describe them as political is understandable when you remember how his father soundtracked Vietnam. Others evoke hard farming graft that he cannot really know. "You're right," he says, "I'm not a working man in that sense – I've never twisted the earth."

Jakob grew up privileged in Hollywood. He attended excellent schools. Though other kids' parents were actors in Dynasty and in the Eighties that made everyone else in class feel humble, he says that he was always aware of his father's fame and high standing in American pop-cultural life.

But Jakob insists, perfectly reasonably, that songs don't need to be autobiographical for them to chime. "The back story of a songwriter isn't important to me – I don't listen to music needing to know who the guy is." This guy, of course, might never sing a note and have it heard impartially, free from agenda.

The Dylanologist AJ Weberman notoriously raked through the great man's rubbish in his search for songwriting clues and so popularised the practice of "garbology". I'm far from being his father's biggest fan but cannot help relating Jakob's words back to Dylan. For instance, when he talks about his "remarkably normal" childhood not being like living history with "all these signposts of tremendous importance", I immediately think of 'Subterranean Homesick Blues' and Dylan displaying his lyrics on cue cards.

"If I was a brighter man, maybe I wouldn't be doing this," says Jakob of following in his father's footsteps. In answer to the blessing/curse question, he errs on the side of the latter and believes his credibility is not what it otherwise might have been. But Jakob is not stupid. And he loves being Bob Dylan's laddie. He has no intention of shattering his dad's great mystique and, quietly and with no little dignity, still holds out hope of a fair hearing for himself.

This sounds like the cue for another song and of course 'Most Likely You'll Go Your Way (And I'll Go Mine)' is one of his.

• Seeing Things (Columbia) is released on July 14