Steven Van Zandt on Bruce Springsteen's recent Irish gigs, and life with The Boss
Bruce Springsteen and Stevie Van Zandt. (AP Photo/Ross D Franklin)
- This article is part of our Best of 2024 collection. It was originally published in May. Find more stories like this here.
Steven Van Zandt is a very fine solo artist, an accomplished actor (The Sopranos, Lilyhammer), a DJ (the very groovy Little Steven’s Underground Garage goes out every Sunday on Dublin City FM), and an activist and educator (Teachrock.org makes a real difference in American schools by providing free resources around music education).
He was in Ireland, however, because of his day job as a member of Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band. He joined up around about the time of Born To Run, providing vital arrangement ideas for that record, left in 1984 and came back on board when they reformed in the late ’90s, providing a musical and visual foil to The Boss.
He looks remarkably fit and healthy when I meet him earlier in the week after the band were resting up after completing a warmly-received four-date Irish run.
“I’m always exhausted, so it doesn’t matter,” laughs the 73-year-old. “No, I’m fine. The day of a show you sleep as late as you can although I don’t sleep much to be honest. At home you’re up with the dog at 7am so you try to switch that over. The show should be somewhere in the middle of your day for maximum energy, and then you’re up after until whenever.” One wonders if the after-show is as wild as it possibly once was. Is it now just a nice cup of tea and off to bed?
“There’s a get-together sometimes,” he says with a gleam in his eye. “With E Street, everyone tends to go their own way, but once in a while, like last night… Brad Pitt was there and Javier Bardem flew over from London, and of course we’re good friends with the U2 fellows.
"Although it’s pretty sedate, I’m not going to lie to you, mostly tea and pretzels! This tour is extremely civilised. We never do two shows in a row, and even a travel day would be in between.” Four shows this year, three last year, and many more before that. Does Bruce Springsteen have some sort of special connection to Ireland?
“I don’t want to over exaggerate it,” Van Zandt says carefully. “But there is something a little different in Ireland. He has some Irish blood, which might be part of it but it’s also a great tradition in our particular art form that comes from these parts. Whether it’s the music or the literature, there’s a bit of an influence. The audience, maybe because of that history, have a particular emotional sensitivity to art in general. There’s something artistic in the air here. Some places have a bit more than others.”
Does the Massachusetts-born guitarist have any Irish in himself... he’s not related to the Van Zandts of Clonakilty?
“No, I’m adopted, by a Dutch man, but I have 100% Italian blood!” says a man whose mother was Lento, and biological father a Malafronte.
The setlist on the current section of the Springsteen tour seems to have loosened up a bit since last year. There was perhaps more of a story being told previously, about mortality.
“It was the first time we’d ever done that, coming directly from probably the only concept album he’s ever written [Letter To You], about a band member from his first band dying and he being the last one left,” explains Van Zandt. “It influenced the show where if the songs weren’t specifically related to that subject, they were coloured by it. The thing was mortality, but we balanced that with vitality. We may be closer to the end than the beginning, but we’re not going out quietly.
“It was like a Broadway show. This year, we were aware we were going back to the same countries, it’s pretty much a regular thing we do, two summers in Europe, so there’s going to be some overlap in the audience, so it’s definitely a looser show. He’s gone back to picking up signs out of the audience.”
This brings us back to Cork where, in the midst of the falling rain at Páirc Uí Chaoimh (“That was a bit of a challenge, luckily the audiences don’t seem to mind. They’re tough here, man!”), Springsteen picked a sign that referenced it was 222 days to Christmas. A perfect cue for The Boss to break into ‘Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town’.
Surely Steve might understand if people thought this might have been rehearsed, or does he shake his head in panic at his friend and mouth, “Not that one, Bruce!”
“We’ve done that before, believe it or not. He tends to pick that song in the middle of summer, so it was a bit early! That was a complete surprise, we hadn’t played it, I’m sure, since last Christmas. None of that is rehearsed.”
Does he catch the band out? Does he ever pick a sign and you think to yourself, ‘I’ve no idea how that starts!’
“Yes! Luckily I don’t start a lot of the songs, which I’m very thankful about. Roy [Bittan] and Nils [Lofgren] tend to be the guys who remember the chords. We don’t rehearse much at all really. If Bruce wants to change a song, we probably do it at the soundcheck or go over things backstage.” There was a lovely addition to the set for the Irish Shows, Shane MacGowan’s Pogues classic, ‘A Rainy Night In Soho’, played in Kilkenny, Cork, and Dublin. How did that come about? Bruce says, ‘Let’s do this’?
“Yeah, We’re going to Ireland, let’s do something special for the Irish. We occasionally do that for one of our brethren we’ve lost – Prince, Bowie, Joe Strummer - and Bruce had a particular emotional bond with Shane and his music. It’s a beautiful song.”
One last question before Van Zandt has to get back on the road. If an alien landed on his lawn and said they’d heard a lot about this Springsteen chap, which album would he recommend?
“I’d say, first of all, do you have vinyl where you come from?” We’ll assume they’re an advanced civilisation. They’d at least have an 8-track in the saucer.
“I always go for The River, but the outtakes albums [The Promise, Tracks, etc.] are close to me because a lot of my favourite songs weren’t released, but The River is usually my go-to because it was the first time we were able to capture the sound of the band on record… things were getting a little tense. It’s got pop and soul. He’s a terrific white soul singer. One of the best.”
Good choice. Good man.
- With thanks to Dublin City FM
