Speaker 1: Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: What's up?
Speaker 1: Man? Hello?
Speaker 2: How you doing?
Speaker 1: What? What up? I'm good? How are we? We're good?
Speaker 1: Doing good? Right?
Speaker 2: Thank you for doing this for us?
Speaker 1: Man? Of course? How are we?
Speaker 2: We're great? Better? Now? Where you right?
Speaker 1: Now? To see? I'm at my home. It's my studio. Okay.
Speaker 2: I couldn't tell what it was the background. I don't know.
Speaker 2: It's a hockey rinkor yes, I announced it's a studio.
Speaker 1: It's a studio.
Speaker 3: I got it all right, ladies and gentlemen. This is
Speaker 3: Quest Love Supreme. I'm Quest Love where with Team Supreme.
Speaker 2: Take a little brother?
Speaker 1: How you doing good?
Speaker 4: Man?
Speaker 1: Good man? Sitting with the vols?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 1: Good, damn good?
Speaker 2: Hello? How are you?
Speaker 4: I am living the American dream? Friend, living the American.
Speaker 2: In sugar Steve?
Speaker 5: Yes, how's everybody doing? I've got a couple of bosses
Speaker 5: in here in this so I'm going to behave.
Speaker 3: I got a few bosses too in here. Shout out
Speaker 3: to my boy John Landau. Who's listening? Wait is umbe Bill?
Speaker 2: Like? Did he go off for cigarettes and didn't tell us?
Speaker 2: Or just that man is working?
Speaker 1: Man? I think he's just.
Speaker 4: Working on another Tony Award winning production that's coming soon.
Speaker 2: I think, yes, I know, okay, okay.
Speaker 3: Well, ladies and gentlemen, this is a quest left supreme,
Speaker 3: and I will simply say that our guest today is
Speaker 3: one of the great master storytellers. He is one of
Speaker 3: the most respected and well loved craftsman of song. He's
Speaker 3: literally the embodiment of the working class hero, the everyday American,
Speaker 3: you know, representative of the people. And he's basically giving
Speaker 3: us the honor today of celebrating with him the release
Speaker 3: of his twenty first twenty first album entitled Only the
Speaker 3: Strong Survive. And if that idiom is familiar to you
Speaker 3: and you're a soul record aficionado, and then you pretty
Speaker 3: much know that that classic was pinned by I'm from Philadelphia,
Speaker 3: so any chance to pick up Kenny Gamble, Leon Huff
Speaker 3: And of course Chicago's owned the iceman Jerry Butler. That's
Speaker 3: where that song title derived from. That classic song. And
Speaker 3: you know, our guest today has basically been bestowed with
Speaker 3: every honor worth having in this field. Over one hundred
Speaker 3: and thirty five million LP sold, twenty Grammys.
Speaker 2: He has an Oscar Tony two Golden Globes, shit. All
Speaker 2: he needs is to Emmy to get his egot.
Speaker 1: I sound like I'm in trouble. My wife just want
Speaker 1: one to know she got the Emmy, all right, So
Speaker 1: he got all right.
Speaker 3: So as a combination, as one, we got egot status.
Speaker 2: Here.
Speaker 3: You're also in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
Speaker 3: and Songwriters Hall of Fame Kennedy Center Honor. You receive
Speaker 3: the Presidential Metal Freedom. All this before the ripe old age.
Speaker 2: Of twenty one. So everything, yeah, pretty much. Let me
Speaker 2: just say, let me just say that I literally my
Speaker 2: very first Springsteen show.
Speaker 3: I literally saw this man climb the speakers and the
Speaker 3: wall of the Apollo Theater to the balcony level and
Speaker 3: twenty years my senior. So that means I gotta step
Speaker 3: my game up. And gentlemen, please please please please welcome
Speaker 3: the one and only the Boss, Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen.
Speaker 1: You got my Yes, you have my and you have
Speaker 1: my confirmation name. I come from a long line of Fredericks.
Speaker 1: That was my dad and my grandfather. We were all Fredericks. Wow.
Speaker 3: So first, first of all, you know, congrats on the
Speaker 3: new album. I always wanted to know, how do you
Speaker 3: determine the pivot or the direction.
Speaker 2: Of how an album will go.
Speaker 3: Like, I love when artists, you know, they feed their
Speaker 3: fan base what their fan base needs and what well,
Speaker 3: what their fan base wants, and then sometimes you have
Speaker 3: to give them what they need and what they don't expect,
Speaker 3: and you're often known, you know, it's it's almost like
Speaker 3: a push and pull where we will get that classic
Speaker 3: Jersey Springsteen sound, but then you'll do a departure record
Speaker 3: like a Nebraska or The Ghost of Tom Joe, that
Speaker 3: sort of thing. So for you, what was the sort
Speaker 3: of mind state of where you wanted to go for
Speaker 3: this album?
Speaker 1: Well, I knew I was done writing for a while,
Speaker 1: so that had a lot to do with it. I
Speaker 1: made a record with the East Street Band called A
Speaker 1: Letter to You, and I hadn't written for the band
Speaker 1: in quite a few years. And then I wrote most
Speaker 1: of that record in about a week and a half
Speaker 1: for two weeks, and we made it in four days.
Speaker 1: And it was very Yeah, it was very summational. It
Speaker 1: was sort of like this was my story up to
Speaker 1: this point, and it just felt like and we made
Speaker 1: a film that went with it, and it felt like
Speaker 1: after that, I just felt like, well, I'm done. I
Speaker 1: don't have anything I feel I want to write about
Speaker 1: at the moment, so we're in the middle of COVID.
Speaker 1: And also I enjoyed the act of recording. I like
Speaker 1: being in the studio, you know, making sounds, and so
Speaker 1: basically I started it was like, well, maybe i'll record
Speaker 1: some things I haven't written, which I haven't done very much.
Speaker 1: I did a sort of an Americana record called Secret
Speaker 1: Sessions a while back, but I but I hadn't you know,
Speaker 1: I'm usually writing my own material, so this was an instance.
Speaker 1: We said, well, I'm going to try and sing some
Speaker 1: other things, you know, and so I just started doing that.
Speaker 1: I just coming in the studio, taking a song and
Speaker 1: seeing what my voice sounded like like like on it.
Speaker 1: And I made a record with basically sort of singer
Speaker 1: songwriter overtones or some rock overtones, and I put it away.
Speaker 1: It was pretty much I recorded all of it. We
Speaker 1: didn't mix it, but when I listened back to it,
Speaker 1: it wasn't focused enough. So some way or another, I
Speaker 1: ended up recording this dude, Frank Wilson's Do I Love You?
Speaker 1: And if people know Motown, they know Frank Wilson was
Speaker 1: more in the back line of Motown, but he did
Speaker 1: sing and perform, and he was a great singer, songwriter
Speaker 1: and producer and performer. And so we had this this
Speaker 1: cut that was a hit in the northern soul scene
Speaker 1: in England, right where they sort of dig up a
Speaker 1: lot of unusual motown records and unusual soul records, and
Speaker 1: so this was a It was well known in that scene,
Speaker 1: but in the States it really wasn't known at all.
Speaker 1: And I said, this is an incredible song. So I'm
Speaker 1: just gonna see if I can get up in that
Speaker 1: vicinity where Frank Wilson was singing and see if I
Speaker 1: can sing it, and if we can get a production
Speaker 1: that is powerful enough to stand up to, of course
Speaker 1: the fab incredible Motown records, you know. So we cut
Speaker 1: that and I felt like I touched on or something.
Speaker 1: And then we did a few other I think I
Speaker 1: did when she was My Girl the four Tops. The
Speaker 1: Tops record that they had a big hit after they
Speaker 1: left Motown, and I said, oh, that's fun. I had
Speaker 1: a little disco thing to it, and and and uh,
Speaker 1: I'm kind of in the range of Levi, you know,
Speaker 1: of Levi Stubbs. I mean, I can't sing like him,
Speaker 1: but I'm in I'm in his.
Speaker 3: Range, So yeah.
Speaker 1: I got that gruff baritone, so I can sing those
Speaker 1: songs in those keys. And uh so I started to
Speaker 1: just you know, I cut two or three soul things
Speaker 1: and and and and it felt very focused and fresh
Speaker 1: and like I hadn't done it before. And it also
Speaker 1: focused on my voice, which is something I haven't given
Speaker 1: a lot of focus to. Usually on the records, I'm
Speaker 1: I'm focusing on my songwriting, if the lyrics are any good,
Speaker 1: if the song's powerful enough, and then my voice is
Speaker 1: there in service of that material, of of my songwriting
Speaker 1: and of my production, and and it's it's usually I
Speaker 1: don't start voice first and think, oh, what's gonna sound
Speaker 1: great me singing? But in this case, I got a
Speaker 1: chance to say, Okay, I'm gonna just use my voice
Speaker 1: as as the measuring stick of where I'm going to go,
Speaker 1: and if I can sing something well in this genre,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna take a swing at it and have some
Speaker 1: fun with it. But it really began as a result
Speaker 1: of sort of feeling like I was done writing for
Speaker 1: a while and I'd finished sort of what I had
Speaker 1: to say with with my band for a moment and
Speaker 1: then looking just for something to do to stay active
Speaker 1: and engaged, and and and keep the conversation going with
Speaker 1: my audience and my fans, and and just have some fun.
Speaker 1: Just have some fun with it. Okay.
Speaker 3: So you mentioned something with the when you talked about
Speaker 3: the Secret Sessions, which was that you recorded it in
Speaker 3: four days.
Speaker 1: Now that was a letter to you. I recorded, Yes,
Speaker 1: secret Sessions. We actually recorded very quickly also, but but
Speaker 1: and and live as was a letter to you.
Speaker 3: So I have a question about that process because you know,
Speaker 3: currently right now I'm probably in the worst place where
Speaker 3: an art can be, which is like I'm on the
Speaker 3: ninth year of working on the same album.
Speaker 1: I've been there now nine I haven't been nine years,
Speaker 1: but I've been years. So I have a little bit
Speaker 1: of a feeling where you're coming from.
Speaker 3: But the thing is is that when you when you
Speaker 3: turn in an album in four days, well, first I
Speaker 3: got to know is that your own accord or is
Speaker 3: that John on your shoulders? Like, yo, you got a
Speaker 3: weekend to finish this ship?
Speaker 1: And then no, no, we never play it like that.
Speaker 1: We we always play it like nobody cares how quick
Speaker 1: you made that record. The day it came out. If
Speaker 1: you rush to make a bad record, why would you
Speaker 1: do that? You know, I mean, what a bad record?
Speaker 1: That's all? What's it mean to your fans? And yeah,
Speaker 1: and your your audience if you if you're hurrying up
Speaker 1: and get a bad record out there, why so you
Speaker 1: can go on to you know, it just doesn't. It
Speaker 1: never made sense to me, and I never did it
Speaker 1: right from when I was in my early twenties. If
Speaker 1: it took me a year, I took a year. If
Speaker 1: it took me a month, that took a month. If
Speaker 1: it took me a few days, I made it in
Speaker 1: a few days. And I made records all across that
Speaker 1: spectrum where it took me years and where it took
Speaker 1: me just days to put them out. And it depends
Speaker 1: on the album, the record itself. It's quality. When I
Speaker 1: feel like I've achieved what I was after, then I
Speaker 1: put the record out.
Speaker 3: Like at least with me, I feel like at least
Speaker 3: need to let it simmer for maybe a month or
Speaker 3: so before I feel different about it, Like I'm excited
Speaker 3: about it when I you know, when you drive home
Speaker 3: and you got bet rough picks in the final mix,
Speaker 3: and you're excited and you played a billion times, and
Speaker 3: you test it for everyone, and then there have been
Speaker 3: times where like maybe two months later.
Speaker 2: I don't I don't get those goosebumps anymore.
Speaker 3: And then I readjust the song and then do something different.
Speaker 3: It doesn't it doesn't scare you to quickly execute something
Speaker 3: that fast.
Speaker 1: And well, I listen to my ears, you know, my
Speaker 1: ears are telling me it's good. Then I believe them,
Speaker 1: you know. And then I have I also have John
Speaker 1: is my is my sounding board. So I play something
Speaker 1: for him and he'll say yeah, yes, no, He'll give
Speaker 1: me his opinion about it. So we've had a forty
Speaker 1: five year partnership where we've done that every single record,
Speaker 1: you know, for a very long time, you know. And
Speaker 1: so we you know, so we have a sort of
Speaker 1: a system. And of course I have the band and
Speaker 1: and you know, they have their feelings and opinions and
Speaker 1: and so I just play it. I play it like that.
Speaker 1: And also you have a certain amount of time it
Speaker 1: takes just for the record company to get ready to
Speaker 1: release it, whether it's two or three months or so.
Speaker 1: And if I'm not sure, I'll just sit on it.
Speaker 1: If I'm sure, I put it out. And if it's good,
Speaker 1: then I'm sure. But if I'm not sure, if I'm
Speaker 1: sort of like I'm in the middle, I just sit
Speaker 1: on it and I wait. I wait for it to
Speaker 1: speak to me. I'm always just listening, listening, listening, listening
Speaker 1: for the music to speak to me, to tell me
Speaker 1: what it is, what it wants to be, what's the
Speaker 1: relationship between my fans and I that the record is
Speaker 1: going to inspire or instigate? You know, where is it
Speaker 1: going to take our conversation next? So I you know,
Speaker 1: I reasonably trust my ears, and if I get it
Speaker 1: done in a short period of times, then then it's
Speaker 1: all all for the better, you know. But if it
Speaker 1: takes time, I'll take.
Speaker 2: It, okay.
Speaker 3: So you're a band leader of not just these arbitrary
Speaker 3: group of musicians, but you know, you're probably one of
Speaker 3: the last acts in which your fan base knows every
Speaker 3: last band member, almost every solo you know, like, you know,
Speaker 3: they have their favorites and whatnot.
Speaker 2: So, as a band leader that has a well loved fan.
Speaker 3: Base of people that have mined your musicians, how exactly
Speaker 3: does your band get the news.
Speaker 2: That you wanna that you want to do a solo flight?
Speaker 3: You know, like even though I guess the first time
Speaker 3: you did it was with Nebraska, correct.
Speaker 1: Yes, you know, and that was by accident, so I
Speaker 1: didn't know I was doing it at the time, but
Speaker 1: I did. But I mad linking that record.
Speaker 3: Yeah, But I mean, do you just tell them like
Speaker 3: a laid back guys, like I'm I'm gonna do this
Speaker 3: one alone or do you have to have a meeting?
Speaker 1: And I think this record came up where it was
Speaker 1: like we we cut Letter to You, had an incredible time,
Speaker 1: probably the best sessions I've ever done with the East
Speaker 1: Street Band in the studio. We made it in no time.
Speaker 1: We did two songs a day, every day, and we
Speaker 1: very very minimal, minimal, minimal overdubs. A guitar solo here,
Speaker 1: a guitar solo there. So of course, yeah, all live singing, vocals,
Speaker 1: vocals too, everything, everything, everything is cut live in the studio,
Speaker 1: singing playing, no overdubs. What was the reasoning behind that,
Speaker 1: It's just how it worked out. I was assuming I
Speaker 1: was going to re sing the vocals, and then when
Speaker 1: I went to re sing them, they weren't as good
Speaker 1: as what I cut live, and so I left them.
Speaker 1: You know, it was pretty basic you know. So uh
Speaker 1: after that, I assumed, well, I'll do something else with
Speaker 1: the band, because you know, we had such a great time,
Speaker 1: but the music just doesn't work like I have to.
Speaker 1: Like I said, I'm not telling I'm listening, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm not I'm not telling my talents where to
Speaker 1: go or or I'm listening to where they're telling me
Speaker 1: they want to go, you know, and and what I
Speaker 1: might be good at next. So on this record, I
Speaker 1: remember having a little conversation with Steven just see you
Speaker 1: know Steve. He said, well, we were gonna, you know,
Speaker 1: we're talking about how we were gonna do a covers record.
Speaker 1: And then I realized, well, the covers record was a
Speaker 1: whole other thing. And it was once again I'm back
Speaker 1: into cutting a lot of material and choosing some of it.
Speaker 1: Like on the band record Letter to You, I used
Speaker 1: everything I cut, but on this on this record, I
Speaker 1: cut a lot of material and I choose just some
Speaker 1: of it.
Speaker 4: You said you swung a lot of times to figure
Speaker 4: out which record you wanted. I was wondering how you
Speaker 4: narrowed the process down.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, so this was a record where I
Speaker 1: know it was gonna take me a lot of concentrated
Speaker 1: studio time, and the guys at this point sort of
Speaker 1: we don't go in and spend a year in a
Speaker 1: studio like we used to. You know that that's sort
Speaker 1: of so. So it ended up being me and my
Speaker 1: producer ron An Yellow and our engineer Rob Lubray, and uh,
Speaker 1: we kind of just started doing quote of course demos
Speaker 1: and then devilones end up being what you end up releasing,
Speaker 1: you know. Of course this has happened to me many times.
Speaker 1: The band is used to this happening to me at
Speaker 1: this point, and it's a give and take a process
Speaker 1: that we're used to recording with the band recording some
Speaker 1: solo music, you know, and I don't know where it's
Speaker 1: going next myself, like I said, I'm listening to find
Speaker 1: out also, like the audience is.
Speaker 4: I just wanted to know how many songs are on
Speaker 4: the floor, like how many didn't make it?
Speaker 1: A lot and probbly on this record there was probably
Speaker 1: well there's fifteen on I don't even want to think
Speaker 1: how many are how many were off any idea?
Speaker 4: Rob?
Speaker 1: Huh say that again? Forty? Yeah? Oh so there was
Speaker 1: so there was forty. So in other words, I put
Speaker 1: out fifteen and I left forty down. Yeah, so I
Speaker 1: you know, trying to find out what is going to
Speaker 1: be the best record, you know, or have to make
Speaker 1: the most sense to me and my audience, you know.
Speaker 1: So that's not unusual. I've made records where I've cut
Speaker 1: seventy songs, eighty songs, and you know, they come out
Speaker 1: on sets in different places where. But on this particular record,
Speaker 1: there were forty songs we left we left in the can.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 3: So since this album is essentially kind of at least
Speaker 3: the spirit of it is a return to the music
Speaker 3: that you kind of fell in love with in your childhood, sure,
Speaker 3: I guess I'll start with the first question I asked
Speaker 3: every guest on the show, even though this is like
Speaker 3: the fourth question.
Speaker 2: What was your what was your very first musical memory?
Speaker 1: My first musical memory was Disney Records. What was these
Speaker 1: seven snow White and the seven Doors? Wow? Hi ho,
Speaker 1: hi hole, it's we go. So my first recollection was
Speaker 1: something like that, you know, or you know those little
Speaker 1: yellow records that played on seventy eight speed. I don't
Speaker 1: know if you guys are old enough to remember these,
Speaker 1: Oh no, I remember, yeah, but they were a little
Speaker 1: seventy eight, so it's you know, a kid colors, red, yellow, blue,
Speaker 1: and they played at seventy eight and they were basically
Speaker 1: themes from movies. So that would be my first real
Speaker 1: musical memory as a child. But after that, my mother
Speaker 1: was young, she had me when I was when she
Speaker 1: was in her early twenties. She played the radio. She
Speaker 1: had the radio on all time every day, you know,
Speaker 1: in the car and in the kitchen, and she listened
Speaker 1: to Top forty and so right from a very young age,
Speaker 1: I was exposed to like the great music of the
Speaker 1: fifties and that sort of was where what kind of
Speaker 1: inspired me, you know, And really I'm basically a Top
Speaker 1: forty influence musician. That's how I kind of grew up.
Speaker 1: And I started there and then I went searching in
Speaker 1: blues and folk in a lot of different other places
Speaker 1: for influences, but really I started out just listening to
Speaker 1: Top forty on the radio.
Speaker 3: That's a little unusual though, because I would think, I mean,
Speaker 3: I would consider you maybe like the second generation of
Speaker 3: rock and roll. So you're not, I mean, you're not
Speaker 3: exactly a greaser. And I know that you in your
Speaker 3: teen years. You know, it was the late sixties. But
Speaker 3: it's very unusual for me to see not not agreeable,
Speaker 3: but at least an amicable musically amicable environment in the household,
Speaker 3: because normally, like the music of the kid is rebellious music,
Speaker 3: and the parents turn that shit, you know, right, But
Speaker 3: you're you're saying that your your parents weren't like that
Speaker 3: at all, like, babe, Well, my.
Speaker 1: Dad was a bit like that, but my mother, no,
Speaker 1: she was a young woman and she was into Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, we're Southern Italians, which means we like music,
Speaker 1: we can sing, and we can perform. Where that come
Speaker 1: where they come from. You know, if you're coming from
Speaker 1: Southern Italy where I'm where I'm from only a generation
Speaker 1: or two removed, so I'm on that side of my family,
Speaker 1: I'm a I'm a new American okay, and you know,
Speaker 1: so uh, if you're coming from there, and as the
Speaker 1: whole side of my family did, they were all you know,
Speaker 1: singers and dancers and and and all of that went on.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: So since you mentioned it, of those forty songs that
Speaker 3: are on the floor, is one of those songs, what's
Speaker 3: the song?
Speaker 2: See wiggle waggle Oh.
Speaker 1: No, wiggle wobble Man wiggle wobble. You played a hell
Speaker 1: of a version of wiggle wobble on the air that night.
Speaker 3: To this day, I'll say that, you know, I've been
Speaker 3: on I've been on The Tonight Show for for you know,
Speaker 3: thirteen years, and of course you and I know that.
Speaker 3: What's weird because I don't think he does his Springsteen
Speaker 3: impression in front of you as much as when you're
Speaker 3: not there. But that that wiggle wobble moment during the commercial, Now,
Speaker 3: I gotta explain back when I think you were celebrating.
Speaker 2: Was it was it darkness that was born?
Speaker 1: It was a box that was the anniversary of Darkness.
Speaker 3: Yeah, right, And so you know, you, you and Steven
Speaker 3: were basically just reminiscing of like the singles and the
Speaker 3: forty fives that really bonded you two together. And that
Speaker 3: to me, that was the first time that you know,
Speaker 3: usually when when a guest mentions a song or that
Speaker 3: sort of thing during the segment, the roots basically.
Speaker 2: Have like one minute to learn that song, Like I'm
Speaker 2: already on YouTube and we're repressed, right.
Speaker 3: So, but that was such a that was such a
Speaker 3: moment for Jimmy, Like he still tells, I hear that
Speaker 3: I hear that story like once a week for the
Speaker 3: last or like literally he only tells that story about
Speaker 3: how excited you were about I was.
Speaker 1: I mean, come on, it's not that well known a record,
Speaker 1: even though it was a hit man. You guys nailed
Speaker 1: it in about sixty seconds. So that for a band leader.
Speaker 1: For a band leader, that's impressive. See.
Speaker 3: Well, you know, I'm also a kid of hip hop,
Speaker 3: in which you have to know songs, you know, as
Speaker 3: a producer, and so like Herbie Hancock did a cover
Speaker 3: that on one of his one of his albums. So well,
Speaker 3: speaking of which, do you remember the first album that
Speaker 3: you purchased with your own money? Not like album that's
Speaker 3: already in the house, but like I gotta have this,
Speaker 3: like first album and first forty.
Speaker 1: Five first album, believe it or not. I think I
Speaker 1: bought an album of surf rock because I liked the
Speaker 1: picture on the cover. There was a guy surfing some
Speaker 1: hundred foot wave and and and so it was it
Speaker 1: was like a dollar ninety nine or something. It was
Speaker 1: really it was a knockoff record and it was really
Speaker 1: kind of cheap, and I bought it. It might have
Speaker 1: had some dig Dale on it, you know, King of
Speaker 1: It might have had some it might have had some
Speaker 1: Dick Dale. So I brought that home and that was
Speaker 1: my first album. I think after that, really my album
Speaker 1: buying began with the British Invasion, I would say, you know,
Speaker 1: that was when I started to really, you know, my
Speaker 1: album buying began when albums began to sell really, which
Speaker 1: really was the mid sixties. You know, when suddenly albums
Speaker 1: became the currency of the day and of the moment,
Speaker 1: and if you were going to make a name or
Speaker 1: for yourself, you know, you were you were putting out
Speaker 1: not necessarily concept records, but but full records, records that
Speaker 1: were you know, where it wasn't filled with a lot
Speaker 1: of fodder, you know. So and plus it was a
Speaker 1: time when I started to have to get a little
Speaker 1: money of my own because I was playing in the band,
Speaker 1: so I had a few bucks and I was able
Speaker 1: to purchase a record on my own back in the
Speaker 1: in the mid sixties when I was fifteen sixteen years old.
Speaker 5: Okay, since we're on records, me and questl are big
Speaker 5: record collectors and so forth. As your the records you
Speaker 5: bought back then, have they survived today? What does your
Speaker 5: record collection look like now, does it include all that
Speaker 5: old stuff?
Speaker 1: No, you know, I had my forty fives for a
Speaker 1: long time, and they were at my they were at
Speaker 1: my mother's house for many many years. I could go
Speaker 1: in and visit my little stack of forty fives. And
Speaker 1: then at one time I had obviously a huge album collection.
Speaker 1: I have no idea where it went, where my socks went.
Speaker 1: Wherever my record collection is, that's where all my missing
Speaker 1: socks are. So so it's it's somewhere, you know, it's
Speaker 1: all gone now now I'm like a lot of people. Hey,
Speaker 1: I got my entire record collection from when I was
Speaker 1: thirteen to when I was seventy three in my pocket
Speaker 1: at all times. You're a streaming guy, I I keep
Speaker 1: it with me.
Speaker 6: Yes, I had a specific question. Just tell me about
Speaker 6: how you met Clarence Clemens and y'all's creative relationship over
Speaker 6: the years.
Speaker 1: Man, I was looking for a saxophone player because my
Speaker 1: roots came out of, you know, out of show bands
Speaker 1: which visited the Jersey Shore in the midsummer, because just
Speaker 1: Asbury Park was like a cheesy sort of Fort Lauderdale,
Speaker 1: and so there was a lot of top forty music.
Speaker 1: There were a lot of show bands, and a lot
Speaker 1: of our influences came and they were playing a lot
Speaker 1: of soul music. So a lot of our influences came out,
Speaker 1: came from those places. And so Clarence was in a
Speaker 1: band called Little Melvin and the Invaders, and they played
Speaker 1: in locally in clubs. I think Gary Townon played bass
Speaker 1: with my bass player, and uh, but I was looking
Speaker 1: for a saxophonist, and it was hard to find somebody
Speaker 1: who was really into blowing rhythm and blue saxophone or
Speaker 1: rocks rock and roll saxophone. Uh. And there were a
Speaker 1: couple of guys in the area, you know, one guy's
Speaker 1: too crazy and other guy's not quite good enough. And
Speaker 1: uh uh, So I had sort of I had a
Speaker 1: couple of R and B influenced tunes that Clive Davis
Speaker 1: got me to write at the last minute before we
Speaker 1: put my first record out, because he said I had
Speaker 1: nothing that would be played on the radio. So I
Speaker 1: went home and I wrote two songs from my first record,
Speaker 1: and they were both you know, they were both R
Speaker 1: and B influenced, and a song called Spirit the Night
Speaker 1: and a song called Blinded by the Light. There on
Speaker 1: my first album, and I found Clarence to play on
Speaker 1: those two songs. He had been missing in action the
Speaker 1: entire album until finally one night he walked into this
Speaker 1: place I was playing called the Student Prince in Asbury
Speaker 1: Park and he just came from the back of the room,
Speaker 1: this big presence, and he walked up to me and
Speaker 1: I was just on this little, tiny stage with my guitar.
Speaker 1: I said, can I sit in? I said, sure, he
Speaker 1: got up, he sat in. It was a stormy night,
Speaker 1: there was nobody there in the club, you know, thirty people,
Speaker 1: twenty people, And the minute he started playing beside me,
Speaker 1: I said, okay, we have some there's some connection going
Speaker 1: on here. This is the guy I've been looking for
Speaker 1: for a large portion of my life. And maybe he
Speaker 1: felt the same way, you know, because we just connected.
Speaker 1: And so we just met Rainy Knight Asbury Park, and
Speaker 1: after that he came to the studio and sat in
Speaker 1: on those two cuts, and then you know, we eventually
Speaker 1: joined the band.
Speaker 3: I love how you just casually mentioned mind to buy
Speaker 3: the Light, like that's not a staple.
Speaker 2: It's like, yeah, you know, I had a song called
Speaker 2: when Dove's Crow.
Speaker 3: I don't know if you guys heard of right, right, right, No,
Speaker 3: But I personally wanted to know, like I know, the
Speaker 3: story of at least how the blues had an effect.
Speaker 2: Across the pond.
Speaker 3: You know, for a lot of your contemporaries that were
Speaker 3: part of the British invasion. You know, these bluesmen are
Speaker 3: now finding second when second life over touring in Europe
Speaker 3: during the Army basis and whatnot. And of course, like
Speaker 3: teenage Stones, teenage Beatles see this and then suddenly the
Speaker 3: British invasion music is in foregmed. But you know, I
Speaker 3: don't think I've ever had an interaction with someone, you know,
Speaker 3: on American soil on how what music affected them. So
Speaker 3: for me, it's I always wanted to know.
Speaker 2: For your for your uh.
Speaker 3: Formative years, at least what effect did uh Movetown and
Speaker 3: Soul and James Brown and all of these, all these
Speaker 3: songs by like black artists have on you in Jersey
Speaker 3: at the time, Like was it controversial to have or
Speaker 3: was it you know, because you know you're also coming
Speaker 3: of age in the civil rights period as.
Speaker 1: Well, right right, you know, And well here's how it
Speaker 1: went on your bi monthly dance at the high school,
Speaker 1: right you go, everybody's in their corners of the room. Right.
Speaker 1: You got the raw Ras, the college bound kids over here,
Speaker 1: you got your your black kids over here, you got
Speaker 1: your leather greasers over here there over there, you know,
Speaker 1: And so U du Opkis play, the greasers come out
Speaker 1: and they got their girls and they're on the floor.
Speaker 1: You get surf music are some of the top forty
Speaker 1: early beatles. You get the raw Rose come out on
Speaker 1: the floor. You know. But when Motown played, everybody came out,
Speaker 1: everybody dance. It was the miracle of that music. It
Speaker 1: remains a miracle of that music to this day. Everybody danced,
Speaker 1: you know. So and our job at the times, we're
Speaker 1: top forty cover band, just like everybody else. You know,
Speaker 1: we're not necessarily playing all the top forty. We're playing
Speaker 1: a lot of blues, and we're playing a lot of
Speaker 1: soul music and things that we're just picking up from
Speaker 1: our albums also, but we're also playing a reasonable amount
Speaker 1: of top forty music just to get gig book that
Speaker 1: your high school dances. When they would call you to
Speaker 1: book you, they would say, can you play soul man?
Speaker 1: Can you play satisfaction? Then if you can't play those songs,
Speaker 1: you're not gonna get the gig. You know, somebody else
Speaker 1: who can play them is gonna get them get it.
Speaker 1: And so, you know, every week you learned a two
Speaker 1: or evolving door of two or three new things, depending
Speaker 1: on what hit that week, and whether it was black
Speaker 1: white music or white music. You just learned what was hitting,
Speaker 1: you know. And of course you know, so Motown was had.
Speaker 1: I mean, Holland does your Holland and they had incredible
Speaker 1: you know, so so uh uh it was. It was
Speaker 1: kind of basically like that it it. You didn't even
Speaker 1: give that much thought to it at the time. You
Speaker 1: just played what was hitting and uh and but through
Speaker 1: doing that, you learn how Holland does your Holland. You
Speaker 1: learned Lenen Lennon and McCartney a gamble and huff. You
Speaker 1: had to learn the songs, that's it. You learned their structure,
Speaker 1: you learn their chord structure, you learn their production techniques.
Speaker 1: You learned you know, and and so uh one of
Speaker 1: the greatest times we had on making this record was
Speaker 1: we had to produce them all again. We had to
Speaker 1: and and I didn't try to make them different. I
Speaker 1: tried to make them the same, you know. I was
Speaker 1: sticking to the original string parts, the original horn parts,
Speaker 1: the original vocal parts. You know, really we changed obviously
Speaker 1: you get a chance for a greater sound quality today
Speaker 1: and my singer, and that was all we really did differently.
Speaker 1: I wasn't interested in reinventing the wheel. That was kind
Speaker 1: of perfect as it was, you know. So, so learning
Speaker 1: your craft came through studying and learning week after week
Speaker 1: after week all of these songs. The best bands to
Speaker 1: this day are bands that that maybe began as cover
Speaker 1: bands almost because you had to learn all different kinds
Speaker 1: of music. Everybody's different writing techniques, everybody's different production techniques.
Speaker 1: And we had so much fun making this record because
Speaker 1: we were just remaking that. We got to remake those
Speaker 1: records and going in and do a big string section
Speaker 1: with a you know, players from the New York Philharmonica
Speaker 1: and washing them play uh uh, only the strong survive
Speaker 1: or or or or or some someday we'll be together,
Speaker 1: you know. So it was just a tremendous, tremendously good
Speaker 1: time just relearning that those incredible records. Again, did you.
Speaker 2: Track and mix your entire album in your home studio?
Speaker 1: Yes?
Speaker 3: All right, I gotta know what kind of board are
Speaker 3: you using because even with the mixing of the album,
Speaker 3: it hints towards one could say, a vintage sound to it.
Speaker 1: What are we working on most of the time, Rob,
Speaker 1: this SSL? Yeah, on our SSL board.
Speaker 2: Really I thought it.
Speaker 1: Was okay, you thought what I thought?
Speaker 2: It was a need?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was gonna say that, but I've worked on
Speaker 1: many needs. But this is an SSL you know. So uh.
Speaker 1: But the guys were really good at getting good sounds,
Speaker 1: you know, and and getting authentic sounds. And the whole
Speaker 1: record is it's just us three guys in the studio. Wow.
Speaker 2: Can I ask a question.
Speaker 4: I'm curious because I know that in the process usually
Speaker 4: when people do cover songs, there's no contact between the
Speaker 4: initial writers or artists or anything. But this is you.
Speaker 4: This is Bruce Springsteen doing covers of Motown, gamble Huff
Speaker 4: and everything. So I'm curious if And shout out to
Speaker 4: Deanna Williams who kind of put this in perspective in
Speaker 4: the sense of this being a beautiful homage because also
Speaker 4: all these writers are receiving the royalties from this, you know,
Speaker 4: this project, which is a beautiful thing. But yet, but
Speaker 4: has there been any contact did they know, like ahead
Speaker 4: of time that you were doing anything.
Speaker 1: No one knew ahead of time, because I'm afraid of
Speaker 1: telling anybody what I'm doing because I'll record something and
Speaker 1: then i'll throw it out a month or two later
Speaker 1: and it doesn't happen, you know. So I don't like
Speaker 1: to tell anybody I've received a little connection with Gambling huff.
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna I haven't met them, but I'm going
Speaker 1: to meet them because they they they heard the kind
Speaker 1: of record I was making, and some of their and
Speaker 1: their influence of courses is well on it, you know.
Speaker 1: So it's it's no, it's mostly it's just just three
Speaker 1: guys in a room, you know.
Speaker 6: I was I was curious to know, Bruce. You worked
Speaker 6: with Jimmy Ivien very early in his career as a producer.
Speaker 6: Were there any lessons that you kind of learned from
Speaker 6: him that you carried either into this record or any
Speaker 6: of your other records that you produced.
Speaker 1: No, Jimmy learned all those lessons from me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, say that, say that.
Speaker 1: Man, not just me, John. And then Jimmy was a sponge.
Speaker 1: He's a sponge for learning. He always was. He was
Speaker 1: just one of the smartest, one of the quietest, quietly smartest,
Speaker 1: guys in the room is Jimmy Iven. You know, it's
Speaker 1: still my great, great friend. And uh, but when Jimmy started,
Speaker 1: you have understand when I walked in to do my
Speaker 1: first session at the Record Plan, all Jimmy was doing
Speaker 1: was pushing pushing the start and stop button and putting
Speaker 1: the tape on it off. He wasn't engineering or producing
Speaker 1: any records. He hadn't done that yet.
Speaker 3: Is it shocking to you to see, like, hell, he's
Speaker 3: now like a supermogal or you know this guy that
Speaker 3: one's like got your coffee and whatever, like and now he's.
Speaker 1: Like it's it's totally shocking, and it's remained shocking to
Speaker 1: all of us to this day. You know, Is that
Speaker 1: okay Jimmy? I mean he's doing what he made what right, Right,
Speaker 1: He's got what There's a lot of that that goes on.
Speaker 1: But but Jimmy was just a super talented guy, you
Speaker 1: know he was and he was a brave thinker, you know. Uh,
Speaker 1: his partnership with Dre incredible, you know, and uh, you
Speaker 1: know he was just h he was just a smart
Speaker 1: young guy, you know. And and so I walked in
Speaker 1: one night and he went from the uh pressing the
Speaker 1: start and stop button on the tape deck to uh
Speaker 1: sitting at the board, and I said, John, what's he
Speaker 1: doing at the board man, you know? And John says, well,
Speaker 1: he says he can do it, so and and that
Speaker 1: was it. Jimmy Ivean ends up engineering Born to Run.
Speaker 2: Did you like his mixing?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I liked Jimmy. Jimmy's technique was very simple.
Speaker 1: He mixed until you like the way it sounded, you know,
Speaker 1: And that's right. He mixes and he just mixes until
Speaker 1: you like the way it sounds. And and he just
Speaker 1: figured it out, you know. So uh you know. But
Speaker 1: but so Jimmy, we were all really beginners together, you know,
Speaker 1: honestly we we we and he like the first time
Speaker 1: he was at that board, I walked in, I said,
Speaker 1: wasn't this guy like overre just can he do it?
Speaker 1: You know? But obviously he could.
Speaker 3: You know, oftentimes I'll say that, you know, most artists,
Speaker 3: and I'm one.
Speaker 2: Of those, like I'm so.
Speaker 3: Uber obsessed with writers that you know, this is basically
Speaker 3: my chance to play journalists. But you know, oftentimes artists
Speaker 3: really aren't aware of their critical claim and you know,
Speaker 3: of course the main narrative of your journey into rock
Speaker 3: stardom was definitely through a connection of you know, our pal.
Speaker 2: John Landau, who's your manager.
Speaker 3: Landau course famously, you know, wrote for Prime, Rolling Stone,
Speaker 3: and you know, all these publications, and you know, he's
Speaker 3: definitely the one of the first generation critical thinking journalists
Speaker 3: out there. And of course he famously wrote that, you know,
Speaker 3: he saw the future of rock and roll back when
Speaker 3: you first saw you play. I don't know, Boston whatever,
Speaker 3: but he saw the future of rock and roll. And
Speaker 3: his name is Bruce Springsteen. I always wanted to know, like, okay,
Speaker 3: So from my side of the fence, those words in
Speaker 3: print could be super crippling to an artist. I've known
Speaker 3: artists that are, you know, twenty seven years, twenty eight
Speaker 3: years in the game, and they might have three records
Speaker 3: out I know artists that have.
Speaker 2: Given up after their first record.
Speaker 3: For you, at the time when literally the entire world
Speaker 3: is declaring that you're going to pick up this this betime,
Speaker 3: this betime, that's sort of like the remnant leftover of
Speaker 3: the folk movement and the singer songwriter movement and the
Speaker 3: rock movement and whatnot. Was that any pressure in you
Speaker 3: or were you just shrugging it off like, oh, okay,
Speaker 3: that's cool.
Speaker 1: Now as a twenty five year old kid, So I
Speaker 1: felt tremendous pressure, you know. But I felt two things,
Speaker 1: you know, I think good artists always feel in the
Speaker 1: same way. One and they go, I am a complete phony.
Speaker 1: Two they go, I am the greatest thing you've ever seen.
Speaker 1: And they believe both things right now, Believing that they're
Speaker 1: a complete phony keeps them working, right, It keeps you
Speaker 1: chasing your craft and trying to get better and keep
Speaker 1: you working after it, you know, and thinking you're the
Speaker 1: greatest thing you ever said. Well, you need you gotta
Speaker 1: have some of that swagger, man, if you're gonna make it,
Speaker 1: And no matter how humble you're gonna fake it, you're
Speaker 1: gonna need some of that swagger to make to get
Speaker 1: yourself through, you know. So. Uh but at the time,
Speaker 1: I felt tremendous pressure around it, and it shook my world.
Speaker 1: And uh, you know, I just hunkered down, sat in
Speaker 1: and we just played night after night after night after
Speaker 1: night after night after night. We played our hearts out
Speaker 1: and the best we could for year after year after
Speaker 1: year after year. At the end of the day, I
Speaker 1: was gonna let the work speak for itself, you know,
Speaker 1: come and see me, come and listen to me, check
Speaker 1: my songs. And that's pretty much. That was my approach
Speaker 1: to it. But there was a lot of pressure at
Speaker 1: the time, and I went through a lot of you know,
Speaker 1: mental anguish about it.
Speaker 6: One question I had man was regarding one of my
Speaker 6: favorite records you did as a song you wrote for
Speaker 6: the wrestler Micky Roy. He talked to me about like,
Speaker 6: when you're writing for film, do you get a copy
Speaker 6: of the film that they show it to you beforehand?
Speaker 6: Do they sing you notes? How do you approach writing
Speaker 6: songs for film?
Speaker 1: Well? It varies, you know. Jonathan Demi called me in
Speaker 1: one time and said he was making a film I
Speaker 1: was dealing with the AIDS crisis, and he was looking
Speaker 1: for a song. So I didn't see the film. I
Speaker 1: think I saw a few minutes of its opening because
Speaker 1: that's where he was looking for a song for Wow.
Speaker 1: So I spent a couple of days and I ended
Speaker 1: up writing and recording the song Streets of Philadelphia. That
Speaker 1: was one approach to the other approach. I just sometimes
Speaker 1: somebody will send me a small piece of film and
Speaker 1: they'll say this is the ambiance of the movie, or
Speaker 1: this is where we're thinking of a song coming in.
Speaker 1: And and in Mickey's case, Mickey Rourke, you know, i'd
Speaker 1: been friends with him for quite a while, and he said, man,
Speaker 1: this is this is a big movie for me, and
Speaker 1: and and do you think you'd have anything that might work?
Speaker 1: You know? So I said, okay, what is this a
Speaker 1: guy about? This is a song about a guy whose
Speaker 1: the whole thing is living with pain, you know, living
Speaker 1: with pain. That that that's how uh, that's how he
Speaker 1: processes his life. And so with that in mind, I
Speaker 1: just sat down and I think I wrote the song
Speaker 1: pretty quickly.
Speaker 2: That's what's up now.
Speaker 6: That song it f hit the movie perfectly, man, like
Speaker 6: you did a great job.
Speaker 1: It really spoke to the character.
Speaker 3: Wait was was that song nominated for an Oscar or there?
Speaker 2: Could you?
Speaker 1: All right? I'm only asking what happened to be honest
Speaker 1: with you, because I won a Golden Globe for it, right, okay, right,
Speaker 1: I want to go and Mickey won the Golden Globe
Speaker 1: for acting, you know, so I.
Speaker 3: Had my thoughts on why Mickey, you know, when when
Speaker 3: Mickey Rooke gave his speech at the Golden globes about
Speaker 3: his dog dying and everything. I knew instantly that was
Speaker 3: going to freak out the Academy, and thus no, I
Speaker 3: still say that Mickey Rooke should have won that award,
Speaker 3: but I know how the Academy thinks. They're like, he
Speaker 3: ain't making a full of us on our stage. We're
Speaker 3: going to give that to the swamp pinn.
Speaker 2: But I I was wondering, okay, but.
Speaker 3: I wanted to know why because they only have three
Speaker 3: songs in the category, and I was like, what the
Speaker 3: fuck is Bruce's song?
Speaker 2: And why is that? Did you how many writers.
Speaker 1: Were I was told something at the time that if
Speaker 1: the song wasn't within the body of the movie, it
Speaker 1: couldn't be nominated if it was just in the credit.
Speaker 1: I mean I I got told some sort of thing
Speaker 1: like that. Whether that's true or not, I don't know.
Speaker 1: All I know is it didn't get nominated, So I
Speaker 1: thought you were.
Speaker 3: Showing for that, So okay, there's I don't know, if
Speaker 3: you read the friendship of you and Little Steven, to
Speaker 3: me is like, you know, one one for the history
Speaker 3: books and the relationship that you two have with each
Speaker 3: other and the way that he you know, when his
Speaker 3: book came out. It was one of my favorite rock
Speaker 3: memoirs ever because he's almost a poet in describing, like,
Speaker 3: especially the early days where you guys were playing these
Speaker 3: teen clubs like the Halloah, yeah, so can you. Because
Speaker 3: the thing is we don't necessarily have that today. But
Speaker 3: what were the teen First of all, were these teen
Speaker 3: night clubs at night or were they like afternoon things
Speaker 3: where you guys would play these night clubs with teenage them.
Speaker 1: That's what it was. Here was the shocking thing, and
Speaker 1: it remains to me shocking to this day is that
Speaker 1: that doesn't exist anymore. Right, But there's there's kind of
Speaker 1: a reason. And if you think about it, like nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty six, Pallablue on TV, Shindig on TV. You know,
Speaker 1: American band stipt Worthy. You know, there's all sorts of
Speaker 1: Soul Train, you know it's coming in, There's all sorts
Speaker 1: of different music shows on and but at that time,
Speaker 1: if you wanted to hire a rock and roll band,
Speaker 1: you had to hire children. Teenagers really yeah, yeah, teenagers
Speaker 1: are who played rock and roll. There wasn't the forty
Speaker 1: year old men playing rock and roll in nineteen sixty six. Ah, right,
Speaker 1: It was just fourteen year old men, not forty. Now,
Speaker 1: you want to hire a rock and roll band, you
Speaker 1: got to hire fifty year old men, you know. But
Speaker 1: at that time, at that time, you know, you, it
Speaker 1: was it was you. It was youth oriented. And so
Speaker 1: there were all of these clubs that were on either
Speaker 1: two or three nights a week. Sometimes it certainly open
Speaker 1: on the weekends. And they were for teenagers only. Really,
Speaker 1: there weren't even people in their twenties in them, and
Speaker 1: there was no booz served. But there were rock bands playing,
Speaker 1: you know, there were local rock bands and sometimes national
Speaker 1: acts where you honed your craft night after night. You know,
Speaker 1: I played, and Stephen and I both played, and who
Speaker 1: knows how many of these places, but they were all
Speaker 1: over the shore, probably all over the country at that time,
Speaker 1: you know. But what people forget is rock and roll
Speaker 1: bands were teenagers in those days, and and and there
Speaker 1: weren't there was no such thing as like I say,
Speaker 1: the fourty or fifty year old played rock music, you know.
Speaker 1: But but what shocks me now is that sort of
Speaker 1: venue no longer exists. These were places where everybody made
Speaker 1: their bones. Everybody, you know, everybody played, You played five
Speaker 1: hours a night you played five sets. You know, you
Speaker 1: played fifteen minutes on and ten minutes off for five
Speaker 1: sets in a row. And you did this, you know,
Speaker 1: weekend after week after week after week after week. And so,
Speaker 1: you know, Steve and I were craftsmen. You know, we're
Speaker 1: old school craftsmen, like shoemakers, you know, or like seamstresses
Speaker 1: or or you know, we're we're we're we're those kinds
Speaker 1: of guys. You know. We we learned our craft bit
Speaker 1: by bit, piece by piece, song by song, and and
Speaker 1: and basically that's how we perform on stage two this day.
Speaker 1: The East Street Band is a band filled full of craftsmen,
Speaker 1: guys who came up, you know, learning their craft from
Speaker 1: first how to put it on the two and four
Speaker 1: and uh so that's that's different. Today we have a
Speaker 1: kid in his bedroom. Two months later, he's got the
Speaker 1: biggest hit in the United States. He's on the radio.
Speaker 1: He may have never played a gig in his life.
Speaker 1: You know, there's something cool about that, and that's sort
Speaker 1: of it. It being there available to all is a
Speaker 1: wonderful thing, you know, And it was totally out of
Speaker 1: any type of you couldn't even record yourself in nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty six unless people didn't have studios or they didn't
Speaker 1: have tape players.
Speaker 3: I was gonna ask, do you feel as though you're
Speaker 3: the father or the yes? And I know like Todd
Speaker 3: Rundren and slid Stone and Stevie Wonder were all like whatever,
Speaker 3: the bedroom musician or whatever. But the kind of legacy
Speaker 3: that is the Nebraska record, even though you said it
Speaker 3: was an accident and you were just right, you know,
Speaker 3: just putting some songs down on tape, But do you
Speaker 3: sometimes credit yourself with the Nebraska album being like the
Speaker 3: really one of the first early examples of that type
Speaker 3: of lo fi home recording.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it just you know, I can't claim any
Speaker 1: credit for it because I wasn't planning on doing anything
Speaker 1: that was unusual at the time. I was simply trying
Speaker 1: to hear if I had any any good songs to
Speaker 1: record with the E Street Band when we went in
Speaker 1: the studio, and I was sick of wasting all my
Speaker 1: money with endless hours of studio time throwing out forty songs,
Speaker 1: leaving them on the floor, and so I said, well,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna find out if I have some good songs
Speaker 1: that I'm gonna go in and record those songs. But
Speaker 1: of course, the minute you hit the start button, things happen,
Speaker 1: and things happen that aren't gonna happen again. They're only
Speaker 1: happening right now in this particular moment in time. So
Speaker 1: I'm in my bedroom and I just sent my guitar
Speaker 1: tick out to get a little four track TX cassette player,
Speaker 1: which you know, previous to that, all I had was
Speaker 1: my boombox to record the rehearsals on. You know, we're
Speaker 1: recording rehearsals on the boombox. And so I sat down
Speaker 1: and I started to play off these songs, and you know,
Speaker 1: I played a certain and then suddenly I went to
Speaker 1: record it with the band. Didn't sound as good. I
Speaker 1: went to record it by myself in the studio. Didn't
Speaker 1: sounded better, but was worse. And suddenly I realized that
Speaker 1: the little cassette I had in my pocket, that was
Speaker 1: my album.
Speaker 3: You know who talked you into so you yourself said
Speaker 3: the cassette this is this is the final album.
Speaker 1: This is all debated, but if you read Steves books,
Speaker 1: Steve says he said it was. If you read it,
Speaker 1: I'm sure thinks he said it was. And I think
Speaker 1: I think it was my credit, That's right. I think
Speaker 1: it was my idea. But who knows.
Speaker 3: You know, the promise of a rock god is is
Speaker 3: coming in the seventies, and you know, I mean you
Speaker 3: delivered with these records, you know, the River and Born
Speaker 3: to Run and and and Darkness. But do you often
Speaker 3: find and especially with how Born in the USA was received,
Speaker 3: do you often find that sometimes you might have a
Speaker 3: fan that's more in love with the idea of Bruce
Speaker 3: Springsteen than the actual Bruce Springsteen. I mean, I know
Speaker 3: that you've had many a situation where like this particular
Speaker 3: unsavory political figure wants to use Born in the USA
Speaker 3: sure fully missing the fact that the song has nothing
Speaker 3: to do with type of patriotism. So you know, when
Speaker 3: this album comes out, are you at all aware or
Speaker 3: are you even in the mind space of knowing that
Speaker 3: you're about to go to like god levels that Born
Speaker 3: to Run wasn't taking you yet? Like before Born in
Speaker 3: the USA, did you just think like, okay, well I'll
Speaker 3: just coast out and do whatever, or was there still
Speaker 3: hunger in you to grab the brass ring?
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's that's been that's never gone away, you know,
Speaker 1: and started when I was a young kid, and I
Speaker 1: always tell people more than rich, more than good looking,
Speaker 1: more than I wanted to be great. I wanted to
Speaker 1: make great music. I wanted to inspire people the way
Speaker 1: that I felt inspired. And if I could do that,
Speaker 1: that's my life's work, you know. I once just want
Speaker 1: to inspire you with with what I created in my music,
Speaker 1: the way that I was inspired by the people who
Speaker 1: touched my heart and my soul and my life with
Speaker 1: their music. That's really what I like doing. You know,
Speaker 1: everything else great. You know, you want like to throw
Speaker 1: the money at me back dynamite, you know, that's all
Speaker 1: fabulous too, But uh, I just love. I love doing
Speaker 1: what I'm doing, and I love I still love pursuing
Speaker 1: that golden Ring. It takes a lot of different shapes
Speaker 1: as life. As life goes on, you know, sometimes it's
Speaker 1: in Nebraska, or it's it Born in the US, or
Speaker 1: it's The Rising or something else or some other record, you.
Speaker 6: Know, speaking speaking of Born in the USA, what were
Speaker 6: your thoughts on Band in the USA?
Speaker 1: By two? Me what they asked me about this, and
Speaker 1: I forgot that. Yes, come on, they asked me about it,
Speaker 1: and I said, sure, go ahead, you know, wait.
Speaker 3: The reason the reason why I asked you that question
Speaker 3: about were you trying to grab the brass ring or
Speaker 3: did it.
Speaker 2: Just happen and it.
Speaker 3: Occurred, you know, without your planning, is because I ought
Speaker 3: so this this one. Of course, you know, I'm one
Speaker 3: of the twelve million. This is the first Springsteen Now'm
Speaker 3: I ever owned, and I always wanted to know. So,
Speaker 3: you know, there's six singles from this record, but for me,
Speaker 3: I always wanted to know why the monster ones were
Speaker 3: always just at the end of side too, Like in
Speaker 3: my mind, like Glory Day Dancing in the Dark. Yeah,
Speaker 3: even my hometown closes it like that's buried at the
Speaker 3: end of side to it. Normally, the way that albums
Speaker 3: are structured, it's like your heavy hitters are first, and
Speaker 3: you're okay, I'll let you write your song or whatever.
Speaker 1: Like right, that will be the Landaus to the Landau
Speaker 1: theory is heavy hitters come first usually. You know. My
Speaker 1: theory is, I'm looking for a narrative in the record.
Speaker 1: I'm I'm taking the intellectual I'm taking the intellectual point
Speaker 1: of view. I know John John in this instance is
Speaker 1: taking the gut, is using his gut to make his judgments.
Speaker 1: And I'm going the other way. I'm thinking, like, well,
Speaker 1: what's kind of what am I trying to say? How
Speaker 1: am I saying? What's song? I knew my hometown was
Speaker 1: going to close it. I knew Born in the USA
Speaker 1: was going to open it and everything else, but I
Speaker 1: don't know how it ended up where it was. It
Speaker 1: just did. Just man, it just.
Speaker 3: Always to this day, like I just I've never seeing
Speaker 3: an album.
Speaker 2: I'm I'm a guy that that obsessed over sequencing and.
Speaker 1: Songs and oh yeah, yeah, yeah, it's important.
Speaker 3: I've just never seen an album built that way that
Speaker 3: it's such a staple of yours. But it's almost like whatever,
Speaker 3: just thow a song where I always wanted to know why,
Speaker 3: Like your heavy hitters were like way buried at the
Speaker 3: end of the the album, but.
Speaker 1: I probably didn't know they were heavy hitters. I just
Speaker 1: thought they were another it was another cut, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean, I knew when I wrote I knew when
Speaker 1: I wrote Dancing in the Dark that that sounded like
Speaker 1: what I thought was a hit for me, you know,
Speaker 1: And I don't you know, in which I do not
Speaker 1: have many other records I've cut where I said, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: that's gonna be a top forty I'm generally not a
Speaker 1: top forty hit artist. I'm more of an album artist,
Speaker 1: you know. But I knew when I cut that, when
Speaker 1: I said, well, if I was ever to have a hit,
Speaker 1: it would sound like it's gonna be that one. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's right. And so it's sort of that's a song
Speaker 1: that's just sustained for the John Legend does a version
Speaker 1: of it. Sounds like Gershwin incredible. He does a beautiful
Speaker 1: version of it, you know. And uh, but I'm so,
Speaker 1: but why the thing ended up at the bottom of
Speaker 1: the second side, I really don't know. It doesn't make
Speaker 1: any sense.
Speaker 2: Lastly, I'm gonna ask you.
Speaker 3: You know you did You did a You did a
Speaker 3: string of dates at Massive Square Garden and I got
Speaker 3: to witness about five of them. Wow, And each show was,
Speaker 3: you know, your your typical gargantu Win three and a
Speaker 3: half hour fair whatnot. All the songs were different orders.
Speaker 1: It's almost like.
Speaker 2: A new show every night. How how how are you
Speaker 2: able to to to.
Speaker 3: All that text, all those core changes, all those arrangements,
Speaker 3: And you know, at one point I decided, I think
Speaker 3: on the third night, I decided I'm just gonna walk
Speaker 3: in the stadium and watch the audience watch you, and
Speaker 3: I'm singing everything verbatim, so it wasn't even like you
Speaker 3: were missing a step or missing a lyric or anything.
Speaker 2: How much pressure is it in putting those shows together,
Speaker 2: in those songs, and how to even crap your show?
Speaker 1: Well, two years, my band will have been together for
Speaker 1: fifty years. Okay, So we've got a lot of history
Speaker 1: and we've got a lot of experience, all right. And
Speaker 1: on the last tour, we played two hundred songs, two hundred,
Speaker 1: two hundred different songs. You know, we'll pull things out
Speaker 1: of the audience or or you know, I'll just my
Speaker 1: thing is on. Usually once the tour gets rolling, the
Speaker 1: show is regularly different on a night to night basis,
Speaker 1: you know, And I'll you know, I'll get with the guys.
Speaker 1: I'll send notes into the guys before showtime. I'll say,
Speaker 1: refresh yourself on this one from that album, this one
Speaker 1: from that album, this one from that album, because we
Speaker 1: might play it tonight. So the guys will have, you know,
Speaker 1: hopefully they'll have an hour or half hour to prepare
Speaker 1: themselves a little bit, and then we rehearsed in the afternoon. Also,
Speaker 1: we don't just play three and a half hours at night.
Speaker 1: We're we're there in the afternoon and I've we'll do
Speaker 1: we have done two hour sound checks just just trying
Speaker 1: to learn something new or or you know, the sound
Speaker 1: checks can go from ten minutes to two hours. You know.
Speaker 1: But it's it's just because it's fun, you know, it's
Speaker 1: just all it's just it's still all just fun, playing,
Speaker 1: playing surprising that audience here and there is is just
Speaker 1: it's fun to do. It's wonderful, you know, it's wonderful.
Speaker 1: I look what am I doing. I'm standing looking in
Speaker 1: your face all night long every night. I'm watching how
Speaker 1: you're responding to what I'm doing, and then I'm responding
Speaker 1: to you. So there's this huge circle of energy going on.
Speaker 1: I'm You're watching me, I'm watching you, You're watching me,
Speaker 1: and then I'm watching you. And this is going on
Speaker 1: all night long with the with the beautiful faces in
Speaker 1: front of you. And it remains an honor to play
Speaker 1: for our audience. And that's the way that I approach it,
Speaker 1: and that's what I insist from the band on a
Speaker 1: nightly basis. As you come out, your name is on
Speaker 1: the line every single night. I don't care how long
Speaker 1: you've been doing it. Right, your name is on the
Speaker 1: line that night. You have an opportunity to impact somebody's
Speaker 1: somebody's life tonight, I don't care how long you've been
Speaker 1: doing it.
Speaker 2: And it's somebody's first time seeing you.
Speaker 6: There could be someone's first time seeing you that night.
Speaker 1: It's somebody's first time. That's right. Every night is somebody's
Speaker 1: first night. I want to play like it's my first night.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So that's that's a mic drop right there. I'll
Speaker 2: say to our audience.
Speaker 3: That you know, if there's ever a show or a
Speaker 3: comfort zone that you have to leave and see someone
Speaker 3: that you've never seen before or someone outside of your zone,
Speaker 3: I absolutely twelvey twelve million percent record men that you
Speaker 3: see a Springsteen show because literally the show like you perform,
Speaker 3: like your life depends on it. And I've seen you
Speaker 3: at least in the last ten years.
Speaker 2: I've seen you about fifteen times and like.
Speaker 3: Each each And I'm the guy that doesn't know everything
Speaker 3: by heart, like I'm I I've learned stuff backwards.
Speaker 2: I know well enough to now say, yes, I'm a
Speaker 2: Springsteam fan.
Speaker 3: But even at the time when you know when I
Speaker 3: first saw you, like I only know a few albums
Speaker 3: and a few cuts, but yeah, I highly recommend. It's
Speaker 3: an education just to watch someone that passionate about their
Speaker 3: craft service.
Speaker 2: A bunch of fans in the audience, which you.
Speaker 3: Know, And I'm going to shows now and I'm not
Speaker 3: trying to be the old guy that's just like a man,
Speaker 3: I'm not not connecting anymore like I used to. But yeah,
Speaker 3: for me, you know, you're You're one of the last
Speaker 3: Mohicans left. So I highly recommend it, and I thank
Speaker 3: you for doing this with us.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Thanks, thank you, Thanks guys, thank.
Speaker 2: You, Thank you.
Speaker 3: Man On behalf of us, fan Tikolo and Sugar Steve
Speaker 3: and Unpaid Bill.
Speaker 2: This is Questlove and we will see your next go
Speaker 2: round of.
Speaker 1: West Love Supreme.
Speaker 2: And thank you Bruce Springsteen.
Speaker 1: All right.
Speaker 2: West Love Supreme is a production of iHeart Radio.
Speaker 3: For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app,
Speaker 3: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.