Speaker 1: Pushkin. Hey, I'm really excited about today's guest. About a
Speaker 1: year ago we had the boss on and today we
Speaker 1: have the ultimate underboss, Stevie Van zanne. His first big
Speaker 1: break came in the mid seventies as Bruce Springsteen's right
Speaker 1: hand man, guitarist and occasional co producer in the E
Speaker 1: Street Band. Later, he seamlessly made the jump to acting
Speaker 1: as one of Tony Soprano's key consiglieri's sill on The Sopranos. Recently,
Speaker 1: van Zandt released his memoir Unrequited Infatuations, which details his
Speaker 1: career over the past fifty years Delvin, of course in
Speaker 1: the Street Band, but also in his endeavors as a producer, actor,
Speaker 1: solo artist and activist, including his nineteen eighty five stand
Speaker 1: against South Africa's oppressive regime when he created Artists United
Speaker 1: Against apartheide and recorded the protest songs on City, which
Speaker 1: includes cameos from a slew of artists like You Two,
Speaker 1: Mellie mel Run DMC, and Miles Davis. On today's episode,
Speaker 1: Bruce Headlam talks to Van Zant about the budding New
Speaker 1: Jersey rock and roll scene in the sixties and what
Speaker 1: it was like recording with legendary R and B singers
Speaker 1: like Ronnie Spector and Darlene Love. He also reminisces about
Speaker 1: first meeting Springsteen, who Van Zandt says he saw go
Speaker 1: from a shy kid who was too timid to speak
Speaker 1: to one of the greatest entertainers of our time. This
Speaker 1: is broken round minor notes for the digital age. I'm
Speaker 1: justin Richard. Here's Bruce Headlam with Stevie Van Zane. Well,
Speaker 1: thank you, first of all so much for doing this
Speaker 1: my pleasure. You're singer, songwriter, arranger, producer, award winning actor,
Speaker 1: a creator of and I didn't realize this, the two
Speaker 1: best channels on satellite radio. You also created an outlaw
Speaker 1: country as well as Underground Garage, member of the Street Band,
Speaker 1: and now you're an author. You're the author of a
Speaker 1: new book, Unrequited Infatuations. And there's a lot of requited
Speaker 1: infatuations in the book and some unrequited. We're going to
Speaker 1: talk about them both because it's a theme that runs
Speaker 1: through the book. And you call yourself a consigulary that
Speaker 1: so many times in your life you seem to be
Speaker 1: in this position of having to say something to somebody
Speaker 1: that is so obviously in their self interest and they
Speaker 1: can't quite see it. Were you always that kind of guy?
Speaker 1: Were you always the guy that wasn't afraid to give advice?
Speaker 1: It's certainly I feel part of the obligation of being
Speaker 1: somebody's friend, you know, So it certainly starts there. But
Speaker 1: as you suggest, I have done that with people who
Speaker 1: are not friends. Yeah. And I didn't know this part
Speaker 1: of my brain existed, and I talked about that in
Speaker 1: the book. I mean, I went through the sixties not
Speaker 1: a political thought in my head. Now could you imagine
Speaker 1: such a thing? You know. There was a few things
Speaker 1: going on in the sixties, you know, and I ignored
Speaker 1: all of it. It didn't hit me till the eighties,
Speaker 1: all right, which so I'm already what am I by then?
Speaker 1: I'm in my thirties, And suddenly I just discovered this
Speaker 1: other part of my brain that has the ability to
Speaker 1: reason and and and see logical solutions to complicated problems,
Speaker 1: which was a big surprise to me because I live
Speaker 1: in chaos all the time and in my head, and
Speaker 1: I think every artist does. I think that's partly why
Speaker 1: an artist becomes an artist. I believe to try and
Speaker 1: make some order out of the chaos. You know, something tangible,
Speaker 1: you can see it, touch it, you know. That's so
Speaker 1: that's such a relief, you know, when you walk around
Speaker 1: with all this crazy shit in your head, to actually
Speaker 1: be able to see your work and you that you exist,
Speaker 1: you know, some proof of your existence. You know. So
Speaker 1: I guess, to quote Hyman Roth or to misquote them,
Speaker 1: this is not the business you chose, The business chose you.
Speaker 1: This is this is a role you figured out for yourself. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and and and you know, growing up in a renaissance
Speaker 1: as I did, you really had to have a distinct
Speaker 1: identity as an artist. And that would change come the seventies,
Speaker 1: you know, the hybrids would begin. We no longer were
Speaker 1: a mono culture, and we were very much a mono
Speaker 1: culture in the sixties. Surprisingly or musically, um, I would say,
Speaker 1: even artistically, you know, possibly you could make an argument
Speaker 1: for that that we're you know, we all kind of
Speaker 1: like the same art, you know, in a way. You
Speaker 1: bring up a good point. I wanted to ask you.
Speaker 1: So many musicians I've talked to talk about seeing the
Speaker 1: Beatles for the first time on The Ed Sullivan Show,
Speaker 1: but you had to take that I've never I've never
Speaker 1: heard anybody else have. When you saw them, there was
Speaker 1: something that you saw that you loved. Well, I don't
Speaker 1: know how different it was from everybody else, but I saw,
Speaker 1: you know, hope from my life, which had not been
Speaker 1: very clear at that point. I just was rejecting everything
Speaker 1: society was offering me as options, and suddenly it was
Speaker 1: this really new world. You know, I've never seen a
Speaker 1: band before. You didn't see four or five guys playing
Speaker 1: and singing. I mean, you just didn't exist. Band is uh,
Speaker 1: it's communicating. It's not it's not me, it's us. It's
Speaker 1: the gang, it's the it's the posse, it's it's the family,
Speaker 1: it's the it's friendship. And they do ultimately communicate community,
Speaker 1: and that's what attracted me and I and I and
Speaker 1: I always combined it with the Rolling Stones coming four
Speaker 1: months later, because the Beatles were so good and so different.
Speaker 1: You know, they just were perfect, perfect harmony. You know, everything,
Speaker 1: the hair, the clothes, it was all new, all new,
Speaker 1: and never see anything like it, but I'm sure it
Speaker 1: was exciting. But then four months later, here comes the
Speaker 1: Rolling Stones and they're dressing like whatever they feel like.
Speaker 1: The hair is not perfect except for Brian Jones. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, there's no harmony to speak of. And they
Speaker 1: make it look easier than it is, you know, they're
Speaker 1: they're very casual about it. The most impressive thing to me,
Speaker 1: and I think the biggest moment was seeing that Mick
Speaker 1: Jagger did not smile. And this was another another epiphany,
Speaker 1: you know, that that said, this isn't show business because
Speaker 1: I wasn't interested in show business then. I like it now,
Speaker 1: but I didn't back then. You know, you're building your
Speaker 1: identity and you are what you like, you know, and
Speaker 1: so the fact that he didn't smile said this is
Speaker 1: not show business. This is uh, this is the lifestyle.
Speaker 1: And I and I said, I want, I want, I
Speaker 1: want that lifestyle. It's interesting. The Stones made it seem
Speaker 1: like more of a possibility though. Yeah. They were really
Speaker 1: the first punk band. They did exactly what the punks
Speaker 1: did in the seventies, which was make it look easy.
Speaker 1: Learned three chords and and and you know, make a record, yeah,
Speaker 1: forget about all that. Yes, and Rush you know, and
Speaker 1: Emerson Lake and Palmer stuff. You know, just play a
Speaker 1: couple of chords and turn it up. You know. She
Speaker 1: se that was the stuff I was exposed to when
Speaker 1: I was a kid, and I never became a musician
Speaker 1: because I thought that's too hard, and that was extremely
Speaker 1: you know, evolved, sophisticated, you know, part of the business,
Speaker 1: you know. But the Stones were, you know, they they
Speaker 1: were missionaries for the blues and an early R and B.
Speaker 1: And they're great accomplishment which nobody ever gives them credit for.
Speaker 1: They were never a pop band, and the fact that
Speaker 1: they crossed over to the pop charts, you know, for
Speaker 1: fifty years, there's a rather remarkable achievement. Yeah. Was it
Speaker 1: through those British artists than you learned more about American music? Yeah,
Speaker 1: forget it. I never heard of Chuck Berry. I never
Speaker 1: heard about the Muddy Waters. No, why why would I?
Speaker 1: How would I? They weren't on a radio, not when
Speaker 1: I was not when I was a teenager. All the
Speaker 1: pioneers had come and gone blues. Well you never heard it.
Speaker 1: Where would you hear blues? You know? So all that
Speaker 1: stuff was brand new to me. We didn't know who
Speaker 1: who was writing what. I didn't even think about that,
Speaker 1: you know, until later, untill they till they started talking
Speaker 1: about those guys, you know, and they were they were
Speaker 1: putting their influences right on their sleeves, and and uh
Speaker 1: and and really promoting those artists and and and thankfully
Speaker 1: they did and uh we got a chance to learn
Speaker 1: all about our own music. Then when did the band
Speaker 1: start for you? When did you start playing in a band? Um?
Speaker 1: I remember exactly because I started as a singer with
Speaker 1: a neighbor's band called the Shadows. And I remember the
Speaker 1: first thing I did on stage was singing like a
Speaker 1: rolling stone. So it would have been sixty five, And
Speaker 1: then I started learning to play a guitar and I
Speaker 1: got pretty good. I think I started my own band
Speaker 1: would have been maybe sixty six into sixty seven. I
Speaker 1: started my band The Source, at which point I was,
Speaker 1: you know, lead guitar and singer. But I started off
Speaker 1: as just a singer. We hear now so much about
Speaker 1: that Jersey scene and all the musicians that came out
Speaker 1: of it. Can you tell me what was it like
Speaker 1: when you started, when you were looking around for clubs
Speaker 1: places to play. There's like three stages of the rock life.
Speaker 1: You know. There's the teenage years, which is the most fun,
Speaker 1: especially in those days because it was just being invented,
Speaker 1: which meant The adults had no idea what you were
Speaker 1: doing and would not think to try and tell you
Speaker 1: what to do, So you had complete freedom, which was
Speaker 1: a lot of fun and that and that lasted until
Speaker 1: you got to the bar. The bar years, which is
Speaker 1: a second stage, and that's a whole different story. They
Speaker 1: told you exactly what to play. You had to play
Speaker 1: top forty, and you had to look a certain way,
Speaker 1: and there were these show bands that were all very popular.
Speaker 1: You had to be extremely good at copying records and
Speaker 1: make sure you did it exactly right before you got
Speaker 1: to the bar scene. Were there like clubs that kids
Speaker 1: could go to because the drinking age was still twenty
Speaker 1: one in New Jersey back when you were doing it,
Speaker 1: So was there a place like an eighteen year old
Speaker 1: could go and hear a band? Well, it was better
Speaker 1: than that. We had teenage nightclubs. You might have had
Speaker 1: to be I don't know, well, Latin devous. I don't
Speaker 1: know if there was a minimum age to get into
Speaker 1: La teen Devous. Anyway, it was there were teenage clubs
Speaker 1: and upstage in Asbury Park was up a little different
Speaker 1: because it was open from eight o'clock at night till
Speaker 1: five in the morning. So I think you had to
Speaker 1: be You might have had to be sixteen to get
Speaker 1: in that one. But there were clubs and all kinds
Speaker 1: of places to play. We were we were working like
Speaker 1: crazy all the time. I mean high school dances, the
Speaker 1: VFW halls, the beach clubs. I mean Bruce used to
Speaker 1: joke about these, you know. Uh, you know, if you
Speaker 1: wanted if you wanted this new thing called rock and
Speaker 1: hall in your club, you had to go to the kids,
Speaker 1: you know, because the older bands that were the show
Speaker 1: bands or the the wedding bands, they didn't get it yet.
Speaker 1: They weren't they weren't playing this rock stuff yet. So
Speaker 1: you know, if you want to hire a you know,
Speaker 1: rock and roll band, you had to hire fifteen year
Speaker 1: olds because they're the only one's doing it. It's a
Speaker 1: fascinating thing to think about, you know. Can I ask
Speaker 1: you just for a minute to talk about Ronnie Specter,
Speaker 1: who was an important, really important person in your life,
Speaker 1: and you are an important person in hers. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: we we um. Of course. You know, everybody had fallen
Speaker 1: in love with with her voice, and and and in
Speaker 1: that late sixteenth early seventies period really became reacquainted with
Speaker 1: all that, all of those oldies, you know that we're
Speaker 1: just you know, seventy seven years earlier or whatever. You know,
Speaker 1: things were happening very quickly in those days. Uh so,
Speaker 1: you know, become reacquainted with with all that, all of
Speaker 1: that pioneer stuff, and just I fell in love with
Speaker 1: the whole girl group thing. What was she like in
Speaker 1: the studio? What was she like to be in that
Speaker 1: studio with that voice? You're a little nervous because you
Speaker 1: know it had been a while and she and she.
Speaker 1: I mean the thing about every all the fifties and
Speaker 1: sixties artists that I've worked with, and I worked with
Speaker 1: quite a few, it's always a joy because they're just better.
Speaker 1: You know, they're better because they had to be better.
Speaker 1: You know, there's no auto tune in those days, and
Speaker 1: it was not even that much editing. I mean, they
Speaker 1: did a little bit, but you basically had to sing
Speaker 1: a song from beginning to end and sing it in
Speaker 1: tune and sing the right melody. You know, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. You had to be great. It was
Speaker 1: just that was just the standard. All of those artists.
Speaker 1: You know, when you work with them, it's like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, what a joy. This is you know, can
Speaker 1: you think of particular people who sort of surprised you
Speaker 1: that way. It's always a surprise in a way because
Speaker 1: you're not used to it. In her case, it was
Speaker 1: a little bit shy about what she was doing. Me
Speaker 1: and Bruce were like, something, something's not quite you know, right,
Speaker 1: what is it? And we realized, well, she's not using
Speaker 1: the vibrato like she used to, so we reminded her,
Speaker 1: you know, you know this vibrato thing that he used
Speaker 1: to do, you know, and then it kind of came
Speaker 1: back to her, you know, oh yeah, yeah, yeah. But
Speaker 1: the the other big surprise to me, I mean, I
Speaker 1: mean was Gary was Bonds, who you know. Bruce said,
Speaker 1: let's do a record with Gary Gary Bonds, And I
Speaker 1: loved Gary's records and I had met him on the
Speaker 1: on the oldies circuit. Just a great guy. But I
Speaker 1: was like, you know, when you listen to Gary's records,
Speaker 1: you know quarter to three and New Orleans, you know,
Speaker 1: they literally like he invented the party, the party record.
Speaker 1: They sound like a party. They sound like they recorded
Speaker 1: in his garage. You know, He's just not the kind
Speaker 1: of guy you would think, you know, of the great
Speaker 1: voices of the Pioneer years. You just never would think
Speaker 1: of Gary Bonds. I'm sorry, you know, And I said
Speaker 1: to Bruce, I said, you know, Benny King's around, Chuck
Speaker 1: Jackson's around, Wilson Pickets around. You know, at that point,
Speaker 1: David Ruffin it was still around, you know, Smokey Robinson,
Speaker 1: you know, you know, I think Curtis Mayfield was still around.
Speaker 1: I mean I gave him a list of like fifty
Speaker 1: of the most incredible singers in all of all time,
Speaker 1: and he says, no, no, I want to work with Gary.
Speaker 1: You know, I really like him, and so we get
Speaker 1: in a studio with him, and a guy is just
Speaker 1: one of the greatest soul singers of all time. And
Speaker 1: I mean you would never know it from his records.
Speaker 1: And I don't know how Bruce knew it. He went
Speaker 1: and saw him live and maybe he got the indication
Speaker 1: from from the live show. But he's great on the
Speaker 1: album we did. Then we did a second album, which
Speaker 1: nobody heard. You know, we had a hit single on
Speaker 1: the first album which was incredible, So people heard that
Speaker 1: first album, but most people never heard the second album,
Speaker 1: which Bruce wrote the whole thing. You know, After all
Speaker 1: knew Bruce Springstein songs and Gary is singing like you
Speaker 1: cannot believe incredible. It's one of my favorite productions that
Speaker 1: I've ever done. And I'm not even sure it's available.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna see what's available these days. But anyway, Gary,
Speaker 1: I think Gary was a was a big surprise to me.
Speaker 1: And that wasn't the case with Ronnie, and that wasn't
Speaker 1: the case with you know, Darlie Love. You know when
Speaker 1: I when I finally produced Darlene Love, I mean I
Speaker 1: knew she was the greatest singer in the world, and
Speaker 1: and she was and is right now, you know, at
Speaker 1: the age of eighty. We have to take a break,
Speaker 1: but we'll be back with more of Bruce Adlam's conversation
Speaker 1: with Stevie Van Zanne. We're back with more of Stevie
Speaker 1: van Zan and Bruce Hadlam. Let's go back a bit
Speaker 1: and talk about your relationship with Bruce Springsteen. When did
Speaker 1: you guys first meet? We met on the circuit, you know, um,
Speaker 1: the day before the Beatles played at Sullivan. There was
Speaker 1: no bands in America. The day after everyone everyone had
Speaker 1: a band and they most of mostly mercifully stayed in
Speaker 1: the garage. But but but a dozen of us got
Speaker 1: out and we all knew each other because it was
Speaker 1: only literally a dozen bands if that in our area.
Speaker 1: So we all knew each other. And then, um, I
Speaker 1: started going to the village. Was about an hour on
Speaker 1: the bus, but it was you know, exotic, you know,
Speaker 1: it was it was unusual thing to do. I don't
Speaker 1: even know what would have occurred to me to do that.
Speaker 1: I never thought about this before, but anyway, I started
Speaker 1: doing it and going to the cafe wa and and
Speaker 1: and and you'd see bands all afternoon, and then I'd
Speaker 1: come home Saturday night. Um and you would, you know,
Speaker 1: see things that were a year ahead of where New
Speaker 1: Jersey was, so I would, you know, steal what I
Speaker 1: could steal and use it with my band, you know.
Speaker 1: And I started running into Bruce doing the same thing.
Speaker 1: You thinking about it now, it's pretty weird. You know,
Speaker 1: We're not only going to the same part of town
Speaker 1: in New York City, but we're going the same club.
Speaker 1: There's dozens of clubs. So we got friendlier because of
Speaker 1: that and started coming up to the city together. And
Speaker 1: I go over to his house and he started playing
Speaker 1: the songs he was writing. He was that far ahead,
Speaker 1: he was he was writing even then. You describe him
Speaker 1: as being very focused. Yeah, he was the most focused
Speaker 1: guy ever. He just knew exactly where he was going.
Speaker 1: He knew and nothing was gonna stop him, nothing because
Speaker 1: there was no other There really was no plan B
Speaker 1: for people like us. I mean I was a little
Speaker 1: bit more, uh, you know, I was a little bit
Speaker 1: more social than he was. You know, I took a
Speaker 1: bunch of jobs. You wears construction. He never did that. Yeah, yeah, no, no,
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't know if he ever had any
Speaker 1: other job. He managed to somehow make a living playing
Speaker 1: rock and roll from the very beginning, and let me
Speaker 1: tell you, it wasn't easy. He just was very very
Speaker 1: focused on it because I think, like me, it was
Speaker 1: it was this incredible gift of a new world where
Speaker 1: we finally could imagine fitting in. Because as freaky as
Speaker 1: I was, he was even freakier. I was a little
Speaker 1: bit more social. He didn't say two words, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean, if you picture the grunge guys with hair
Speaker 1: down to their knees and just staring down playing and
Speaker 1: and and not saying a word, that's him and h
Speaker 1: watching this very very shy guy turn into the world's
Speaker 1: greatest entertainer was quite a front row seat to a
Speaker 1: remarkable transformation. You had this beautiful quote, which I think
Speaker 1: people who've seen him will of course recognize, which is
Speaker 1: you said in concert he wanted to provide irrefutable proof
Speaker 1: that life had meaning. Yeah. Is that a quality you
Speaker 1: saw from the beginning in him or is that something
Speaker 1: he developed over time? Well? Yeah, but but it was
Speaker 1: rock and roll was giving us life. So we're passing
Speaker 1: it along, you know, we're passing the life force that
Speaker 1: that is and was passing it through us, you know,
Speaker 1: in an exchange of energy with audiences. You know, when
Speaker 1: when when he became conscious, which was the darkness era,
Speaker 1: you know, suddenly everything changed. He found his identity, he
Speaker 1: found an identity for what he was going to be
Speaker 1: as a performer, and Ash and the and the show
Speaker 1: from that moment on. You know, it's very different through
Speaker 1: Born to Run. It's just an entirely different identity, an
Speaker 1: entirely different justification for existence. You know, at that point,
Speaker 1: it became very conscious we are going to do a
Speaker 1: show with substance. Basically, substance became a thing. You know. No,
Speaker 1: this is fascinating to me because I'll bet you, every
Speaker 1: Springsteen fan down to the last one thinks of his
Speaker 1: career in terms of the first two albums, and then
Speaker 1: he emerges with Born to Run. But you believe that
Speaker 1: Darkness was really his first fully realized album. Why why
Speaker 1: do you feel that way? Yeah, the fans and even journalists,
Speaker 1: they're not wrong as far as the Born to Rue
Speaker 1: being sort of a birth of the moment when people
Speaker 1: discovered him. But what was fascinating to me, and something
Speaker 1: I didn't really think about until I wrote the book, Well,
Speaker 1: you know, when you finally get discovered by the world,
Speaker 1: it's a miracle and you better embrace it with both arms,
Speaker 1: you know. So in this case, he there's a whole
Speaker 1: transformation of himself from those first two albums to becoming
Speaker 1: this front guy. You know, that's why I joined the band,
Speaker 1: and the whole identity change at that point to this
Speaker 1: character that you know inhabits the entire Born to Run album.
Speaker 1: And it wasn't the big hit people think it was,
Speaker 1: but it but it certainly was substantial. And what's fascinating
Speaker 1: is instead of embracing it with both arms and being thankful,
Speaker 1: he realized somewhere here somewhere in the in the touring
Speaker 1: of Born to Run, or into the writing of Darkness
Speaker 1: on the Edge of the Town. Somewhere in that period
Speaker 1: he just realized that wasn't going to be him. He
Speaker 1: just wasn't that guy, and he wasn't going to be
Speaker 1: that guy the rest of his life. So it was like, sorry, folks,
Speaker 1: I know I asked you to fall in love with me,
Speaker 1: and you did, and I really appreciate that. But I'm
Speaker 1: gonna go one hundred and eighty degrees here and revealed
Speaker 1: to you that I'm actually a whole different guy. And
Speaker 1: it was a very courageous thing to do, and hours
Speaker 1: and hours of discussion that he had with John Landau,
Speaker 1: I think confirmed that the guy that we're running at.
Speaker 1: It was the line, we're leaving his town. It's a
Speaker 1: town full of losers, so we're getting out of here
Speaker 1: to win, right. I do love that you're asking me
Speaker 1: the lyric I think you've probably heard you may have
Speaker 1: heard it a couple of times more than me. But
Speaker 1: that but that that thing, that identity of you know,
Speaker 1: grab the chick out of the you know, from the
Speaker 1: tough town, put the chick on the motorcycle, and ride
Speaker 1: out of town into the into the sunset and you know,
Speaker 1: let's let's go to another world thing, which was extremely
Speaker 1: attractive and then wonderful. It's a Chuck Berry had the word,
Speaker 1: it's he's motivating and by the way, and in that
Speaker 1: this generation gap of really a tough relationship with his
Speaker 1: father as part of that whole thing, very adversarial. That
Speaker 1: was the vibe. Well boom, he says on dar I'm
Speaker 1: not leaving. I'm staying. And not only that, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: defend my father and I might become my father, you
Speaker 1: know in some ways. You know, I'm gonna I'm gonna
Speaker 1: accept the fact that I'm I'm his son and all
Speaker 1: that goes with it, which means we're gonna make this
Speaker 1: work from where I am. We're not running away. We're
Speaker 1: gonna stay and fight huge difference. And he had the
Speaker 1: talent and the balls and you know, the band to
Speaker 1: back it up and pull that off and and take
Speaker 1: the audience with him, you know, which not not not
Speaker 1: a given man, not a given. You know, they might
Speaker 1: have loved they might have liked that other guy too much.
Speaker 1: You know, they liked that guy on the motorcycle. You
Speaker 1: know what I mean, all of a sudden, here's a guy. Uh,
Speaker 1: I was gonna work in the factory. And you know
Speaker 1: though you know all that, and uh, it was a big,
Speaker 1: big difference. But he had something else, which is he
Speaker 1: had you, and you know you came in. There's a
Speaker 1: very I think it's a very telling scene. I think
Speaker 1: you're talking about tenth Avenue freeze out. I might be
Speaker 1: wrong because you didn't like the horns. Yeah, and and
Speaker 1: and he says we'll do something about it with a
Speaker 1: few expletives, and you say, you know, he says it loudly,
Speaker 1: so everybody pretending to be the boss, and I pretend
Speaker 1: to do it, so everybody thinks he's the boss. And
Speaker 1: it's just very it's this very interesting little play you
Speaker 1: guys were doing. Yeah, it was, you know. At first
Speaker 1: he started calling himself the boss in Adsbury Park and
Speaker 1: it was kind of a joke, you know, because kind
Speaker 1: of a play on Frank Sinatra, you know, right. And
Speaker 1: I was very strong locally. I was very very strong
Speaker 1: boss in my own world, very strong, as strong as
Speaker 1: as he was. Some would say stronger in some ways,
Speaker 1: you know. But I saw something in him that was
Speaker 1: special and I and I thought, you know, I could
Speaker 1: see my gifts complimenting his gifts. You know. So when
Speaker 1: I joined his band, people were shocked. And when I
Speaker 1: started calling him the boss, uh, suddenly it became a
Speaker 1: little bit different because here's a boss calling him the boss.
Speaker 1: You know. So it wasn't just some affectation. It wasn't
Speaker 1: some kind of joke anymore. He's a serious guy who
Speaker 1: was saying, no, no, I'm not the boss. He's the boss.
Speaker 1: You know. Did you like being a boss when you're
Speaker 1: the boss? Yes? And no. You know, I I do
Speaker 1: like being in control to a large extent, But I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't need the spotlight. I don't. I don't crave it.
Speaker 1: You know, I don't really like it. You know, I can,
Speaker 1: I can tolerate it. You know when I got quite
Speaker 1: good at it, you know, in the eighties, I really
Speaker 1: became quite a good front man. But um, I don't
Speaker 1: like it. I don't. I don't. I don't. I don't
Speaker 1: like being in a spotlight. I really don't. I recognize
Speaker 1: you know, a lot of a lot of good goals
Speaker 1: with that. You Oh, like I got a constelia or
Speaker 1: anunder boss or a producer. I mean, if I had
Speaker 1: to identify myself, I would identify myself as a writer, producer.
Speaker 1: You know. That's what counts to me, is the creativity.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's fun, you know, it's fun being a
Speaker 1: rock star, you know, and it's fun being an actor.
Speaker 1: But that's not how I That's not my uh most
Speaker 1: satisfying part of my being. You know, that's that's sort
Speaker 1: of the vacation, that's the that's the reward, you know,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, that's that's the fun part.
Speaker 1: But again, in this I guess if I had to
Speaker 1: sum it up, I'm sure Bruce Springsteen had a lot
Speaker 1: of people telling him what he wanted to hear. You're great,
Speaker 1: You're this, You're that. You seem to be the one
Speaker 1: that can tell him what he needs needed to hear.
Speaker 1: You don't want this arrangement. Nebraska is not an album
Speaker 1: for the band. But that's a tough position to be
Speaker 1: in because you know, he can start to resent you
Speaker 1: if you're right too often. He can be like, uh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm a little sick of you being right. Well, the
Speaker 1: three fights we've had I put in a book in
Speaker 1: great detail because of that, exactly what you're saying. You know,
Speaker 1: nobody wants to really hear it, you know, But as
Speaker 1: I said, I felt it was an obligation as a
Speaker 1: friend to do that. And what am I getting from it?
Speaker 1: Nothing but kicked out of the house, kicked out of
Speaker 1: a band, you know, well, and you you did, You
Speaker 1: did say at eighty three, you just you felt he
Speaker 1: had stopped listening, and so you left the band. That
Speaker 1: was the occasion when I left. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I left.
Speaker 1: I left. I left myself at that point, and it
Speaker 1: was it was hard. You you said, you felt like
Speaker 1: you were being written out of history, even though it
Speaker 1: was your own choice. Yeah, it was. It was a
Speaker 1: kind of a spontaneous move that I felt compelled to
Speaker 1: do at the time. I'm not sure I really weighed
Speaker 1: the consequences of it. I just felt like, you know,
Speaker 1: I need to leave in order to preserve the friendship.
Speaker 1: The friendship was more important to me at that moment
Speaker 1: than my own career, so to speak, because I never really,
Speaker 1: I never really separated any of these things. I don't
Speaker 1: separate career from the art, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: from the friendship, from the band. I mean, it's all
Speaker 1: it's all one thing, you know. I didn't quite realize
Speaker 1: that at that moment until it hit me on a
Speaker 1: plane flight to South Africa that I didn't just change jobs,
Speaker 1: I just ended my life and I would become a
Speaker 1: different person at that moment. I would become fearless in
Speaker 1: a way, which I think helped me in my research
Speaker 1: for South Africa and made me go a little bit
Speaker 1: deeper than I probably would have normally, because I didn't
Speaker 1: care whether I lived or died. So when you when
Speaker 1: you stopped caring about living, it has a funny liberating
Speaker 1: effect on you. Sorry, was that related to you leaving
Speaker 1: the band? You stopped caring what you lived or died?
Speaker 1: Or did you just feel you're in a moral I
Speaker 1: realized I worked for fifteen years to get to that point.
Speaker 1: We just start making money, We just got We just successful,
Speaker 1: you know for two years at that point. In a
Speaker 1: River was the first success I produced, most of Born
Speaker 1: in the USA in eighty two. And I leave, So
Speaker 1: we had only been successful for a year or two
Speaker 1: after fifteen years of work, and I walked away. And
Speaker 1: now what you can start all over again, which is yes,
Speaker 1: that's what I had to do. I start all over
Speaker 1: again and never never, never even approached the level of
Speaker 1: success that I walked away from We'll be back after
Speaker 1: a quick break with more from Stevie Van Zanne. We're
Speaker 1: back with the rest of Bruce Hellum's conversation with Stevie
Speaker 1: Van Zan. You started doing your own albums, and I
Speaker 1: want to ask a bit about those. I want to
Speaker 1: ask about the song Checkpoint Charlie. Can you tell me
Speaker 1: a bit about that writing? Yeah, that was you know,
Speaker 1: I had Each album was had a theme, and that
Speaker 1: particular album, the second album of Voice of America, the
Speaker 1: theme was how the government affects families and that was
Speaker 1: the ultimate perfect metaphor. What was the Berlin Wall? You know, literally,
Speaker 1: you know, politics separating families. Me and Bruce had gone
Speaker 1: through Checkpoint Charlie into East Berlin, and man was a
Speaker 1: scary I mean, it was the twilight zone for real. Well,
Speaker 1: I don't think we stayed too long, hour or two maybe,
Speaker 1: but uh, and I wrote a song about it, you know,
Speaker 1: which was we're punishing these people for their father's crimes
Speaker 1: and all that. It was a perfect metaphor. Can you
Speaker 1: talk a bit about another really memorable song on those albums,
Speaker 1: which is Saint Valentine's Day. Yeah, that's one of my favorites.
Speaker 1: That's a recent recent song. I was gonna work with
Speaker 1: Nancy Sinatra and I wrote this song for her and
Speaker 1: and uh, I still hope to do it with her.
Speaker 1: I don't. I'm not sure what went wrong at the time,
Speaker 1: but I ended up doing with the cocktail Slippers and
Speaker 1: and then it became the song in David Chase's first
Speaker 1: movie that his fictitious band was writing. And then I
Speaker 1: just did it on my last tour on the Soulfire album.
Speaker 1: We should talk a bit about sun City and how
Speaker 1: you brought people together. One thing I had forgotten was
Speaker 1: that it was it was a year before run DMC
Speaker 1: did Walk This Way. It was kind of the first
Speaker 1: metal rap song. Yeah, not metal but but but rock
Speaker 1: rock rock rap. Yeah. It was a very big issue
Speaker 1: at the time because, you know, me and Danny first
Speaker 1: started talking. I said, I want to put this new
Speaker 1: thing called rap on the record, and he was totally
Speaker 1: into it. It was one of those things that I
Speaker 1: had I had been very very aware of black artists
Speaker 1: not being able to express themselves as opposed to white artists.
Speaker 1: We were expected to express ourselves. That was part of
Speaker 1: a part of being an artist. But h Marvin Gay
Speaker 1: had a you know, fight with Barry Gordy and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, and then Stevie Wonder had a you know
Speaker 1: kind of fight for his freedom, and Sly and family Stone,
Speaker 1: you know, got into a little bit. But it was
Speaker 1: it was unusual, and it was not encouraged, and I thought, well,
Speaker 1: this rap thing, this is interesting, man. This is the
Speaker 1: first time that you know, I'm here in black artists
Speaker 1: expressed themselves and I want to encourage it. And so,
Speaker 1: uh well, I mean, the whole, the whole, the whole
Speaker 1: Sun City album is basically Arthur Baker's phone book, you know.
Speaker 1: And I always, you know, I always make sure I
Speaker 1: mentioned all four of us because it literally was all
Speaker 1: four of us doing it. I mean, without Danny Scheckter,
Speaker 1: nobody would have ever heard of it. Arthur Baker, it's his,
Speaker 1: it's his phone book on the record, and Hart Perry,
Speaker 1: if he hadn't videotaped it, nobody would have ever heard
Speaker 1: of it because it wasn't a big hit on the charts, right,
Speaker 1: it was a big hit on TV. Radio wouldn't play it.
Speaker 1: Radio said it was too black for white radio, and
Speaker 1: two white for black radio. Was I. I had a
Speaker 1: big meeting with MTV because they were having big problems
Speaker 1: at the time. They weren't playing any black artists, you know,
Speaker 1: and I said, well, here's a here's a solution to that.
Speaker 1: You know, we got more black artists in his video
Speaker 1: He'll take care of your whole quota for the year.
Speaker 1: Ye and b Et of course also played it extensively
Speaker 1: in a Black Entertainment but but that was it radio.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't't play it. You sort of say how the
Speaker 1: nineties were lost to you a little bit, but then
Speaker 1: you did a lot of stop during the nineties, which
Speaker 1: I was reminded of writing the book, because you're like, huh,
Speaker 1: so it's a blank spot in my head. Really, you're
Speaker 1: doing these projects you're doing. You did You're Born Against
Speaker 1: Savage album, you put together a Demolition twenty three, you
Speaker 1: did the Darling Love album, and there's this there's this refrain,
Speaker 1: and you actually mentioned it earlier in the conversation. You
Speaker 1: would talk about how this is some of your best work,
Speaker 1: and then the section would always end with nobody heard
Speaker 1: it for business reasons, for whatever popularity reason. You just
Speaker 1: had this feeling that no one was hearing you in
Speaker 1: a way. What was that like, Well, it was frustrating.
Speaker 1: You know, it was a little frustrating. You know. I
Speaker 1: attribute that to not having a manager. And uh, you know,
Speaker 1: the creative process is two things. You know, it's the
Speaker 1: content and it's the marketing of that content, and they're
Speaker 1: kind of not two different things, they're kind of two
Speaker 1: halves of the same thing. And you can create all
Speaker 1: day long, and I don't know, you know, but you
Speaker 1: got to have somebody out there selling it. It's a
Speaker 1: big It was a big, a big flaw, you know,
Speaker 1: in my life, and and I just, uh I tried,
Speaker 1: I tried. I tried to find find somebody, and uh,
Speaker 1: it just it just never worked out. So I ended
Speaker 1: up doing a lot of good work. I think that
Speaker 1: that nobody heard. You had a conversation with Bruce Springsteen
Speaker 1: at one point because you were going to play at
Speaker 1: a festival. You hadn't headlined for a while, and you
Speaker 1: lost your voice, and he said something to me that
Speaker 1: I thought was kind of fascinating. You said, well, you
Speaker 1: can tell he's been in Freudian an analysis time. Do
Speaker 1: you remember what he said to you. I had not
Speaker 1: sung or performed my own music for thirty years at
Speaker 1: that point, so I'm re experiencing them for the first time,
Speaker 1: and I couldn't get through a lot of the songs
Speaker 1: without crying. And when you cry, you your voice tightens up.
Speaker 1: And it was just an odd phenomenon that I had
Speaker 1: never experienced before because you realize that you didn't have
Speaker 1: the buffer, you know, the buffer of you know, doing
Speaker 1: things over and over, you know, the repetition and the redundancy,
Speaker 1: and and you put away the that raw emotion that
Speaker 1: creates the song. You get a little distance from it.
Speaker 1: And what happened was suddenly I was I'm thinking about
Speaker 1: the words that I'm that I'm singing, and feeling that
Speaker 1: that interaction with those chord changes and the melodies, and
Speaker 1: it was just pure emotion, you know, in that in
Speaker 1: a way that you don't usually experience it because you
Speaker 1: have that little little bit of distance from doing it.
Speaker 1: And yeah, Bruce and Bruce had a had a psycholo
Speaker 1: a psychoanalytical thing on it, which was yeah, which by
Speaker 1: what he said, or was it koop be trow coopy
Speaker 1: trow You know. Yeah, you run one of the only
Speaker 1: channels that a breaks new bands and b plays new
Speaker 1: music by older artists, So you seem to be the
Speaker 1: person who might know this. What is next for rock music,
Speaker 1: the music you love? H I don't know, it's it's
Speaker 1: it's uh. I've been spent I spent the last twenty
Speaker 1: years trying to rebuild an infrastructure for it which has gone.
Speaker 1: We now have returned to being the cult where we started,
Speaker 1: you know, we returned to nineteen fifty five. So the
Speaker 1: job right now, I think it is for us to
Speaker 1: try rebuild an infrastructure that can can at least create
Speaker 1: a healthy cult it. We're never going to be mainstream again.
Speaker 1: That was a blip in a radar, an anomaly in history,
Speaker 1: that thirty year period where rock ruled. We probably belong
Speaker 1: in a cult, the truth is, but let's we're trying
Speaker 1: to make it a healthy cult where people can make
Speaker 1: a living doing it. And that's been that's been a challenge.
Speaker 1: And what's next for your music? I don't know, you know,
Speaker 1: every record could be the last. I write with purpose,
Speaker 1: so I don't, I don't, I don't, you know, write
Speaker 1: all day long. I write when I have a reason
Speaker 1: to write, and you know that usually involves a record,
Speaker 1: and it usually involves a tour, unless it's something for
Speaker 1: a movie, you know, which is possible, you know, but
Speaker 1: it was very difficult touring these last two tours seventeen
Speaker 1: eighteen and nineteen the busiest I've ever been. Six album packages,
Speaker 1: two new albums Soul Fire and Summer of Sorcery, and
Speaker 1: two world tours. But it was very difficult taking around
Speaker 1: fifteen piece band and you know, thirty five person touring
Speaker 1: party with you know, I'm sure that's the only time
Speaker 1: that's ever happened with an artist with no hits. You
Speaker 1: you're the only guy who writes a book to unwind. Yeah,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for talking. It's been just fabulous
Speaker 1: talking to you, and it's great reading your book. Thank you,
Speaker 1: my friend. Good talking to you. Thank you to Stevie
Speaker 1: van Zant for taking us through his history as an
Speaker 1: artist and sharing insight into his new memoir, Unrequited Infatuations.
Speaker 1: You can check out a playlist with all of our
Speaker 1: favorite Stevie songs at Broken Record podcast dot com, and
Speaker 1: be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel at YouTube
Speaker 1: dot com slash broken Record Podcast, where we can find
Speaker 1: all of our new episodes. Broken Record is produced it
Speaker 1: helpful Leah Rose, Benalida, Eric Sandler, and Jennifer Sanchez with
Speaker 1: engineering help from Nick Chaffee. Our executive producer is Mio Lobell.
Speaker 1: Broken Record is a production of Pushkin Industries. If you
Speaker 1: love this show and others and Pushkin, consider subscribing to
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Speaker 1: and please remember to share, rate, and re view us
Speaker 1: on your podcast app. If you like us. Our musics
Speaker 1: by Kenny Beats. I'm justin Richmond.