Speaker 1: I'm Alec Baldwin and you were listening to Here's the
Speaker 1: Thing from My Heart Radio. A few performers cross over
Speaker 1: from one artistic medium to another and achieved great success
Speaker 1: in both. My Guest Today Stephen van zandt known as
Speaker 1: Little Stephen to some, is one such performer. Singer, songwriter,
Speaker 1: and producer. Van Zand first found fame as a member
Speaker 1: of the Eastreet Band with Bruce Springsteen, but this prolific
Speaker 1: musician also founded New Jersey's own Southside Johnny and the
Speaker 1: Asbury Jukes, along with his solo project Little Stephen and
Speaker 1: the Disciples of Soul. In a surprising second act, van
Speaker 1: Zand starred as the inimitable Silvio Dante in The Sopranos
Speaker 1: for nine years with no prior acting experience. It was
Speaker 1: a role that certainly made its mark on me. There
Speaker 1: was a period of my life of about three or
Speaker 1: four years where I was divorced, I had my daughter.
Speaker 1: I needed stability in my life. Sunday night, I watched
Speaker 1: sixty Minutes nine o'clock, I watched You. Ten o'clock, I
Speaker 1: watched Big Love, and then I went to bed. And
Speaker 1: any show you watch, it gets in your skin. And
Speaker 1: my friend and I we would say this line all
Speaker 1: the time. You gotta pick your bottles, you want, you know,
Speaker 1: show jobs, petos, gotta go. It's the right move too,
Speaker 1: It's the right move Tea. We would walk around for
Speaker 1: five fucking years and we'd be in a restaurant, my
Speaker 1: friends and I go, waiter, I'm gonna have the chicken,
Speaker 1: but I don't want to with the onions. I want
Speaker 1: the onions on the side, you understand. I want the
Speaker 1: fingering potatoes and you can hold the spinach. I don't
Speaker 1: want the cream spinah. I just want the potatoes, onions
Speaker 1: on the side and the chicken, all right. And my
Speaker 1: friend would at me and go, it's the right move, tea.
Speaker 1: We said the phase. It's the right move Tea a
Speaker 1: thousand fucking time us since I first heard you utter
Speaker 1: that on the show. I am your great fan. I
Speaker 1: am you're a great fan. Well, I am yours. The
Speaker 1: first thing I thought about when I thought about you,
Speaker 1: when I was, you know, reading the stuff that research
Speaker 1: we did, was that idea, Because I want to cover
Speaker 1: music and acting as well. And then is it for you?
Speaker 1: It's live music, You're in front of an audience and
Speaker 1: you're getting all that feedback from a live audience and you, guys,
Speaker 1: I must say, I got a pretty good feedback, got
Speaker 1: a pretty good response. And then you're in a studio recording,
Speaker 1: and then you're filming a television show and you bring
Speaker 1: the language, and you bring the traditions, and you're bringing
Speaker 1: the habits of the musician, the famous musician, and you
Speaker 1: go into the TV show the set. Was it a
Speaker 1: difficult transition for you? Yeah? At first, yeah, because, um,
Speaker 1: you know, acting is is a lot of trust and
Speaker 1: I and you know, if the director is happy, you
Speaker 1: got to be happy. And that was a new kind
Speaker 1: of trust from a we're used to kind of directing
Speaker 1: ourselves in the music world. And I said to myself,
Speaker 1: how does he know if that's as good as I
Speaker 1: can do it? You know, And in the music world,
Speaker 1: you know, you go in the studio, you sing a song,
Speaker 1: and you come in the control room and listen to
Speaker 1: it and you say, well, you know, maybe I could,
Speaker 1: maybe I could do it better. Let me go, let
Speaker 1: me go in and try it again. Acting. You know,
Speaker 1: you act, and then you see it, you know, eight
Speaker 1: months later and it's like, jeez, uh, I probably could
Speaker 1: have done that a little bit better if I had known.
Speaker 1: So it just took a it took a minute to
Speaker 1: just to trust the process, you know, and trust the
Speaker 1: new medium, and it's a whole different trip. You were
Speaker 1: born in Massachusetts, correct, correct and raised and you moved
Speaker 1: to Jersey as a kid. Yeah seven, and you grew
Speaker 1: up in uh, in New Jersey, and these two most notable.
Speaker 1: I mean, you obviously had o the successes as a
Speaker 1: solo artist and with other bands and ensembles and stuff
Speaker 1: for the recording, but you know, you're you're identified as
Speaker 1: both on television and on vinyl and c D as
Speaker 1: a son of New Jersey when you got hired by
Speaker 1: Chase to do the TV show, Did that ever any
Speaker 1: need to do with anything? Yes? Actually, first of all,
Speaker 1: everybody passed on the show because he insisted on filming
Speaker 1: in New Jersey. Uh and every respectable network has said,
Speaker 1: you know, we don't film in New Jersey, thank you
Speaker 1: very much. Good Uh. Luckily he found he's this upstart
Speaker 1: you no new guy named Hbo who had like a
Speaker 1: football show and a couple of movies on at the time,
Speaker 1: and they had the the courage to go for it,
Speaker 1: and he was looking for a Jersey centric kind of casts,
Speaker 1: you know, so I think that was a factor. Actually,
Speaker 1: I always try to impress upon people. It's one thing
Speaker 1: if you have great success in TV. It's another thing
Speaker 1: if you change the fortunes of a network. HBO was
Speaker 1: not HBO then that they were going to They went
Speaker 1: in one end of that experience, came out the other end,
Speaker 1: and with sex in the City and the sopranos, it
Speaker 1: was completely transformed. You mean, yeah, And I give him
Speaker 1: full credit for having that courage, because, uh, as far
Speaker 1: as I know, that was the first time I think
Speaker 1: that a network gave complete freedom to the artist and
Speaker 1: just said, go do it. You know, we trust you,
Speaker 1: go do it. And uh no notes. You know, my
Speaker 1: brother has been in the writing for TV his whole life,
Speaker 1: and uh he wrote a book about it, and and
Speaker 1: it's all it's like you're getting notes all the time,
Speaker 1: you know, Uh, fixis do that, do this and that.
Speaker 1: And you, of course you did your terrific TV show
Speaker 1: and probably experienced some of that, but this was like, hey,
Speaker 1: go here it is, go do it. Here's a blank slate,
Speaker 1: and and David Chase had the vision to pull it off,
Speaker 1: and Jimmy Gandelfini had the incredible talent to pull it off.
Speaker 1: And I credit you know, Jeff Bucas and Chris Albrick
Speaker 1: and uh then those guys for having a courage to
Speaker 1: do it because it was a big expense at the time.
Speaker 1: I remember, this was a huge investment for them. They
Speaker 1: were not really spending that kind of money, you know.
Speaker 1: I called Jimmy on the phone. I did street Car
Speaker 1: on Broadway with him. In I did this very kind
Speaker 1: of weird, tepid little thriller with Demi More called The
Speaker 1: Juror with Jimmy, and Jimmy did the show premiered Win. Okay,
Speaker 1: so the show going. The show goes on and Jimmy
Speaker 1: becomes certainly among the biggest TV stars of his time,
Speaker 1: and uh, I called him up and go, Jimmy, I
Speaker 1: can't believe what's happening to you. He's got you guys
Speaker 1: are getting nominated and everything is going great. And I go, Jimmy,
Speaker 1: I can't tell you how proud I am of you,
Speaker 1: how envy assam of you. This is amazing. And he
Speaker 1: literally says to me, it's the fucking pain in the
Speaker 1: s Like I get in a van four o'clock in
Speaker 1: the morning, I drive out throw Jersey four o'clock in
Speaker 1: the morning. I might do real fucking days of fucking
Speaker 1: pain in my ass. But Jimmy, you just got nominated. Jimmy,
Speaker 1: you're making a deal. You're making Yeah, yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: I honestly which just fucking huge paint in my fucking ass.
Speaker 1: And he did a lot of whiny. I think, oh,
Speaker 1: forget it. He quit the show every day. We're going
Speaker 1: to get to that for you. For you, what was
Speaker 1: I mean music, because obviously your first iteration in American
Speaker 1: culture and what was music like for you was a kid?
Speaker 1: Did you go up in a musical household? No, not really,
Speaker 1: it was just the timing happened to be that generation
Speaker 1: that uh was elevated February nine, you know, nineteen four
Speaker 1: by this crazy variety show on Sunday Nights, the guy
Speaker 1: who owned Sunday Nights before the Sopranos, this crazy guy
Speaker 1: named Ed Sullivan, who, uh you couldn't make him up
Speaker 1: if you tried, something like I don't know what he
Speaker 1: was like Richard the Third on LSD or something, um,
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, he'd have something for everybody in
Speaker 1: the family, the whole him would gather around the one
Speaker 1: TV and uh, you have opera for the old folks,
Speaker 1: and he'd have puppets for the kids, and he'd have
Speaker 1: something for the teenagers. And uh, February nine, ninety four
Speaker 1: something for the teenagers was a group called the Beatles,
Speaker 1: and that changed my life, at least half changed my life.
Speaker 1: I always have to give credit, uh also to the
Speaker 1: Rolling Stones, because by the time we discovered the Beatles,
Speaker 1: they were halfway through the career. You know, they were
Speaker 1: going since fifty seven, going in sixty nine, really, and uh,
Speaker 1: by sixty four they were extremely sophisticated. I mean they
Speaker 1: were just superb that the harmony was perfect, hair, the clothes,
Speaker 1: everything was just perfect. So they revealed this new world
Speaker 1: to us. But um, it didn't exactly you know, you
Speaker 1: didn't exactly look at it and say, geez. Even though
Speaker 1: this gives me hope because I'm a freak and I
Speaker 1: don't fit into society anywhere I can I look you
Speaker 1: that it does give me hope. Yeah, but um, you
Speaker 1: didn't exactly say geez, I think I can do that. Luckily,
Speaker 1: four months later Rolling Stones come. They don't have any
Speaker 1: harmony at all. Really, they don't, you know, the hair
Speaker 1: is messed up, except for Brian Jones. They have wearing
Speaker 1: wherever they feel like. They made it look like, they
Speaker 1: made it look easier than it was. They were the
Speaker 1: first punk band, really, and so the way I like
Speaker 1: to put it as the Beatles revealed a new world
Speaker 1: to us, and the Rolling Stones invited us in. I
Speaker 1: love when Jagger does the induction of the Beatles into
Speaker 1: the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, when he says
Speaker 1: he talks about someplace they were performing back in the
Speaker 1: old days, maybe in Liverpool, and he says, in there
Speaker 1: they were in the audience, the foreheaded Monster, John Paul,
Speaker 1: Georgia Ringo. They never went anywhere without the others. And
Speaker 1: they have these full length leather dusters. Is leather coats
Speaker 1: on and he said an I said to myself, if
Speaker 1: I've got to learn to write songs and they in
Speaker 1: order to be able to afford I love that line.
Speaker 1: If I've got to learn to write songs in order
Speaker 1: to be able to afford a coat like that, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna learn to write music. Well, well, good for you.
Speaker 1: I'm glad the world benefited from that. But but for you,
Speaker 1: the Beatles, and for for for all of us. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm a Beatles addict. My wife had The greatest line
Speaker 1: that my wife said was to Paul, you guys really
Speaker 1: are of the original boy band. You guys are the
Speaker 1: first boy band when you think about and McCartney system
Speaker 1: my wife, he's so clever, he says to he says, well, really,
Speaker 1: that's somewhat true. But we had to play our instruments
Speaker 1: while we were doing our wiggling, and they only had
Speaker 1: to sing and wiggle. So it was a bit harder
Speaker 1: for us because we had to play the guitar and
Speaker 1: the drums while we were wiggling, and we were howling laughing,
Speaker 1: you know. But but for you when you when you
Speaker 1: are playing music and you pick up one instrument first guitar, yeah,
Speaker 1: how old. Well, just before the Beatles came, my grandfather
Speaker 1: was showing me the Italian a little song from his
Speaker 1: village in Calabria. Um, I don't know if each town
Speaker 1: had a little theme song or what, but he showed
Speaker 1: me this song from his village. So I started to
Speaker 1: play just a couple of months before they came, So
Speaker 1: I got a little bit of a head start to
Speaker 1: play guitar. Yeah, and when and when you're a kid
Speaker 1: and you're playing the guitar. Are you dreaming of playing
Speaker 1: music in a band or you dreaming of having even
Speaker 1: uh an ounce of the Beatles success, Did you want
Speaker 1: to go into music when you were very young? No? No, no,
Speaker 1: it's strictly a Beatle thing. It was strictly see keep
Speaker 1: in mind, and I know people find it hard to believe,
Speaker 1: but the Beatles introduced the concept of bands to us.
Speaker 1: There were no bands. If you went through high school dance,
Speaker 1: it was an instrumental group, you know, there was There
Speaker 1: wasn't four or five guys singing and playing. You didn't
Speaker 1: see it. It was soloists. Elvis, all the pioneers really,
Speaker 1: you know, except for the cricket. Other than the crickets,
Speaker 1: you know, they were all solo acts. Uh. And by
Speaker 1: the way, I missed that first decade of of of rock.
Speaker 1: I missed the pioneers. I had to go back and
Speaker 1: discover them. But but but even if I had been there,
Speaker 1: I wasn't interested in solo artists. Uh. They didn't mean
Speaker 1: anything to me. I didn't want to be in show business.
Speaker 1: I didn't like show business at the time. I like
Speaker 1: it now, but uh, I didn't then. You know, you're
Speaker 1: building your identity and you are what you like, you know,
Speaker 1: and the concept of a band is what appealed to me.
Speaker 1: That made the difference. You know, well it's not me,
Speaker 1: me me, you know, you're communicating the friendship and family
Speaker 1: and the gang, community, the gang, the posse, all of that.
Speaker 1: That's what appealed to me. That lifestyle of doing something
Speaker 1: in common with your friends. You know, there was something
Speaker 1: that really appealed to me that way. And when do
Speaker 1: you put together a band The first time? Um, soon
Speaker 1: after I joined a band as a singer. Um, when
Speaker 1: I'm fifteen. And then by the time I'm sixteen, I
Speaker 1: start my own band and I'm playing guitar and singing
Speaker 1: and leading the band's performing anywhere. Yeah. Yeah. We were
Speaker 1: just the luckiest generation man. I mean there were places
Speaker 1: to play all over the place, all over the place. Oh,
Speaker 1: that was the best time. This is the best time, man.
Speaker 1: We are are demographic was the first one to really
Speaker 1: be catered to. So we not only had the high
Speaker 1: school dances and the and the beach clubs right there,
Speaker 1: we had teenage nightclubs built for us, which I haven't
Speaker 1: seen before or since. We played all the time. We
Speaker 1: were working all the time. I see that moment you're
Speaker 1: on stage and you finish some blistering song, you're singing
Speaker 1: some really really great rock song, and you guys have
Speaker 1: done with a set and you come up the stage
Speaker 1: and the guys like your ginger ales. Uh yeah exactly.
Speaker 1: But I mean, you know, this is the thing. It
Speaker 1: was so new that we would never have that kind
Speaker 1: of freedom again, you know, because it's the sort of
Speaker 1: three stages of the rock and roll lifestyle, right, you know,
Speaker 1: there's the teenage one, which you know, then there's the
Speaker 1: bar band world, and and then there's a professional stuff.
Speaker 1: You know you got into the business. Well at that age,
Speaker 1: the teenage world, at that time, there was no adult
Speaker 1: that's going to even pretend to tell you what to
Speaker 1: do because they didn't get it at all. They had
Speaker 1: no idea, template, no, no, there was no even opinion,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. It wasn't like, oh you
Speaker 1: gotta you guys gonna do this, which is which is
Speaker 1: what you got. When you got to the bar band stage,
Speaker 1: you had to play the top forty. You know, that
Speaker 1: was a rule. We we we broke it with the Jukes.
Speaker 1: We we we changed New Jersey history with south Side
Speaker 1: Giantry Jukes, by not playing the top forty, by by
Speaker 1: finding a club that was gonna close because the Rufford
Speaker 1: caved in. And uh and and we said, listen, we're
Speaker 1: not gonna charge you anything. We'll just take the door,
Speaker 1: you take the bar, but we play whatever we want.
Speaker 1: Because they were going to close. They allowed that to happen,
Speaker 1: and then you know, we we just got with fifty people,
Speaker 1: then a hundred, then two hundred, and you know, the
Speaker 1: residency every Sunday night. And then they fixed the roof,
Speaker 1: and then they expanded the place and we ended up
Speaker 1: with three nights a week, a thousand people at night.
Speaker 1: But that was a complete change in the New Jersey
Speaker 1: rules of of a bar band. But as teenagers, man,
Speaker 1: it was just like complete freedom. You did whatever you wanted.
Speaker 1: You know, what was the place that was collapsing the facility,
Speaker 1: Pony Sty It was Stone Pony was falling apart. Yeah
Speaker 1: still there you guys put the new roof on Stone Pony.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, and there was you know, it was it
Speaker 1: was a time when when you were making that transition
Speaker 1: to trying to be become more professional. But um, we
Speaker 1: didn't want to follow the professional rules, so we wanted
Speaker 1: to make up our own rules. My first introduction to
Speaker 1: a variety of music when I go to college, which
Speaker 1: is the real melting pot, and you really get your
Speaker 1: cultural chiropractic adjustment when you walk into college with a
Speaker 1: bunch of people from different regions and there's all these
Speaker 1: guys from South Jersey and Philly and they were all
Speaker 1: Asbury Jukes freaks. There I'm I'm listening to I didn't
Speaker 1: know who Boz Scaggs was, and I'm listening to, you know,
Speaker 1: Bob Skaggs, Silk degrees, all this stuff. Dan Fogelberg, I
Speaker 1: never had a whiff of but these guys were like
Speaker 1: the South Side Johnny Asbury Dukes freaks. These were all
Speaker 1: South Jersey guys who just craved that music. And you
Speaker 1: wind up doing that for how long? How long are
Speaker 1: you in that? Dan? And the initial run well something
Speaker 1: like seventy four seventy five, probably at the most two years.
Speaker 1: But I stayed involved and produced the first three albums,
Speaker 1: so I was involved right through seventy eight. But by
Speaker 1: seventy end of seventy five, I think Bruce decided, uh,
Speaker 1: he was hanging out with us because his first two
Speaker 1: records didn't do anything, and he couldn't work, so he
Speaker 1: was a night with us and and and it was
Speaker 1: he was about to put on his third album, Born
Speaker 1: to Run, and decided, one last shot, he was gonna
Speaker 1: try fronting the band for a minute, just to see
Speaker 1: if that made any difference, because he just was kind of,
Speaker 1: you know, on the edge of you know, big trouble
Speaker 1: at that point. So he said, come on out and
Speaker 1: play guitar. I'm gonna I'm gonna front the band. So
Speaker 1: I got seven gigs booked, so I decided, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do that, and I just wanted to get
Speaker 1: out of town, you know, because I was not only
Speaker 1: leading the band, but I was also managing the band,
Speaker 1: the Jukes anyway, so um, you know, I went out
Speaker 1: with Bruce and him fronting the band did make a
Speaker 1: big difference, actually, and and we started to break through.
Speaker 1: And uh, I went for seven gigs and stayed seven years.
Speaker 1: But um, um Jukes. I wasn't actually in the band
Speaker 1: that long, maybe two years or so. But when you
Speaker 1: say managing the band and producing records, did you find
Speaker 1: it managing for you? Did you find any kind of
Speaker 1: managerial role? Was it tough for you. Yeah, I can't
Speaker 1: do naturally. You didn't well, it did come to me naturally,
Speaker 1: but I didn't really like it. I don't. I don't
Speaker 1: enjoy business in general. I don't enjoy the whole negotiating process.
Speaker 1: So I tend to be just upfront about, Look, this
Speaker 1: is what's needed here. If you don't want to do it,
Speaker 1: you know, I'll go. I'll go elsewhere. I'm always willing
Speaker 1: to walk away. I don't feel like I didn't need
Speaker 1: anybody that badly, you know, or any deal that badly,
Speaker 1: So that kind of gives you a bit of an
Speaker 1: edge right away. You know, I don't need anybody or anything,
Speaker 1: you know, And and and I and I communicate that,
Speaker 1: or at least you pretend you don't need them very effectively.
Speaker 1: You're good at pretending you don't need Yeah, that's ye.
Speaker 1: You and I may have that incoming. I profess I
Speaker 1: don't need anyone or anything. You can all go. Funck
Speaker 1: is the Irish goodbye. You see, Irish goodbye, go fund yourself.
Speaker 1: And I'm at here. We don't even say that. We
Speaker 1: leave the party. Getting maneuver is the Irish goodbye. Yes,
Speaker 1: and and uh, it's not exactly a completely uh fraud.
Speaker 1: Because if you're a writer, you know, you tend to
Speaker 1: be um pretty independent. You know, you can be. I
Speaker 1: mean nobody nobody's completely independent. Of course, we all need uh,
Speaker 1: we all need distribution of our work one way or
Speaker 1: the other. But you can be quite independent if you're
Speaker 1: a writer first. You know, I'm a writer producer first,
Speaker 1: you know. And so when it comes to performing, that's
Speaker 1: just like a vacation for me that you know, whether
Speaker 1: it's acting or whether it's being a rock star on stage,
Speaker 1: you know, uh, that stuff is just nothing but fun
Speaker 1: for me. The real work is looking at a blank
Speaker 1: piece of paper and creating something from it. You know,
Speaker 1: where's the first time you met Springsteen? Where were you
Speaker 1: in your first laid eyes on him? The day before
Speaker 1: the Beatles played at Sullivan, there wasn't one band in America.
Speaker 1: The day after, everyone had a band in their garage.
Speaker 1: I mean literally everyone. It was the most It was
Speaker 1: incredible cultural impact, and not just for the musicians, by
Speaker 1: the way. I mean after that, when kids were going
Speaker 1: out at night, you went and saw a band, you know,
Speaker 1: if you didn't go to drive in, you know, to
Speaker 1: the movies, you went and saw a boat. I mean
Speaker 1: that that was it. That was what you did with
Speaker 1: your free time. I mean, so the Beatles created more
Speaker 1: than just a world, a new world for musicians. It
Speaker 1: was a it was a new social world for everybody.
Speaker 1: You know, really it really was. I mean that's no exaggeration.
Speaker 1: So you made him where well, you know, like I said,
Speaker 1: everybody had a band the next day, and mercifully most
Speaker 1: of them stayed in the garage, but uh, about a
Speaker 1: dozen of us got out there into the circuit, and
Speaker 1: he was one of them, and I was one of them.
Speaker 1: I had my band, The Source, and he had his band,
Speaker 1: the cast Heels, And we met each other on the circuit,
Speaker 1: which was made up of all of those places I
Speaker 1: said before you know, v W vf W halls and
Speaker 1: uh and all of that, and we'd have band battles,
Speaker 1: you know, every month or so there'd be a band battle,
Speaker 1: you know. Um, But I on the weekends, I started
Speaker 1: going up to the village, going to the Cafe Wah
Speaker 1: on Saturday afternoons where there was bands one one after
Speaker 1: the other. And they were all about a year ahead
Speaker 1: of us in New in New Jersey because in those days, um,
Speaker 1: a lot happened very quickly. You know, the time was
Speaker 1: very different. The whole chronological time was a completely different
Speaker 1: animal than now. I mean, five years goes by now
Speaker 1: and nothing happens. You know. Back then, every three or
Speaker 1: four or five months, something major was happening, you know,
Speaker 1: So so you go up and try and you know,
Speaker 1: keep up and get ahead of what was happening. And
Speaker 1: so I go up and steal ideas and bring them
Speaker 1: back to my band in New Jersey, you know, which
Speaker 1: is why we were one of the best. And I
Speaker 1: started running into Bruce doing the same thing. You know,
Speaker 1: it was only an hour on the bus, but it
Speaker 1: was kind of an adventurous for for you know, for
Speaker 1: sixteen year old kids to do at the time. So
Speaker 1: I ran to him with the cafe wall, which is
Speaker 1: still there by the way, and we became closer. And
Speaker 1: because of that, and then I started coming up with him.
Speaker 1: I go, I go to his house in free Hold.
Speaker 1: He played me some new new songs and I played
Speaker 1: him my favorite new records and and then we get
Speaker 1: on the bus and go up to up to New York.
Speaker 1: So we became closer because of that, and did musical collaboration.
Speaker 1: Was inevitable. Did you talk about it right away? Was
Speaker 1: it attractive to you or did that takes some time?
Speaker 1: You know, do you think he'd fit into your musical plans?
Speaker 1: And vice versus. You can meet somebody you love, but
Speaker 1: I don't see us working together. I don't know why,
Speaker 1: you know. I regret that we didn't back then, But
Speaker 1: I was reminded of this by one of the other
Speaker 1: members of the group, which we tracked down when I
Speaker 1: was writing the book, and he reminded me that I
Speaker 1: did come to the band and want Bruce because Bruce
Speaker 1: said were having a little trouble with his band. He
Speaker 1: wasn't even the lead singer in his band, by the way,
Speaker 1: but he was having a little trouble, you know, there
Speaker 1: was some bad vibes going on. So I went to
Speaker 1: my band and wanted him to join, wanted Bruce to
Speaker 1: be in our band. But it was pointed out to
Speaker 1: me that Bruce's mother didn't drive, so because the mothers
Speaker 1: were the ones taking turns, I swear to his truth,
Speaker 1: his gold. Because the mother took turns driving us to
Speaker 1: the gigs, and because his mother didn't drive, he really
Speaker 1: couldn't be in the band. So uh so we didn't
Speaker 1: actually collaborate. We come on, we did. We wouldn't collaborate
Speaker 1: til a few years later. Uh, you know when we
Speaker 1: started having a different group every three, four or five months.
Speaker 1: You know, we just started experimenting. Like I said, we
Speaker 1: were learning our identities. And you'd go from one trend
Speaker 1: to the next. Every year there was a different trend,
Speaker 1: you know, bridge invasion to folk rock, to psychedelic rock,
Speaker 1: to country rock, the blues rock, you know, to southern rock.
Speaker 1: You know, there was one one trend to the other,
Speaker 1: and you tend to go from one trend and next
Speaker 1: as a as a learning like you were going to school,
Speaker 1: you know, and you pick up a little bit from this,
Speaker 1: a little bit from that, and you know, put it
Speaker 1: into your own identity as you built who you were
Speaker 1: going to be. And Um, and then finally we uh,
Speaker 1: we ended up you know, we ended up getting he
Speaker 1: got signed and then I would join him on the
Speaker 1: on the third album for the tour. You didn't record
Speaker 1: the album, you just royed the know. I visited those
Speaker 1: sessions just as a friend, you know, but then UM
Speaker 1: officially would join at that point. Yeah, actor and musician
Speaker 1: Stephen van zandt if you love in depth discussions about
Speaker 1: iconic TV shows. Listen to my conversation with the creator
Speaker 1: of The Wire, David Simon. A lot of people think
Speaker 1: The Wire came in the wake of The Sopranos, but
Speaker 1: when we were the Wire scripts for the first season,
Speaker 1: we hadn't seen the Sopranos. We were we were writing
Speaker 1: in the absence of the Sprints. We were writing in
Speaker 1: the shadow of oz. Oz was the first time that
Speaker 1: HBO had ventured into this. Hey, we'll put it on TV,
Speaker 1: and you've never seen it before in TV territory. So
Speaker 1: that was when I saw the pilot of Alas. I
Speaker 1: went to Tom and said, you know, you could do
Speaker 1: a show about a drug corner. Here the rest of
Speaker 1: my conversation with David Simon at Here's the Thing dot Org.
Speaker 1: After the break, Stephen van Zandt tells us about the
Speaker 1: moment he walked away from the music business. I'm Alec
Speaker 1: Baldwin and you were listening to Here's the Thing. Stephen
Speaker 1: van Zandt's path from musician to actor was anything but straightforward.
Speaker 1: It began when he left the Street Band after seven years.
Speaker 1: I actually left UM two. I produced most of Born
Speaker 1: in the USA. I then left recorded two solo albums
Speaker 1: and and then they added three more songs to what
Speaker 1: I had done and put out Born in the USA
Speaker 1: the same year as my second album, Voice of America.
Speaker 1: So technically, uh, eighty two, Um, nobody noticed until eighty four. Uh,
Speaker 1: and then I was got took a little eighteen year hiatus. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: I I did five solo albums in the eighties, all
Speaker 1: very political, and uh, I decided that would be my
Speaker 1: identity because in the Renaissance period that I grew up in,
Speaker 1: everybody had a very very very specific identity. Eighteen years
Speaker 1: are you're in a band and and and performing solo
Speaker 1: acts for the entire eighteen years, and and and then
Speaker 1: you go back to no no, no no for the
Speaker 1: first seven years. I started Disciples Soul, and I do
Speaker 1: my five solo albums in the eighties and eighty nine,
Speaker 1: I walked away from music business completely and I basically, uh,
Speaker 1: go out into the wilderness for seven years. I don't
Speaker 1: want to be over dramatic about it, but I was.
Speaker 1: You know, no nobody wanted to sign me after the
Speaker 1: Sun City success. Uh, it was a little bit too successful,
Speaker 1: and people started getting nervous about me. Yeah, and a
Speaker 1: successful one, you know, which was the worst effect one
Speaker 1: effective one which you know nobody thought that coming, including made.
Speaker 1: But um so I kind of just drifted for seven
Speaker 1: years until the David Chase called and said, uh, do
Speaker 1: you want to be in my new TV show? And
Speaker 1: when he contacted you to be in the show, you
Speaker 1: weren't back with Bruce yet. No, no, no, I'm looking
Speaker 1: for it, and I think it's interesting. And I don't
Speaker 1: say this. We were all kind of some of my
Speaker 1: producers kind of I'm not gonna say. They gasped, but
Speaker 1: their eyes widened when I said, isn't it interesting that
Speaker 1: you work with Springsteen? Who I have boundless admiration for
Speaker 1: him and I certainly love his music can but I said,
Speaker 1: it isn't an interesting that you go on your own
Speaker 1: and you went up on a TV show. We're on
Speaker 1: any given Sunday, you have a bigger audience than one night,
Speaker 1: and he has the entire run of his Broadway show
Speaker 1: times ten. You go on to become one of the
Speaker 1: stars of the most successful television shows in history, and
Speaker 1: that's kind of that's kind of weird. Did you see
Speaker 1: that coming at all? Did you have any idea that
Speaker 1: acting was because because you say, you kind of go
Speaker 1: off into the wilderness, you're on this hiatus, you're on
Speaker 1: this vision quest, and then you wind a chase calls you.
Speaker 1: Were you ready for that call? Were you thinking I'll
Speaker 1: try that? No, no idea. No. And I and I
Speaker 1: had no interest in being an actor ever. I liked obviously,
Speaker 1: I liked the art form, and I saw myself maybe
Speaker 1: writing someday and maybe even directing or producing. But I never,
Speaker 1: you know, never sort of fantasized about being an actor.
Speaker 1: Um So, so it was it was a challenge, you know,
Speaker 1: when he called, and it just so happened. This particular genre,
Speaker 1: you know, this particular mill you was something that was
Speaker 1: an interest of mine, you know what I mean. It
Speaker 1: was just one of I'm not I don't know what
Speaker 1: they call it, a hobby or an interest. But I
Speaker 1: had just read every Mob book, you know, and I
Speaker 1: had seen every Mob movie, and uh and I grew
Speaker 1: up around the guys or maybe wannabes, which is what's
Speaker 1: the difference. They're equally scary, you know. Um So I
Speaker 1: kind of just I just kind of felt I could
Speaker 1: do this, you know, I kind of knew this kind
Speaker 1: of guy and uh and if I could, if I
Speaker 1: could create him from the outside in, which is what
Speaker 1: I did. Um, and I wrote a biography. I want
Speaker 1: to talk about that. Yeah, you know, but so you know,
Speaker 1: I just I just uh, it just something I just
Speaker 1: felt I could do. So you're famous for you wear
Speaker 1: a band dadda. You have a band daddy. You are
Speaker 1: a legendary bandanna aficionado. Your sartorial legacy is high lighted
Speaker 1: by bandana wearing for many decades. And yet you turn
Speaker 1: up on a TV show where you have one of
Speaker 1: the richest heads of hair in human history. This character
Speaker 1: has a little hair like the hood of a car,
Speaker 1: like the hood of a buick. That's your hair or
Speaker 1: did they put a piece on you? Well, the wonderful
Speaker 1: thing that turns out of wearing the bandana, you know
Speaker 1: as often as I did. When you do have hair,
Speaker 1: you know, you really look quite different. And let me
Speaker 1: tell you something. That particular hairstyle I got partially from you. Uh,
Speaker 1: one of your early movies you had very close to
Speaker 1: that hairstyle, and I thought, I thought, that's that's exactly
Speaker 1: what he should look like. So I I'm not, I'm not,
Speaker 1: I'm not. I I forget which movie, but you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. You remember your hair was very similar
Speaker 1: to Silvio's at one point. I mean, it may have
Speaker 1: just been one movie. And I did, I did. I
Speaker 1: had a famous hair dresser who is who I think
Speaker 1: he retired from the business. Name was Louis Lacari. Louis
Speaker 1: Lacari was a legend in New York and he had
Speaker 1: a very unique voice. And I'm sure he won't mind
Speaker 1: me making fun of him. And and I said to
Speaker 1: my said, I wanted black, man, I said, dye my hair.
Speaker 1: I wanted to be so fucking black. I wanted to
Speaker 1: be like the fucking Ink. And finally he towards me
Speaker 1: one day he dyed my hair. And he says, now, alec.
Speaker 1: He says, if I dye your hair any darker, it's
Speaker 1: gonna be purple on camera. It's gonna look like an
Speaker 1: a plant. I said, I don't fucking care. And then
Speaker 1: make it look like an egg plant. And I would
Speaker 1: put so much ship in my hair to have that
Speaker 1: black black Elvis hair. You know what I mean? But
Speaker 1: so so is it your hair or they put a
Speaker 1: hair piece on? No, no, no, no, no, it's a
Speaker 1: piece of pie a piece that hair, Oh my god, unbelievable. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So so my my I wrote a biography and a
Speaker 1: guy and uh and and he was you know, well
Speaker 1: it came from a treatment that I had written about
Speaker 1: a guy who opened a band type of club but
Speaker 1: in present day, and you know, the five families all
Speaker 1: had their tables, and the commissioner and you know, the
Speaker 1: police and the mayor. It was kind of a Gumba
Speaker 1: Casablanca kind of, you know, basically exactly and Sylvio's and
Speaker 1: that's where the character came from. So you know, I had,
Speaker 1: I had a bit of a backstory prepared because you know,
Speaker 1: I had you know, I had watched my wife do it.
Speaker 1: You know, my wife's a real actor. I mean she
Speaker 1: she's been going to classes for years and had the
Speaker 1: theater company, and she would go to class and tell
Speaker 1: me about the classes and you know, and some of
Speaker 1: the stuff I agreed with some of the theory, some
Speaker 1: of some of I didn't necessarily, But in the end,
Speaker 1: I just had to come up with my own acting theory,
Speaker 1: which I felt, you know, every human characteristic exists in
Speaker 1: all of us, and uh, the job, the craft is
Speaker 1: finding the appropriate characteristics for that particular character in that
Speaker 1: particular moment, and that's how I looked at it, and
Speaker 1: I felt if I could look at the mirror and
Speaker 1: see the guy, then I could be that guy. And uh,
Speaker 1: to this day, I have nothing but respect for actors
Speaker 1: such as yourself who can act looking like themselves. I mean,
Speaker 1: I just find that incredible, you know, And I'm always
Speaker 1: trying to access pieces where I can put, you know,
Speaker 1: as what you know. Olivier called it the putty on
Speaker 1: the nose acting, and I mean, I'm always trying to
Speaker 1: find roles I can play where I can get as
Speaker 1: far away from myself as I can. But what's interesting
Speaker 1: is that in acting, when you have the chance, there's
Speaker 1: acting that's very muted and you want to keep it
Speaker 1: as close to yourself as you can and do as
Speaker 1: little as possible, and you're probably going to make an
Speaker 1: ass of yourself if you don't. And then there's acting
Speaker 1: where it's it's tight. It's three or four moves and
Speaker 1: maybe two or three beats where you're at that character
Speaker 1: for you, the hair, the scowl, there's three or four
Speaker 1: things that you pick up on that that become the
Speaker 1: character in terms of his his because all acting to
Speaker 1: me and old television and film projects are like music.
Speaker 1: It's like classical music. You have your part to play.
Speaker 1: You've got to fit in to this thing. Director. The
Speaker 1: writer has a vision for something he wants to do,
Speaker 1: and the worst thing you can do is step outside
Speaker 1: of what you're supposed to do. You like you, You're
Speaker 1: looking at the director, this is my thing, and I'm going,
Speaker 1: what do you want me to do? Am I here
Speaker 1: to play the triangle? Am I playing the tuba? What
Speaker 1: am I playing? Am I the violin? Soloist? Or the piano?
Speaker 1: And with you, you take these three four beats you
Speaker 1: put together and you're like fucking Edward g Robinson. You know,
Speaker 1: when you're in that territory of a guy who's created
Speaker 1: a character, and it's like that line, it's right, move Ti,
Speaker 1: it's right move ti. You know, just expect. But he's
Speaker 1: a wise You crafted the guy that was the wise mobster.
Speaker 1: The other guys are emotional, tough, loud, crazy, and you're
Speaker 1: the one who he needs you. When you watch the Sopranos,
Speaker 1: what you realize is of all those men, you're the
Speaker 1: one he needed most. That's my opinion. Well, it's it
Speaker 1: was a fascinating thing. To analyze, because you know, when
Speaker 1: you're doing these things, you're not necessarily analyzing it. But
Speaker 1: when I when when I go back to write a book,
Speaker 1: you know, you really got to analyze it. And uh,
Speaker 1: first of all, all the things you just said are true.
Speaker 1: And I had one additional challenge which I needed to
Speaker 1: in my mind since I was never going to play
Speaker 1: music again, you know, I was done with that, you know.
Speaker 1: So now I'm embarking on a brand new career, which
Speaker 1: I thought would be the rest of my life. I
Speaker 1: wanted to make sure that I did everything a little
Speaker 1: bit different. You know. I didn't want anybody saying, wait
Speaker 1: a minute, I just saw him play in Cleveland last week.
Speaker 1: So in addition to all of those other little things,
Speaker 1: you know, the hair and the scowl and the walk,
Speaker 1: I mean, I practiced laughing, I practiced smiling, I you know,
Speaker 1: every every single thing I could think of, I wanted
Speaker 1: to do different than than I usually do. So there
Speaker 1: was that. And what was I think most interesting about
Speaker 1: the whole experience was well, first of all, David Chase
Speaker 1: hired me to be Tony. Okay, I don't know if
Speaker 1: you know that. Um, all right, so so so HBO said,
Speaker 1: are you out of your fucking mind? Okay, we're about
Speaker 1: to invest all this money. The guy never acted before
Speaker 1: and and he said so, he says, so what do
Speaker 1: you want to do? I said, I said, well, David,
Speaker 1: and now that I think about it, because it's all
Speaker 1: been such a spontaneous sort of rush, I said, I'm
Speaker 1: starting to feel guilty about taking an actor's job here.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, these guys work their whole lives.
Speaker 1: I watched my wife go through it, you know. And
Speaker 1: I said, you know, so I'm just gonna go back
Speaker 1: to where I belong, you know, which is unemployed. And
Speaker 1: he said no, I'll tell you what. Then I'll write
Speaker 1: you in a part that doesn't exist. You know. I
Speaker 1: want you. I want you in this And that's when
Speaker 1: he said, what do you want to do? I said, well,
Speaker 1: I had this treatment, you know, I had this treatment
Speaker 1: of the Silvio Dante guy who was an independent hit man,
Speaker 1: and he has this club and uh, you know, and
Speaker 1: David went away, Okay, let me let me run it
Speaker 1: by HBO. He says, that's a good idea. Comes back
Speaker 1: because now they can't afford it, so we're gonna make
Speaker 1: it a strip club and uh, you know, and you'll
Speaker 1: run it for the family. So what happens, I think
Speaker 1: is I don't know if it's some liminal or what,
Speaker 1: but I think that's why a lot of second seasons
Speaker 1: are always better than the first season, because the writers
Speaker 1: start to they start to incorporate the characteristics of the
Speaker 1: actors into the parts, right, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: And now in this case, the most to me, the
Speaker 1: most interesting thing is I'm the only guy that's not
Speaker 1: in the pilot, I mean originally, so now he puts
Speaker 1: me into the pilot and puts me into the into
Speaker 1: the show as a kind of unclear you know, Okay,
Speaker 1: you're you're gonna run the strip club for the family,
Speaker 1: and and we're gonna have the meetings in the back room.
Speaker 1: You know, that's going to be the clubhouse whatever you
Speaker 1: call it, the office. But that was it though, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean that there wasn't any kind of
Speaker 1: really clear definition yet. Okay, now here's what's interesting to me.
Speaker 1: Here's with the David Chase, the most detailed oriented guy
Speaker 1: on Earth. Okay, and he writes, uh what twelve fifteen
Speaker 1: fascinating characters, terrific characters He doesn't right in the Underborce.
Speaker 1: He doesn't right in the constelietti, which is sometimes two
Speaker 1: different people. Okay, sometimes it's the same guy. Sometimes there's
Speaker 1: two different people. He doesn't write into the script either one. Now,
Speaker 1: this is an extremely important part of any mob family,
Speaker 1: you know, but on The Boss you have a constelietti.
Speaker 1: That's that that's just you know, there's no exception to
Speaker 1: that rule. He doesn't write them in. Okay. So by
Speaker 1: the end of the first season, you know, they did
Speaker 1: a second season. You know, my character gravitates into that role.
Speaker 1: It's about it, which was very similar to the role
Speaker 1: I was playing with Bruce Springsteen in real life. You know. Interesting,
Speaker 1: It was fascinating to me. When you really looksack and
Speaker 1: analyze it, I'm like, wow, how could he not have
Speaker 1: written in and I'm the Boss? You know all those shows.
Speaker 1: I did a couple of arcs on Will and Grace,
Speaker 1: and I was madly in love with Megan Malally. I
Speaker 1: just worshiped Megan. She's so talented, and they bring me
Speaker 1: on to play this cookie character that's in love with Megan.
Speaker 1: And I went back and watched online early episodes of
Speaker 1: the show, and you can see like a lot of
Speaker 1: shows and ones have become very popular and very successful.
Speaker 1: They're all groping towards the character in season one. By
Speaker 1: season two, season three, they're doing characters which are unrecognizable
Speaker 1: from the first four or five episode. They they migrated
Speaker 1: so far. So you go back to Bruce, you go
Speaker 1: back into the band. Correct. Yeah. It was a tough
Speaker 1: decision because I just started, you know, after eighteen years
Speaker 1: of unemployment. Basically, I finally found a new job, which
Speaker 1: I was hoping to be, uh, you know, my first
Speaker 1: steady job of my life. That's what unfortunately, I'm still
Speaker 1: looking for. So he decided to put the band bat
Speaker 1: together right after the first seasons filmed, um and just
Speaker 1: as it's being broadcast. So I said, you know, I
Speaker 1: just felt I needed some closure there. I'll always I'll
Speaker 1: always wonder about this move, but I said, you know,
Speaker 1: I left under some bizarre circumstances explained in the book,
Speaker 1: but but I really needed to um have some closure there.
Speaker 1: And so David Chase, of being the amazing guy he is,
Speaker 1: um scheduled my scenes for days off of the tour,
Speaker 1: and believe it or not, and he went back. I
Speaker 1: went back and did seven seasons in ten years of
Speaker 1: Sopranos and another three seasons and four years of Lilly
Speaker 1: Hammer Hammer. Fourteen years of steady acting and touring simultaneously,
Speaker 1: and I missed one month of one tour and one
Speaker 1: month of another tour. That's it, Stephen van Zant. Subscribe
Speaker 1: to Here's the Thing on the I Heart Radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. While you're there,
Speaker 1: leave us a review when we come back. Stephen van
Speaker 1: zandt tells us how he ended up playing the role
Speaker 1: of another gangster on the mean streets of Norway. Hi'm
Speaker 1: Alec Baldwin and you were listening to Here's the Thing.
Speaker 1: Stephen van Zant par laid his incredible success on The
Speaker 1: Sopranos into another show with a familiar concept but an
Speaker 1: unfamiliar setting. I was producing a record for my record
Speaker 1: label in Norway. I signed a bunch of Norwegian bands
Speaker 1: and uh, there's a couple in the lobby to see
Speaker 1: you go down and say hello, hello. Uh you know
Speaker 1: since uh and you're instead and I left Scott Vin
Speaker 1: and they were writers in Norway and Oslo, and uh
Speaker 1: they said, well, we wrote a TV show for you.
Speaker 1: You know now, as you know this is not something
Speaker 1: you here every day. You know, you might hear it
Speaker 1: every day. I don't need it every day, you know,
Speaker 1: that's all. You know. Your ego says, oh, hello, what
Speaker 1: would that be? And of course the pitch was, you know,
Speaker 1: the guy goes into with his protection program and chooses Norway, Sammy,
Speaker 1: the bill goes to Oslo. Yeah, And I was like, oh, man,
Speaker 1: I just played a gangster for ten years. I can't
Speaker 1: do that. You know. I love the show. By the way,
Speaker 1: I just started, I thank you. In the end, I
Speaker 1: couldn't resist. I was like, whoever heard of going to
Speaker 1: a foreign country and starring in a local show. I've
Speaker 1: never heard of that before, you know. So we took
Speaker 1: a year to write it, which was very complicated, and
Speaker 1: I didn't want it to be a straight ahead comedy.
Speaker 1: I wanted to be a drama d and uh, I
Speaker 1: said to them, I said, listen, if I'm making my
Speaker 1: living playing a gangster, I can't make fun of these guys.
Speaker 1: Understand I don't live in New York, you know. So
Speaker 1: any humor, any any humor, has to come from circumstances,
Speaker 1: has to come from character, you know. I don't want
Speaker 1: anybody trying to be funny, you know, and we decided
Speaker 1: how much English to use because it had to work
Speaker 1: for the Norwegian audience and the American audience, you know,
Speaker 1: very complicated and anyway, so we're six weeks into filming
Speaker 1: and I realized somebody, you know, the production people, not
Speaker 1: the writers, but the production heads kind of uh, fraudulent
Speaker 1: about the budget because you know, all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: I see my my makeup guy carrying a camera and
Speaker 1: you know, I'm like, you know, what what's going on here?
Speaker 1: And uh turns out I'm telling you it's like that.
Speaker 1: They're very you know, do it yourself over there. And
Speaker 1: I realized, oh my god, we can't afford to shoot
Speaker 1: the show that we wrote. And I mean, we spent
Speaker 1: a year writing it. So I told my agent. I said,
Speaker 1: the one guy I know, Chris Albrick, but we just
Speaker 1: left HBO to go two stars, I said, book, I said,
Speaker 1: I gotta make a deal. I gotta make an American
Speaker 1: deal here. We can't afford to shoot the showy. I
Speaker 1: go to Chris. I had the guys created a trailer,
Speaker 1: which wasn't easy. We've only been filming six weeks. So
Speaker 1: we put together a trailer miraculously, and I showed it
Speaker 1: to Chris Albrick. He loved it. He says, I want it.
Speaker 1: It's great, I said. He said, what do you need?
Speaker 1: I said, well, you know the budgets over there, I said,
Speaker 1: they mere reality show budgets, like eighty dollars. Were I'm
Speaker 1: competing with, you know, four million dollars the Sopranos, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, I said, I said, I need at least
Speaker 1: a million dollars a show. You know. He says, I,
Speaker 1: I don't have it in a budget this year, I said.
Speaker 1: He said, I'll give you two million next year. You know.
Speaker 1: I said, this is gonna be great. I said, Chris,
Speaker 1: I can't wait. I started filming the thing that you know.
Speaker 1: I'm in the middle of filming this fucking thing. It's weird,
Speaker 1: so um I said, okay, Well, well, I said, let
Speaker 1: me see what I can do. And I leave there
Speaker 1: and I said to my agent, was, what's that across
Speaker 1: the street this new thing called Netflix? Alright? Uh look
Speaker 1: it up and I see uh Ted Surrando's name, and
Speaker 1: I call, you know, I said, uh, I can I
Speaker 1: talk to Ted Surrandos please? He gets right on the phone.
Speaker 1: I said, Ted Stevie van zand I hear you're looking
Speaker 1: for content in this trop He says, yeah, we're just starting.
Speaker 1: You got something? I said, Yeah, I got something. He says,
Speaker 1: come on in. There's two people at Netflix at that
Speaker 1: time too show material. Uh, he loves it. And the
Speaker 1: greatest business deal of my life. And in one hour,
Speaker 1: I walked away with a two year deal, which I've
Speaker 1: never heard of. And I think, to this to this day,
Speaker 1: maybe the only two year almost impossible now even even
Speaker 1: successful shows, right, they only go one year, you know,
Speaker 1: because you know they know God forbid, they take a chance.
Speaker 1: Well this guy had balls, man, and I will respect
Speaker 1: this guy forever. I'm so glad of success he's had.
Speaker 1: But we turned out to read the first show on Netflix.
Speaker 1: So I watched History Happened twice. You know, HBO with
Speaker 1: their extraordinary creativity becoming the go to a place for
Speaker 1: adult content and then Netflix turning it into an international concept.
Speaker 1: You're developing any other TV now or no? I got
Speaker 1: five scripts? Yeah, I'm looking at and I want to
Speaker 1: I want to do something because uh, you know, we
Speaker 1: had another tour. We're gonna toward us here and then
Speaker 1: uh and then once again we're not, so I've got
Speaker 1: to go. I want to get back on TV. I
Speaker 1: really do. Thank you so much for taking the time.
Speaker 1: And I want to say, you know, you tell your
Speaker 1: story and you talk about your nature that you doubt things,
Speaker 1: your purity, your honesty, your integrity, whatever. But all these
Speaker 1: things that guided you through your music career and then
Speaker 1: on into your acting career, they were responsible for your success.
Speaker 1: You know, to Thine own self be true, you clinging
Speaker 1: to your beliefs made you who you are. When I
Speaker 1: think about your career, made you who you are as
Speaker 1: a musician and led to the amount of success you
Speaker 1: had as a musician and as an actor. You know,
Speaker 1: you said you you were like, I'm gonna play this
Speaker 1: part the only way that I feel comfortable with and
Speaker 1: the rest is history. So you in the to Thine
Speaker 1: own Self be True department, it's really paid for you,
Speaker 1: big time, big time. So thank you. I I don't
Speaker 1: know if you have any choice in these matters to
Speaker 1: tell your truth. You know, we all like to pretend
Speaker 1: in charge, you know, and UH making all of these decisions,
Speaker 1: but I sometimes wonder about that it was the right move. Tea.
Speaker 1: I get to say that to you now it was
Speaker 1: the right move tea. Your career choices, it was the
Speaker 1: right move tea. Thanks man, good talking to you. My
Speaker 1: friend Stephen van Zant. This is I Don't Want to
Speaker 1: Go Home from the album Soul Fire Live by Little
Speaker 1: Stephen and the Disciples of Soul. I'm Alec Baldwin. Here's
Speaker 1: the thing that is brought to you by my Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: I don't he my lid as do I don't try
Speaker 1: to reach up into the sky.