A Vulture series in which artists judge the best and worst of their own careers.<\/p>\n
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A Vulture series in which artists judge the best and worst of their own careers.<\/p>\n
Rock and roll as a genre has never had a better consigliere than Steven Van Zandt. The 75-year-old guitarist, producer, and actor has maintained an exuberant grip \u2014 with an even more exuberant wardrobe \u2014 on the industry ever since joining Bruce Springsteen\u2019s E Street Band in 1975, first proving the skills of his counsel by cracking how a little ditty called \u201cTenth Avenue Freeze-Out\u201d should be arranged. He became a made man on E Street soon after and served as Springsteen\u2019s invaluable ears for the album trifecta of Darkness on the Edge of Town, The River, and Born in the U.S.A. Van Zandt took a hiatus from the group for over a decade to pursue solo work and be his own boss with the Disciples of Soul, and you know exactly what happened in 1999: He assumed a new alias, Tony\u2019s mean-mugging right-hand man Silvio Dante, in The Sopranos. \u201cEvery singer is an actor,\u201d Van Zandt says about bridging his worlds together. \u201cYou\u2019re just acting out the script, which is the song.\u201d His favorite scene, to this day, is when he got to tell James Gandolfini\u2019s character that he \u201chas a problem with authority.\u201d<\/p>\n
Van Zandt carved a nice chunk out of his year to tour with Springsteen for their politically charged, lose-the-audience-be-damned Land of Hopes and Dreams Tour. Now decompressing from his time on the road, Van Zandt continues to advocate for his TeachRock music-education program \u2014 which encourages every school to have their own version of Dewey Finn on staff \u2014 all while serving as an honorary ambassador of sorts for the Garden State. (This blurb that Bob Dylan wrote for Van Zandt\u2019s memoir has always stuck with me: \u201cIn the New Jersey state of mind, somewhere between Bruce Springsteen Stadium and the Bon Jovi Arena, is a little-known street called Little Steven Boulevard with hundreds of endless souvenir shops and gift stores.\u201d) During our recent conversation, Van Zandt even realized that the 60th anniversary of his first professional band, Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes, was approaching sooner than he thought. \u201cMan,\u201d he says with a sigh, \u201cif you take care of the craft, the art takes care of itself.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTwo Hearts.\u201d The song can be interpreted for a brotherhood theme, which is how we\u2019ve been interpreting it. The strength of a band is very different from communication with an individual. The thing that made the entire culture change, E Street Band aside, was when the Beatles came in 1964. They led the way from all the other British Invasion bands and then our own. We had never seen a \u201cband\u201d before. Bands who sang, played, and eventually wrote their own songs were not a typical thing you saw in those days. We were used to individuals and singing groups \u2014 but to see a \u201cband\u201d communicating with their gang, posse, and themes, it eventually becomes community. That\u2019s what the audience responded to back then, and I think that\u2019s what it responds to right now. \u201cTwo Hearts\u201d just always makes me think of that. Bruce was on a real streak back then. It grew to become more important as the years went on.<\/p>\n
For my catalogue, most of my solo songs aren\u2019t \u201crated\u201d at all. I\u2019ll say \u201cThe Time of Your Life,\u201d which I\u2019m not sure how many people may have heard. It was written for Chris Columbus\u2019s movie Nine Months. It ran in the credits. It\u2019s a song that\u2019s going to be on an album by my group that hasn\u2019t been released yet. It\u2019s one of the only albums I have on the shelf ready to come out from my group called the Lost Boys. \u201cThe Time of Your Life\u201d will be on that album, which I\u2019m hoping will finally be released for next summer. I always felt this song sums up my philosophy of life. I\u2019m quite proud of that one. The chorus is, \u201cThis is the time of your life. What are you going to do with it?\u201d In other words, live in the moment and treat every moment like it\u2019s the first and last. Don\u2019t waste your time, as we all tend to do. What are we on this planet to do? To try and realize our potential and make it a little bit better of a place for the next guy coming along.<\/p>\n
To do that, one must try and keep your eye on the ball. There\u2019s so many distractions now. I really feel bad for this generation. It was tough for us, and we only had three channels on television. Or maybe four channels and pinball machines. That\u2019s all we had. Now, I have to tell people you\u2019ve got to put that device down and spend an hour or two working on your craft, whatever your craft is. It\u2019s just about doing things with purpose. Write with purpose. What do you want that song to do? It\u2019s not just writing \u2014 it\u2019s living with purpose. You get up every day, and sometimes it\u2019s good to do nothing, have nothing in your mind, and kind of drift. That\u2019s okay, too. But sometimes it\u2019s good to have a plan and utilize every minute you can in a useful way. All of that somehow got distilled really well in \u201cThe Time of Your Life.\u201d<\/p>\n
My favorite song of his, which is \u201cYoungstown.\u201d It\u2019s an incredible song. The fantastic detail in it, the transportation to another place \u2014 it just feels so real. The poetry in it is phenomenal and the choices of his words. I think it\u2019s his greatest song. It\u2019s funny: I don\u2019t often catch words until much later. I think most people are that way. Critics and intellectuals tend to focus on the lyrics, but I don\u2019t think the audience does. I say this even though I spend a lot of time working on my lyrics. But in the end, 90 percent of the time, it\u2019s the music that matters. That applies all the way to Bob Dylan. He\u2019s known for his lyrics, but if he were one of the greatest singers of all time and had the greatest chord changes and melodies of all time, no one would\u2019ve cared about his lyrics. That\u2019s just a fact.<\/p>\n
But anyway, a song like \u201cYoungstown\u201d grows on you. Then you start to look at the lyrics. And that could be years later, but you notice them. And as a songwriter, you\u2019re just like, \u201cWow, that is as good as it gets.\u201d It\u2019s telling an interesting story, has a bit of history, shares a bit of reality, and includes a bit of emotional turmoil. That last verse? Incredible. \u201cLong Walk Home\u201d also would be, I think, a close second for some of the same reasons.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not a typical musician in that sense. My guitar playing is dedicated to complementing the song. That\u2019s what matters to me. I consider 1960s pop music to be the highest evolution of our art form. In those days, it was that transition from pure pop into rock. Post-Beatles when all the saxophone solos suddenly became guitar solos. Those poor, old, great sax players all went out of work overnight. There would still be a typical two-and-a-half-minute song, which was the pop \u201crule\u201d in those days. You had to pretty much stay under three minutes. But when the solo came, instead of it being a sax, it was suddenly Jeff Beck doing an incredible 20-second guitar solo. That, to me, was the ideal to shoot for. That\u2019s what I aspired to be able to play well enough: having that cool solo in the middle and complementing the song for the rest of the time.<\/p>\n
I mean, I didn\u2019t really play much lead guitar. I had a couple sprinkled through my solo albums over the years. \u201cLyin\u2019 in a Bed of Fire\u201d from my first album and \u201cLos Desaparecidos (The Disappeared Ones)\u201d on my second album were good solos. But I didn\u2019t really play a lot until Born Against Savage, which was my hard-rock record that I released in 1999. That\u2019s the guitar playing I would\u2019ve done in the 1960s, had I been able to, and the songs I would\u2019ve written back then. It\u2019s that combination of all the hard-rock guys I loved: Jeff Beck Group, the Kinks, the Who, and Jimi Hendrix. You hear all of them on the album. So that was really the \u201cguitar-playing album\u201d of mine. I don\u2019t think there\u2019s any one particular solo that exemplifies my style. I\u2019m not sure I have a style in that sense. I\u2019m not really a musician\u2019s musician. I\u2019m just a guy complementing any particular song.<\/p>\n
My mind goes right to Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes, which was the definitive Jersey bar band and garage band. \u201cComing Back\u201d from the Better Days album is a nice reminder of the state. The \u201cJersey Shore sound\u201d is a bit of a fiction, though, because in the end you have to end up including Bon Jovi, which is quite a different thing. You know what I mean? My stuff, the Jukes\u2019 stuff, and Bruce\u2019s stuff is a bit more integrated and similar. The Jukes introduced the horns through the bar band. They changed the identity of bar bands, maybe nationwide, but certainly on the East Coast. So after that, people needed to have horns, which wasn\u2019t the case when I grew up. I think the soul-meets-rock thing defines that Jersey sound, which is exemplified by the Jukes. It\u2019s very different from the pop-rock of Bon Jovi. But even Jon, if you think deep enough, has similar roots. He just took a different path more toward the pop side of things.<\/p>\n
I wrote a lot of autobiographical stuff up until Soulfire, which was basically an album of songs that I wrote for other people. And then Summer of Sorcery was the first record I ever did that wasn\u2019t autobiographical at all, really. It was literally fiction \u2014 12 songs of different and individual movies, with different and individual characters. That was the first time I ever did something that was completely fictional. That took some guts, even though that\u2019s what everybody else always does. I finally did a \u201cnormal\u201d type of record. It was different to do something that had nothing to do with me.<\/p>\n
I would make them play \u201cRestless Nights,\u201d \u201cLoose Ends,\u201d and \u201cFade Away\u201d for me. The latter is why I really enjoyed it when we did the River Revisited Tour. Playing \u201cFade Away\u201d and those other The River songs every night really made for a fantastic show. And Bruce sings differently on that record. That\u2019s where most of his more soulful type of singing is, which he takes for granted. He\u2019s one of the great white soul singers of all time, but you wouldn\u2019t know it because he doesn\u2019t do that that often. But on that record, it\u2019s there a bit more prominently.<\/p>\n