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