Talk About a Dream: The Essential Interviews of Bruce Springsteen (23 page)
What about your relationship with video, from “Atlantic City” filmed without you in it to “Dancing in the Dark”?
Well, when I did the
Nebraska
record they didn’t want it. I really didn’t have anything to do with the “Atlantic City” video. The only direction I gave was to say that it should be kind of gritty-looking and it should have no images that matched up to the images in the song. I was really happy with it. I liked the way it came out. “Dancing in the Dark” was Brian DePalma. That was interesting, working with him. I really haven’t gotten into video as of yet. We did that one around the time we were
starting the tour and putting together the show. And that is the center of what we do. That has to be right. I look forward to getting into video, to see what can be done with it.
What about reactions to the Blaster Mix of “Dancing in the Dark”?
People kind of get a rigid view of certain things. That mix was an experimental thing initially. I heard one on the radio and I said, “Man, that sounds like fun! Let’s do one of those.” And so we got it to [producer] Arthur Baker and he was great, he was tremendous. I had a good time with it. He did the whole thing. His overdubs were kind of connected to my songs. He would put something that sounded like a glock [glockenspiel] or a twangy guitar. When I heard it I just thought it was fun. This was kind of wild, man, this guy, he’s got an unchained imagination. I thought the stuff was real creative. You’ve gotta do different things and try stuff. I figured that a lot of people would like it and that the people that didn’t like it would get over it. My audience is not that fragile, you know. They can take it. I’m just into seeing some different things. I could easily go out and do just what I did before. But now we’re playing outdoors on this tour, which I hadn’t done before. And we did the blaster thing and the video thing. I want to learn it myself. I want to just step out and see what works. If something doesn’t work and if something does, great. In ten years, I’ve built up a relationship with my audience.
To the point where they would support a quasi-commercial risk such as
Nebraska
?
Yeah! It was really well-supported by my audience, which was real satisfying and in tune. So, I say, hey let’s do some things, get in there. I can’t stand in one place. You’ve got to take some chances.
What about fans’ expectations? Especially the assumption that you’ve inherited the rock ’n’ roll crown
.
I don’t think you can ever think about that. I certainly would never think that. All those people were my heroes at some point or another. I still love Dylan, love the Stones. I kind of look at what I do in a couple of different ways. One is that it’s my job and it’s something I like doing and I do it the best that I can. Obviously I’m aware of people’s expectations and you gotta wrestle with that. But at the same time you gotta say, I write songs and we got a band, and that’s who you are, you know?
I don’t think you can carry that kind of thing around with you. I just want to do what I can do. At different times, I allowed myself to live under those types of pressures, of expectations.
I think that the audience and the performer must allow each other room to be human and to make mistakes. If not, then they don’t deserve each other. That’s what I wanted our band to be like. When I’m onstage I always feel, “What would I want to see if I was the guy in the fifth row?” I’m watching it and being up there and doing it all at the same time. I still feel like such a big fan myself of all music.
What happened with Steve Van Zandt?
It was real emotional, him going, and I’ll certainly miss him. But he had to. He had written a lot of real good songs; he had something to say and he has for quite a while. And it was time he stepped out and did what he had to do. But I talk to him all the time. Nils [Lofgren] I’d known on and off. Me and Nils auditioned the same night at the Fillmore West in 1969. When the situation came up, I had spent some time with him and knew that he thought and felt about music and rock ’n’ roll the way that I did. So that was kind of it. We never auditioned anybody or anything. He really brought an emotional thing to the band. At this point I think that the band is the only thing that counts. It’s the emotional commitment you gotta have to get on that stage.
Are you going to vote this year?
I’m not registered yet. I think I am going to register and vote my conscience. I don’t know that much about politics. I guess my politics are in my songs, whatever they may be. My basic attitude is people-oriented, you know. Kind of like human politics. I feel that I can do my best by making songs. Make some difference in that way.
You have no perfume or beer companies or anybody sponsoring your tour. Would you ever?
We get approached by corporations. It’s just not something that struck me as the thing that I wanted to do. Independence is nice. That’s why I started this. For the independence. I’m telling my story out there. I’m not telling somebody else’s. I’m saying what I want to say. That’s the only thing I’m selling. I had a few small jobs before I started playing, but when I picked up that guitar, that was when I could walk down my own path. That’s just the way I like it. It’s a lucky feeling, you know,
because how many people get to set their own standards and kind of run their own circus?
You’re doing the Rolling Stones’ “Street Fighting Man” as an encore. Is that a political statement?
I don’t know. I like that one line in the song, “What can a poor boy do but play for a rock ’n’ roll band?” It’s one of the greatest rock ’n’ roll lines of all time. It just seemed right for me to do it. It’s just fun. In that spot of the night it just fits in there. It’s just so driving, man. After “Born to Run,” we got to go up. That’s the trick. ’Cause it’s hard to find songs for our encore. You gotta go up and then you gotta go up again. It has tremendous chord changes, that song.
Is this another tour that lasts forever?
Well, it’s just the way we’ve always done it. It’s partly because the records take a while and by the time we get out, you want to go every-place. But that was the original idea: this is a traveling band. You gotta bring it to people. Up real close, as close as you can get. That’s what I like to do. ’Cause if you want it for yourself, you gotta want it for everybody, ’cause it’s all connected. In the end it’s all part of the same thing. Which is why Elvis’ message was so profound. It reaches everybody, everywhere. Doesn’t matter where or what the problems are or what the government is like. It bypasses those things. It’s a heart to heart. It’s a human thing. That’s why they should go out. Somebody comes out, they shout and yell, they have a great night, it’s a rock ’n’ roll show. It makes a difference, makes them think about something different. If I walk out on stage and I feel it, there’s a moment there that can’t be recaptured. This is the night that they meet you and you meet them, head on. That chance only comes once. One time. And you gotta take advantage of it. Some nights, like tonight in that Detroit medley, you can hear the scream and that captures the entire night. That’s what I came to do. That’s all I wanted to say.
The
Born in the U.S.A
. tour ended in October 1985, and Springsteen felt “Bruced out.” In rapid succession he made changes in his life. In 1985 he wed Julianne Phillips, a marriage that lasted only several years. He recorded 1987’s
Tunnel of Love
largely on his own, and though he reconvened the E Street Band for touring in 1988, he officially disbanded the group the following year. In 1990 he became a father, and in 1991 he married Patti Scialfa. In 1992, when James Henke, a prominent music critic and later head of exhibitions at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, conducted this interview, Springsteen had just released two albums,
Human Touch
and
Lucky Town
. Of his numerous interviews with
Rolling Stone
over the years, this was arguably the most crucial upon its publication, as Bruce discussed breaking up the E Street Band, moving from New Jersey to Los Angeles, and, most revealing, entering therapy: “That was really valuable. I crashed into myself and saw a lot of myself as I really was. And I questioned all my motivations. Why am I writing what I’m writing? Why am I saying what I’m saying? … I questioned everything I’d ever done, and it was good.”
“In the crystal ball, I see romance, I see adventure, I see financial reward. I see those albums, man I see them going back up the charts. I see them rising past that old Def Leppard, past that Kriss Kross. I see them all the way up past ‘Weird Al’ Yankovic, even … Wait a minute. We’re slipping. We’re slipping down them charts. We’re going down, down, out of sight, into the darkness …”
It was June 5th, and as Bruce Springsteen was performing “Glory Days” near the end of a live radio broadcast from a Los Angeles sound stage, he finally offered his commentary on the much-publicized failure of his latest albums—
Human Touch
and
Lucky Town
—to dominate the charts in the same way that some of their predecessors had. Thankfully, Springsteen demonstrated that while he may have lost a little of his commercial clout, he hasn’t lost his sense of humor.
The show, in front of about 250 invited guests and radio contest winners, was a “dress rehearsal” meant to introduce his new band—keyboardist Roy Bittan, guitarist Shane Fontayne, bassist Tommy Sims, drummer Zachary Alford, singer-guitarist Crystal Taliefero and vocalists Bobby King, Gia Ciambotti, Carol Dennis, Cleo Kennedy and Angel Rogers—and to stir up excitement for his summer tour of the States. He succeeded on both counts. The concert proved that even without the E Street Band, Springsteen is still a masterful performer; in fact, his new band rocks harder, and musically it challenges him more than his previous group. And he still has more than a few loyal fans: The day after the radio broadcast, he sold out eleven shows at New Jersey’s Brendan Byrne Arena (more than 200,000 tickets) in just two and a half hours.
Even so, it has been an unusually trying season for Springsteen. Though
Human Touch
and
Lucky Town
entered the charts at Numbers Two and Three, respectively, they quickly slipped and eventually dropped out of the Top Forty. On top of that, some segments of the media seemed to be reaping pleasure from Springsteen’s relative lack of success (and indeed, it is relative: Each of the albums has sold more than 1.5 million copies). One magazine,
Entertainment Weekly
, even put Springsteen on its cover with the headline WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO BRUCE?
But things could be worse, as Springsteen well knows. For the past several years, he has been waging a far tougher battle—trying to repair what had become a badly damaged personal life. “I was real
good
at music,” he says, “and real
bad
at everything else.”
Onstage, of course, Springsteen could do it all; offstage, it was a different story. Something of a loner by nature, he had difficulty maintaining
any kind of long-term relationship. Even as he was preaching about “community” during his
Born in the U.S.A
. tour, he himself was keeping his distance from just about everyone. And when he wasn’t working, he wasn’t happy.
When he hit the road in 1988 to support his
Tunnel of Love
album, the cracks in Springsteen’s personal life were beginning to show. His marriage to actress Julianne Phillips had begun to deteriorate, and thanks to the tabloids, it soon became public knowledge that he was seeing E Street Band singer Patti Scialfa. When he got off the road in late 1988 after playing a series of shows for Amnesty International, Springsteen hit rock bottom.
Gradually, he began to regain control of his life. He went into therapy. He got divorced from Phillips and eventually married Scialfa. He parted ways with the E Street Band. He left New Jersey and moved to Los Angeles. And with Scialfa, he fathered two children: Evan James, who’s almost two, and Jessica Rae, who was born last New Year’s Eve.
Springsteen’s personal trials are documented on
Human Touch
; his victory over those trials is the subject of
Lucky Town
. The jury is still out on whether his U.S. tour, which kicks off on July 23rd in New Jersey, will resuscitate those albums. But there’s no question that Springsteen himself is the happiest he’s been in a long time. Over the course of three lengthy interviews in Los Angeles and New York—the first in-depth interviews he’s done since 1986—he outlined in great detail what he calls “the biggest struggle of my life,” and he addressed a variety of other subjects, ranging from rap music to the presidential race.
The music scene has changed a lot since you last released an album. Where do you see yourself fitting in these days?
I never kind of fit in, in a funny kind of way. In the ’70s the music I wrote was sort of romantic, and there was lots of innocence in it, and it certainly didn’t feel like it was a part of that particular time. And in the ’80s, I was writing and singing about what I felt was happening to the people I was seeing around me or what direction I saw the country going in. and that really wasn’t in step with the times, either.
Well, given the response to your music then, I think you fit in pretty well during the ’80s
.
Well, we were
popular
, but that’s not the same thing. All I try to do is to write music that feels meaningful to me, that has commitment and
passion behind it. And I guess I feel that if what I’m writing about is real, and if there’s emotion, then hey, there’ll be somebody who wants to hear it. I don’t know if it’s a big audience or a smaller audience than I’ve had. But that’s never been my primary interest. I’ve had a kind of story I’ve been telling, and I’m really only in the middle of it.
At the same time, your new albums haven’t fared as well on the charts as most people expected, and you’ve had to endure some sniping from the media. How do you feel about that?
