Talk About a Dream: The Essential Interviews of Bruce Springsteen (9 page)

Like me, if things don’t happen right away in the studio, people get weird. I get real weird. People would walk out, they couldn’t talk any more. Not because they were uptight at anybody, they just couldn’t talk. Like Landau, I’ll never forget it: he was incredible, he made it the whole way, but the last day, we were doing the last song, and he walked out. Not mad, you gotta understand. Not mad, not uptight; it was not an uptight walk-out. He just drifted out the door. He went home. He says, “I sat there and realized there was nothing I could do, and if anything was going to happen that you guys were going to do it.” And we sat there at that board mixing “She’s the One.” I think I was asleep, I think I slept most of the time. I know the engineer was awake, I know Mike was awake. Mike is a great guy—he’s always awake [
laughs
]. But you’ve got to dig that that is where it was at some times on this record: you were great if you were awake! Because a lot of people were asleep, passed out. It was an ordeal.

What do you think of it now that it’s finished?

The record? Oh, I like the record. I hated it for the first few times I heard it, I wasn’t going to release it. I called Philby up about it, I was
going to throw it out! I went nuts. I went crazy. But they were all really pro putting it out. People legitimately liked the record, which I couldn’t fathom at the time, because I hated it so much.

Do you have a definite favorite off the album?

I like “Born to Run.” That’s always been my favorite. Just because it was something I executed the way I sort of wanted to.

Now you’re going to be famous. You are famous
.

I don’t know, I ain’t famous yet.

Oh yeah, I think so. I mean, it hasn’t materialized in your personal life yet, but that will happen. What are your thoughts about that?

I don’t have any thoughts about it. I don’t know what’s possible, what ain’t possible. I just do what feels right at the moment. I know what feels right and I know what don’t. And that’s the way I always worked. I never planned anything. I never thought, in three years it’ll work out.

Last night we were walking out on the streets; in three years you won’t be able to do that. You see that happen to people
.

I can’t imagine it happening to me. Not where I can’t walk out on the street and stuff. I can’t imagine that happening. I ain’t into daydreaming about being big and famous and stuff like that. Not to say that you don’t think about it, because everybody thinks about it, but I think about it now the same way I thought about it when me and Stevie were riding in this dumpy old van in Richmond, Virginia, about six years ago. It’s something that’s impossible to try to come to terms with before you’re there.

But knowing something about how things go in this business, you might say I more or less know where this is leading me. And I might not be very pleased with it. So let’s stop it here or there to keep it together for myself so I can handle it. It might get out of hand.

My situation is that when things start happening that I don’t like, when I find things starting to slip out of control as far as presenting myself and my band the way I want to, that’s when I stop. We got this gig we were supposed to do in two days. I knew it was going to be a lousy gig; Karen knew it was going to be a lousy gig; we’re not going to do the gig. So we stop it. And that’s the way I work. We may do another hall a few miles away, and it’s a nice hall. And we’ll charge only a buck
to get in, so that people will come. Maybe we’ll do that. When I find it slipping from my control, that’s when I say wait, stop, Mike, come here, let’s not do this, let’s do this. And that’s the governor on the whole thing, that I’m very conscious of it running away with me. I’ve never been into that, I’ve always been into directing myself and me riding it where I want to, me on the back telling it where I want to go. I know myself, and I know I’m the kind of person that can keep it that way. I’m not too worried about it.

Melody Maker
, November 15, 1975

In anticipation of Springsteen’s first-ever performance in London,
Melody Maker
produced an 80-page extravaganza under the title “Smash Hit Springsteen.” The issue included an interview conducted in Los Angeles by Ray Coleman, who would become editor of
Melody Maker
. Asked whether he saw himself as the future of rock ’n’ roll, as Jon Landau famously wrote in the
Real Paper
, Springsteen responds, “Hey, gimme a break with that stuff, will you? It’s nuts. It’s crazy. Who could take that seriously?”

Do you feel a big responsibility now as opposed to one year ago? You are now “a star.” Do you feel this affecting you?

No. No. I don’t feel any different. That stuff—it’s a bunch of jive. The only responsibility you have is to remain true to yourself, true to what you do. If you do that I think you’ll do all right, you know. It’s harder to do as it goes along because all of a sudden you’re something that money can be made with, you know? Then you gotta watch out,
because people are gonna want you to do things you don’t wanna do …

Like this interview?

[
Laughs
] Nah—I wanted to do this interview …

But this interview might not be happening right now had you not been a big property to Columbia Records …

What’s the difference? You know, records or no records, some place in the world I’m gonna play. It’s like if it wasn’t here, if it wasn’t in Los Angeles, it’d be back in Asbury Park, because that’s what I do. It’s my life, you know? And ah—this interview today, this interview is just not particularly symbolic of anything.

You don’t feel caught up in any machine?

Well … [
Long silence
].

Star-making machine?

In a way, yes. I don’t know how they can make somebody a star, because not all of the machinery is as tough. It’s not necessarily a bad thing; it is very often a stupid and foolish thing, the way it’s used sometimes.

What they’ll do is hurt you trying to help you, you know? I can’t be put in a position of having to dig out of somebody’s idea of what I am. For years now, first I was Dylan, digging my way from under that, right? Then I was like something else—the Future! I dig out from under that. So that’s the position I’ve been put in.

But I’ve sorta come to accept it, even though I resent it very much. Because all I’ve ever done is write my songs and play with my band. I’ve tried to keep tabs on what people are doing, promotion-wise, and there’s been a lot of ads that I’ve pulled out of the press, just in time.

By the time you pull the ads, it’s too late, you’re like in the press, everybody picks it up, whatever was in the ad, you know? I’m a lot more than just words on paper, you know?

You can’t jive the kid in the street, no matter what everybody says. He don’t care what’s on the radio, don’t care what somebody is saying. The kid on the street, I think, sees what’s jive. These kids in that audience, living the whole thing, dying with the whole thing, you know—
that’s what it’s all about. Like, the kids knew all the songs, and they liked the band.

But disregarding the publicity that’s happened for you in the last year, which has built up to a peak this very week, the fans also seem to regard you as rather important in that you’re very fresh, your music isn’t really a copy of anyone else’s even though it has its roots in the ’60s rock. Do you agree that they seem ready to accept a new giant star and you’re there, right now, ready to be plucked off the tree? Are your new fans waiting to erect a new statue?

No, I don’t think the kids think like that. Every kid relates to you on his own personal level, you know, like what you mean to him specifically. I think if they find something in you, if something helps him out, something that clears something out for him. I think it’s as simple as that.

I don’t think there’s any basis in it. People are ready? People are always ready, you know? Something comes along and it’s what they like. As far as big symbols or big beat, big stars or something, I don’t know. It’s not exactly me.

I can’t see myself big or a star kind of guy. I mean, ah, not in the normal sense or in the original sense. Maybe … I don’t know. I mean, I gotta good band. I’ve got some of the greatest guys in the world, I think, guys who will go anywhere, do anything.

They’ve worked for no money for years, they’ve seen the sights, played every kind of place you can imagine. I’ve seen situations that are unbelievable. And they come out and they play like it’s life or death. Because it’s important to them. This is the reason to live.

It ain’t a job and it ain’t business, you know. If you approach it like that you might as well get a real job or something! It’s my whole life. First time I ever feel any good is when I’m playing and I have a good time. It’s everything to me, and it’s the same thing to those guys.

Do you feel the audiences are different now? You’re attracting different audiences from those you were attracting, say, a year ago?

The response to the band has always been very, very good. That’s why it’s a joke, you know, all the jive. That’s where it came from, man, the kids. Response from the audience has always been great.

We never sold a lot of records, maybe because you couldn’t get the whole story from the records we did earlier, but whenever we played it
was like—instant! Wherever we go we’d always feel a part of all those kids—sometimes 10, 20, 30, 40 and 100, sometimes we sell out. We vary.

They knew it all. They knew your whole, knew all your songs, all the words and they were like they were just right THERE, into it as much as us. On stage you know, that’s the situation, man. So it’s funny. Like, in reality, a lot of things haven’t changed that much.

What do you want of an audience? Do you want them to bounce off from?

Ideally, the kind of audience that comes to do it with you. The hardest audience is opening night. Maybe a few people can get into it but most disregard all the stuff, don’t believe in anything, or half of what they see.

You can not get a sense of the city on the first show. Because these people flip and they all got in free, and the people flew in from other places outside of LA. The kids don’t get in till the next night. That one was fantastic and the audiences were great, great audiences.

Having “taken” Los Angeles, do you regard this as a turning point, a milestone, in your career?

I’m doing the best I can right now, you know, that’s all. Like, I worked really great in Los Angeles but in general I think that if the concerts open the door for me to come back again—that’s what it’s about. Outside of that, you know—just sing every night, you know. Do a show, just go out to play, best I can.

Has the fame of this last year affected your writing in any way? Do you find it more difficult to write now?

No, the writings are crazy. I don’t know about it at all. It just comes and goes, and I write almost strictly when I have to.

When you started playing, leading a band, in New Jersey, did you set off thinking: “I want to be a superstar? I want to be the new Elvis Presley?”

When I started I wanted to play rhythm guitar in a local band. Like, sit back there, play a rhythm guitar. Just wanna play rhythm! And like—stand back! I didn’t wanna sing, just get a nice band and play rhythm.

But I found out I had a little more sense than I thought, I found out that I just knew more about it than other guys that were in the band.
So I slowly just became the leader, you know, and that’s pretty much how we became a band.

You know, you always say: “Oh, I wanna be famous and I’ll make the box office someday,” but it’s bad—you don’t have to think about it.

I’ll go out there [
points as if to stage
]. I mean, right THERE is all that matters, because if you ain’t delivering now, you know, there’s no excuse, there’s no reason, no matter what you feel. Hell, no matter how tough it is, you gotta do it, then and now. So, I never thought too much about it at the time.

How much is
Born to Run
autobiographical?

Oh I don’t know … it’s hard to say. I don’t really write like that. I write overall feelings of things, you know, mixed in with lots of different shades of the same reality—I don’t know if that makes any sense! It’s, like, just varying shades of the same things, like some of it is on an immediate, very physical level of experience, the other is on a more emotional level.

How do you write songs? Do you discipline yourself and say I’m going to write some music today?

I just sit down and f—around for a couple of hours. Usually something comes up. I sit down and I work on the song, and I sit down and work on it some more, then some more and some more, and maybe I’ve got to discipline myself.

How far do you want the popularity to go?

To tell you the truth, I just don’t know. I don’t know what the hell’s going on. I don’t ever want it to get in the way of what I’m doing first of all, you know? I don’t ever plan to let it water down anything that I’m doing.

It’s OK as long as it stays out of the way, and HELPS. For as far as it helps that’s as far as I want it to go. Otherwise it’s me freaked out, so why bother with the whole thing? I get upset by it sometimes, you know—I just don’t wanna go and get lost in a bunch of stuff that don’t mean nothing to me.

How much does your current popularity affect your movement, day by day?

I got the kind of face that gets recognised! I look like, you know, Mr. Face-in-the-crowd, that’s me! Only place I get recognised if I go out is
in a club, but in general the most that happens is somebody comes up and says “Hi.”

But it doesn’t prevent you from walking around?

Oh no, no.

Would you resent it if it did?

I guess so. It’s just that I don’t wanna get into that aspect of it. I ain’t into, like, riding around in limousines—a DRAG, you know! I wouldn’t dig it if I couldn’t do what I wanna do. Can’t go any place, you know, can’t do nothing—I mean, that’s not what people like doing, that’s not reality.