Steven Van Zandt embodies both the frustration and beauty of the arts. There are no organizational charts, no official titles, no consistent way to get work done. He’s discovered that it’s easier to be this creative furnace, this volcano of artistic creation, when you’re not the center of attention. So the longtime guitarist and music director for Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band was also a different kind of underboss, starring in one of the most influential television shows in history, “The Sopranos.” That is, when he wasn’t writing scripts and arranging music while trying to preserve rock ‘n’ roll. The highway may be full of broken heroes, but Little Steven refuses to choose a lane.
Late on a Sunday afternoon in May, Stevie Van Zandt was in the midst of a burst of wild creativity. As he was working on his latest script, an idea came to him that he had to capture on the page.
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Where was this quaint writer’s retreat? In his backstage dressing room. At a concert. In Rome, just minutes before Van Zandt put down his pen and pad and then went on stage to perform at the Circus Maximus, the ancient chariot arena, as a critical member of one of the most successful rock and roll acts of all time.
Steven Van Zandt is working on a “60 Minutes” script.
Jon Wertheim: You said we had to come to your performance in Rome. Of all the cities, of all the gin bars, why Rome?
Steven Van Zandt: The fans here are just so much fun. You see everyone singing every single word of every single song even though they don’t particularly speak English, right, that’s impressive.
Jon Wertheim: That’s confirmation.
Steven Van Zandt: Well, it’s a confirmation. It’s a testament to the power of what we do.
Wrapped in his trademark headscarf and enveloped in complexity, Little Steven, now 72, remains a true American original. The ultimate wingman…
Steven Van Zandt: I’m not crazy about the spotlight, I could have been, and maybe I should have been, okay? Because again, it is clear to me that this has great advantages. But of course I just wasn’t keen on it. I, you know, I’d rather stand next to the guy. Let him be in the spotlight, let him take the heat. Because I actually like mingling, you know.
Jon Wertheim: Yes, I can tell from the modest outfit.
Steven Van Zandt: I gave up analyzing it years ago. But I prefer to be an observer rather than the observed.
Jon Wertheim: Can I explain it to you?
Steven Van Zandt: Do I have to lie on the couch for this?
One thing he doesn’t question is his place in the band.
Steven Van Zandt: You know, people always say, “Aren’t you worried about being replaced?” I say, “I, no.” I can’t be replaced. How many best friends have you had for 50 years, do you know?”
The best friend he’s referring to is, of course, Springsteen…they met as teenagers in 1960s Jersey, outsiders seduced by rock ‘n’ roll. To quote Little Steven: “The Beatles revealed this new world to us, the Rolling Stones invited us.” They formed a band based in the boardwalk town of Asbury Park. Given that Van Zandt had a monthly rent of $150, things were going well. More importantly, the band learned how to play live and how to combine musicality with showmanship.
Bruce Springsteen and Steven Van Zandt 60 Minutes
Steven Van Zandt: The fact that seven years before we got into the music business, we were in bars making our bones, right?
Jon Wertheim: You get into this game because it appeals to you. What did it bring you that you didn’t expect?
Steven Van Zandt: Different from everything? You know what I mean, it was just everything. It saved my life. I mean, I had no way forward. And so it brings you acceptance. You are part of something. And man, it just came at exactly the right time. You make a living playing rock ‘n’ roll, man. That was the miracle.
Van Zandt, who neither reads nor writes music, brought with him his knowledge of the guitar and his musical ear. He arranged the iconic horns on “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out” and refined Springsteen’s guitar lick on “Born to Run.”
Jon Wertheim: How much credit do you accept? How much credit should we give for this band’s success?
Steven Van Zandt: I understood certain things earlier than anyone else. If you listen to “Darkness on the Edge of Town” and “River,” the difference is me, you know… I’m not, I’m never, I’m never going to take more credit than the rest of this band. So I just helped shape things and tried to realize Bruce’s vision. It’s his vision. I try to make bad things good, good things great, and great things better, you know?
But after a dispute over creative input, Van Zandt left the band in 1984 and was conspicuously absent from the tour supporting Springsteen’s most commercially successful album. He had married actress Maureen Santoro and began writing songs for his own band, Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul.
And he turned his attention to political activism, particularly apartheid in South Africa.
Steven Van Zandt: 26 million black people weren’t allowed to vote, they weren’t even allowed to, you know, have a cup of tea with a white person without permission. It’s terrible.
In 1985, Van Zandt wrote and co-produced the protest song “Sun City”, which portrayed the resort town three hours outside of Johannesburg as a symbol of the moral failure of apartheid. Van Zandt didn’t just get his colleagues to sing on an album; He got them to commit to a Sun City boycott.
Jon Wertheim: You saw through that?
Steven Van Zandt 60 minutes
Steven Van Zandt: Yes. So we took that as an example. And we uncovered this whole fraudulent scheme.
Jon Wertheim: “I won’t play ‘Sun City’.”
Steven Van Zandt: Yes.
In the late ’90s, he and Springsteen reconciled. And when the boss asked his buddy to rejoin the E Street Band, this gun was up for rent. But there was a catch. Van Zandt had already signed on for a new TV show on HBO.
Creator David Chase had seen Van Zandt at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and made him an offer he couldn’t refuse.
Steven Van Zandt: He calls and says, “You know, do you want to be on my new TV show?” And I said, “Wow, that’s really nice, David. I really appreciate that. But no, not really,” you know? He said, ‘What do you mean no?’ I’m like, ‘I’m not an actor, you know? Isn’t that a problem?”
Van Zandt says Chase wanted him to play the lead role.
Steven Van Zandt: He goes to HBO, HBO says, “Are you crazy, you know? Do you want to rely on a guy who’s never played before?”
Jon Wertheim: “Good guitar playing and stuff, but–“
Steven Van Zandt: Yeah, “I mean, what are you, weirdos?”
“The Sopranos” would take television to a new level. While the lead role would go to James Gandolfini, Van Zandt would star as Silvio Dante, manager of the Bada Bing club.
Steven Van Zandt: I knew if I could create the guy from the outside in, if I could look at him in the mirror, I would feel like I could be him. And I was a bit of a Mob fan, you know what I mean? You know, I played at the Flamingo Hotel, for heaven’s sake, you know? Come on, come on, you know? I mean, who has more credibility?
The guy who played Tony Soprano’s right-hand man? He had more than a passing familiarity with the role.
Jon Wertheim: I don’t want to compare Bruce Springsteen to a mafia boss, but you had had that experience, you had done that exercise, you knew what it was like.
Steven Van Zandt: I know this dynamic, okay? I know I’m the only one who isn’t afraid to tell the boss the truth. That’s the job. This is the performance. If you’re the guy’s best friend, the consigliere, or the underboss, you have to know that someone has to be the one to deliver bad news every now and then.
Steven Van Zandt shows Jon Wertheim a “Sopranos” poster on 60 Minutes
What was an adjustment: the passive-aggressiveness of the acting stage.
Steven Van Zandt: Because now it’s like, “Who has more lines?”
Jon Wertheim: Really?
Steven Van Zandt: “Who will be in front of the camera at the right time?” Well, I feel it all kind of strange… you know… a little strange… I’m kind of not used to it…
Jon Wertheim: This tension?
Steven Van Zandt: Yeah, and then I decided to turn this show into a rock and roll band, you know? Before I finish, okay, this show is going to be a band. It’s “all for one and one for all,” right?
An original “Sopranos” poster is one of countless music and film relics that adorn Van Zandt’s Greenwich Village studio. When the “Sopranos” journey came to an end after eight years, Van Zandt, being Van Zandt, began new projects: He began his memoirs. And he co-wrote and starred in “Lilyhammer,” a Norway-based mob show that would become the first original series in the history of a streaming service called…Netflix.
But wait, there’s more. Concerned about the decline in rock venues and album sales, he started a weekly radio show, Little Steven’s Underground Garage.
Jon Wertheim: Wouldn’t you mind if you were a little displaced by a new wave of E Street bands?
Steven Van Zandt: I would love it. I mean, that’s what my entire radio show is about.
He also somehow found the bandwidth to start TeachRock, a free curriculum for grades K through 12 that uses rock ‘n’ roll to secretly teach all the other things.
Steven Van Zandt: We say: Tell us what you’re hearing. “Well, I listen to Beyoncé.” Well, do you know where Beyoncé comes from? It comes from a woman named Aretha Franklin. And Aretha Franklin comes from a place called Detroit, you know? We’re talking about Detroit. And we talk about it – she comes from the gospel church. We’re talking about it. She was committed to civil rights. Then we’ll talk about it, you know? And they listen and pay attention. Why? Because we’re on their territory.
Jon Wertheim: And yet we keep hearing that arts and music programs in public schools are being cut.
Steven Van Zandt: Yes.
Jon Wertheim: Why is that?
Steven Van Zandt: Because people don’t understand that we are the only country in the world that considers art a luxury. Everyone else in the world understands that art is an essential part of the quality of life.
The current culture of the arts and the changing state of music make him even more grateful that a few nonconformists from Jersey picked the right time, took a few breaks, and became rock ‘n’ roll titans.
Jon Wertheim: How do you even begin to describe Steven Van Zandt?
Jon Wertheim, Bruce Springsteen and Steven Van Zandt 60 Minutes
Bruce Springsteen: I don’t know if I can – except all I can say is that I met him when he was 16. Steve is the consigliere of the E Street Band. If I have questions about the direction of the band, problems with the band or something like the setlist, I’m not sure what we’re going to play that night, what to start with or if he has a second doubt about something, he always comes to me. So he’s been indispensable to me since, I don’t know, he went into the studio during the Born to Run sessions and fixed the horns and my guitar parts. And we’ve been doing this together for a long time. And that is a wonderful thing. I mean, how many people have their best friend by their side 50 years later?
Bruce Springsteen: There you are, boy.
Steven Van Zandt: What are you talking about? What are you talking about?
Bruce Springsteen: We like the same music. We like the same clothes.
Jon Wertheim: You meet as teenagers, you’re these Jersey outcasts. And here we are, more than 50 years later, and you’re going to Rome to perform at the Circus Maximus.
Steven Van Zandt: That’s something.
Bruce Springsteen: You can’t put it together. It’s just one of those things that happens.
Jon Wertheim: How do you seriously understand that?
Steven Van Zandt: Well, in a way it makes sense because I think, as we mentioned, there was nothing else we could do. So we wanted… we were meant to.
Bruce Springsteen: And we didn’t do anything else. So that has a lot to do with it too. All we did was music, music, music, music, play, play, play, play.
We and the rest of the audience experienced this ourselves.
He’s still rocking in his 70s, trying to save radio, trying to save rock, writing screenplays. If Steven Van Zandt is unapologetically accused of being an artistic dreamer, he will plead guilty.
Jon Wertheim: This is going to sound harsh. Is this the sound version of Don Quixote?
Steven Van Zandt: Yeah, that’s pretty much my life story. But occasionally you knock down a windmill or two. (Laugh).
Produced by Michael Karzis. Co-producer: Kara Vaccaro. Broadcaster Elizabeth Germino. Edited by Daniel J. Glucksman.