THE LOCKDOWN INTERVIEWS
80 minute long free music compilations featuring intriguingly mixed rock and rock-based music . Satisfying musical appetites around the globe since 2005
20 illinoisentertainer . com february 2021
STEVE VAN ZANDT
A
s anyone familiar with his anecdotespiked DJ sets on his retro-rocking Underground Garage Sirius XM station can attest , Little Steve — AKA E Street Band and Asbury Jukes guitarist Miami Steve Van Zandt — has got stories . LOTS of serpentining stories , probably more than Aesop , Uncle Remus , and Grandpa Simpson combined . So naturally , all the accordant free time that the pandemic lockdown afforded him — plus several months preceding it — has made him even more reflective , to the point where he ’ s put his entire solo back catalog under the box-set microscope , via Rock N Roll Rebel : The Early Work , an exhaustively researched compilation including six vintage albums starting with the classic Men Without Women 1982 debut with the Disciples-of-Soul and including four discs of bonus tracks — 51 in all — and three extra live DVDs . It ’ s a remarkable collection . All six sets are available as individual releases , as well , charting Van Zandt ’ s fight for Native Americans ( Leonard Peltier , Trail of Broken Treaties ) and his historic stand against South African apartheid ( the all-star protest anthem Sun City ), all long before he carved out an illustrious acting career in The Sopranos and Lillehammer . Initially , he started his Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul ( with mohawk-haired Plasmatics bassist Jean Beauvoir ) while his Boss Bruce Springsteen was otherwise occupied with his homerecorded Nebraska . But his work began to take on a decidedly political life of its own , as this compilation — which ends with his lesshear Born Again Savage effort from 1999 — makes clear . Otherwise , during these strange times , the singer says , “ I ’ ve been bingewatching Designated Survivor , which is a terrific show — I don ’ t know how I missed it !”
IE : Is that water running in the background ? LITTLE STEVEN : OH , sorry ! The dog groomer was just here , and I ’ ve been cleaning up afterward . We have a King Charles spaniel — he ’ s a little guy but very furry .
IE : How ’ s the acting career been going lately , pre-pandemic ? LS : Well , I was looking for roles for a while , snd I had one thing fall through at the last minute , and that ’ s when I decided , “ You know what ? Let me go back and spend some time reconnecting with my old music ,” which I really had abandoned for 20 years without realizing it . So instead of doing this TV show — which I thought I was going to parlay into something permanent before it lost its financing at the last minute —, I saw that as a sign . So I ended up spending the last three years revisiting my old work , and I ’ ve got to tell ya , it ’ s been the most productive three years of my life . So we had the Soulfire album , too , then Soulfire — Live , then the Lillehammer score , and now this Rock N Roll Rebel package , and I ’ d gone 25 years without remastering anything . So I had to really say , “ Hold on — wait a minute ! Lets ’ take care of all of this old business here and get everything remastered , and maybe we ’ ll find some extra tracks .” And we found over 50 .
IE : Were there some gems you ’ d forgotten about ? LS : Oh , yeah . I ’ d forgotten about quite a bit of it . But there are some crazy guys that I know , collectors , guys that dig into the archives , and they found four or five songs that I didn ’ t even remember that we ’ re not quite finished , but finished enough to put on the album like * Time — these brand-new songs . And the oddest thing was , one of my crazy friends , Richie Russo , found some guys who had a cassette player , and me and Southside Johnny had a blues duo called Southside Johnny and the Kid , and these guys had had this cassette player recording us one night . So we wound up having a whole album of that , and we put one of the songs on this set , “ Who Told You ,” a Little Walter song . But there ’ s a whole album of Southside Johnny and the Kid that we can put out at some point because we just did that for a couple of months , but somebody in the audience happened to catch it .
IE : But you and Bruce used to play together , too , right ? Long before you officially joined the E Street Band in 1975 ? LS : Yeah . We were both in each other ’ s bands , off and on , from ’ 69 to ’ 73 , when he got signed , I guess . For that three or four year period , we were in five , six different bands with each other . He was the lead guitar player in my Sundance Blues Band , and then I played bass with him in Steel Mill . So then I finally joined the E Street Band later , in ’ 75 , for the Born to Run tour , so there were some things that we were writing together and some songs that were in various states of composition . And then we put a bunch of songs from my movie on the album because I was going to do a movie instead of a video because videos had just started with MTV , and I thought — weighing the cost — that by
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By TOM LANHAM