Preet Bharara:
From CAFE and the Vox Media Podcast Network, welcome to Stay Tuned. I’m Preet Bharara.
Steven Van Zandt:
If you are going to take a stand, make sure it’s a righteous stand because we do have an obligation because we have people listening and we have that soapbox or whatever you want to call it and it should be used wisely as opposed to our former malignant orangutan.
Preet Bharara:
That’s Steven Van Zandt, also known as Little Steven. He’s a legendary musician and also an actor who has lived many lives, first as Bruce Springsteen’s sidekick in the E Street Band and later as mobster Silvio Dante on the hit HBO show, The Sopranos. He’s out with a new memoir. It’s called Unrequited Infatuations: Odyssey of a Rock and Roll Consigliere. This interview was personal for me. As a young boy in New Jersey, I grew up on Little Steven and the E Street Band. But our conversation today was about a lot more than just music. We talked about the seed to the anti-apartheid movement in the United States, whether musicians have a moral obligation to speak out about politics, and what it means to be a band guy instead of a solo guy, a consigliere instead of a front man. That’s coming up. Stay tuned.
Preet Bharara:
Before I get to your questions, I want to remind you all that we have a super exciting event tonight, Thursday, October 21st. Now & Then hosts Heather Cox Richardson and Joanne Freeman will be joined by another wonderful historian, Emory professor of African-American studies, Carol Anderson, for a special live taping of their podcast. Curtains open at 6:30 PM Eastern. Get a link to join on Zoom at cafe.com/live. Hope to see you there. Now, let’s get to your questions.
Preet Bharara:
This question comes in an email from Amir, who writes, “I read that Trump sat down for a deposition Monday over an incident with a security guard at Trump Tower. Can you explain what’s going on? Could Trump be held personally liable?” So thanks for the question. Amid all this conversation and debate, which is natural and legitimate, over the panel examining the origins of the 1/6 insurrection, a little bit more quietly, Donald Trump actually did sit for a deposition in a civil case, although he tried for a long time to get out of it. The case arises from an incident, as you point out, with Trump’s security at Trump Tower back in 2015, before he was the president. The case has taken a long while to get anywhere, in part because Trump has argued through his lawyers that he was too busy to sit for a deposition while he was commander in chief.
Preet Bharara:
The lawsuit involves a claim by a group of protestors who allege that they were attacked by Trump Organization guards at a rally outside of Trump Tower back in September of 2015. They have brought the suit against the Trump Organization, the security guards, and the Trump campaign. So as to your question about whether Trump could be held personally liable, that remains to be seen. It depends on what he admits. It depends on whether or not he was the person who directed them to engage in that conduct. I’m not sure they’ll ever be able to prove that. I don’t even really have a view on the merits of the claim at all. But I do think it’s interesting to think about what’s going to happen to Trump in the coming years. There are a whole bunch of other lawsuits now that Donald Trump is no longer president that he will likely have to be deposed in, and he has a history of being involved in litigation, both as a plaintiff and as a defendant, and some of that history is interesting.
Preet Bharara:
Reporters asked the plaintiff’s lawyer in the current case about what Trump was like, and I thought the lawyer gave an interesting answer. He said, quote, “You all have seen the president for many years on the news, almost every night for five or six years now. The president was exactly as you would expect him to be.” He said, “Trump,” quote, “conducted himself in a manner you would expect Mr. Trump to conduct himself,” end quote. So what does that mean? If you go back and look at the history, there are two things that I find notable about how Donald Trump testifies, well, I guess, three things. One is there’s certain kinds of occasions where he will just refuse to testify and gets out of it. That was notable in the Mueller investigation, of course. The other thing is he is his usual obnoxious self. There was a New York Times article from July 28th, 2015 that describes the way that Donald Trump tends to conduct himself in depositions, and one of those ways is to be snarky and harassing and obnoxious. This article describes, on one occasion, he called the lawyer who was questioning him disgusting and also other names.
Preet Bharara:
But the third thing that’s notable to me and not often commented on is that if you get Donald Trump under oath in a deposition in a legal proceeding, he does make concessions. I’m not saying he always tells the full truth, but he appreciates, at least historically, the gravity of his predicament and he will walk things back. Here’s some examples from that New York Times article. On one occasion, a lawyer asked him, “Have you ever exaggerated in statements about your properties?” Trump replies, “I think everyone does.” He’s asked, “Does that mean that sometimes you’ll inflate the value of your properties in your statements?” Trump answers, “Not beyond reason.” On another occasion, he was asked, “Did your debts ever reach nine billion dollars in the 1990s,” as he said in two of his books to dramatize his eventual financial comeback. What does Trump say? “That is a mistake, and I don’t know how it got there.” So, in any event, I don’t know what will happen with this case, but it will be interesting to see Trump sitting in that seat being asked questions by lawyers in multiple cases going forward.
Preet Bharara:
This question comes in an email from Jacob, who writes, “The January 6th committee voted to recommend a criminal contempt of Congress charge against Bannon. That’s a big deal. Has this ever happened before?” Well, the answer, Jacob, is, yes, it’s happened before. As Joyce Vance and I discussed on the Insider Podcast this week, we recounted some of the history, it’s happened, actually, with greater frequency in recent times and, often, it’s a symbolic vote to hold someone, sometimes it’s even a cabinet official, in contempt of Congress. Of course, what happened this week was just a vote by the committee. That then is followed by a vote by the entire House of Representatives, and that may have happened by the time you listen to my words in this podcast. Every expectation is that a majority of members of the House will sustain the vote that we saw in the committee that was unanimous.
Preet Bharara:
The bigger question, though, is whether the Justice Department, namely the US attorney in DC, will… Having received the recommendation for criminal contempt of Congress, the referral, will that person choose to indict the witness, in this case, Steve Bannon? That is exceedingly rare, and it’s rare for a number of reasons. Number one, often, it’s the case, as it was with Bill Barr and with Eric Holder, the US attorney in DC is not about to indict that person’s boss on the recommendation of Congress, particularly given the circumstances in which the criminal contempt was recommended. Another reason is that the Department of Justice has the generalized policy of not indicting someone if they bring a reasonable or plausible argument that the reason that they cannot testify or provide documents is because of executive privilege. There are other reasons as well.
Preet Bharara:
The last time someone was indicted through this process was in 1983. It was an EPA official, Rita Lavelle, and the full House vote to cite Lavelle for contempt of Congress was actually unanimous, 413 to zero. Eight days later, the US attorney’s office indicted Rita Lavelle. That’s the last time it happened, and you know what happened in that case? She was acquitted by the jury. That’s not to say Steve Bannon won’t be convicted. That’s not to say that this is a stronger case because I think it is. I think he has no argument, as I’ve been saying for a few weeks now, to argue executive privilege. But we’ll have to wait and see what the Department of Justice does.
Preet Bharara:
This question comes in a tweet from @CizzlingSports, sizzling spelled with a C, who wants to know, “What is your favorite chain steakhouse?” That’s an interesting question, why you would want to know my favorite chain steakhouse. But I’ll answer, I guess, it depends on when in my life you were asking me that question. When I was a kid, there was a chain steakhouse. I don’t know if it still exists, but it was a favorite of the family, a special occasion, that we would go to the Sizzler all you can eat salad bar. That’s where my family liked to go. Then, a few years after that, we used to go to another chain steakhouse, I don’t know if it still exists, called Bonanza, in part because I had an uncle who was the manager there.
Preet Bharara:
I’ll tell you a chain steakhouse I don’t like, no offense, and we will now lose them as an advertiser on Stay Tuned with Preet, but the Outback, I went there once, got to tell you, didn’t love it, also don’t like their commercials. Now, I don’t know what qualifies as a chain steakhouse. If the definition is there’s more than one of them, then my favorite chain steakhouse at the moment would be Wolfgang’s. There’s a number of those on the island of Manhattan. Wolfgang’s was started by the former head waiter at Peter Luger’s, which is a legendary steakhouse in Brooklyn, which you may know. If you had asked me what my favorite steakhouse is, period, as a lot of people who know me appreciate, my favorite steakhouse is Sparks on 46th Street in Manhattan, the place where Gambino boss, Paul Castellano, got whacked many years ago. Stay tuned. There’s more coming up after this.
Preet Bharara:
My guest this week is Stevie Van Zandt. He’s a rock and roll legend who came to fame as the guitarist in Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band. He also led his own band, Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul. His life has taken many twists and turns. Starting in the ’90s, he found success as a first-time actor, most notably on HBO’s The Sopranos, where he played Silvio Dante, the loyal consigliere to mob boss Tony Soprano. Stevie Van Zandt, welcome to the show. It’s a real privilege and honor to have you.
Steven Van Zandt:
Oh, my pleasure, Preet. Good to be with you.
Preet Bharara:
I got to say, I’m a little bit nervous. I’m not usually nervous for these things. Because, to me, and this will come as no surprise to my listeners, you are a hero and a legend, so I’m going to do my best.
Steven Van Zandt:
Oh, man.
Preet Bharara:
Members of Congress are a little easier for me than people of your higher stature.
Steven Van Zandt:
That’s funny.
Preet Bharara:
We got to keep that in the final episode. So congratulations on the book.
Steven Van Zandt:
Thank you.
Preet Bharara:
Unrequited Infatuations, it’s a great title. What’s interesting to me and what I loved about the book is I feel like I just had a 15-hour conversation with you.
Steven Van Zandt:
Oh, nice.
Preet Bharara:
Because it really feels like you’re just talking, and I think you’ve said in other interviews that that was how you conceived of doing the book, you just talking. The problem is, with just you talking, I couldn’t get a word in edgewise. I’m glad I can ask you some follow-up questions now because I had a few. So we have a lot of ground to cover because you’ve lived one of the most interesting, remarkable lives, I think, of anyone that I can think of. First thing that struck me in your background is you said you didn’t like being a kid. Who doesn’t like being a kid?
Steven Van Zandt:
Well, I like it now.
Preet Bharara:
Now that you can enjoy childhood, you like it.
Steven Van Zandt:
Yeah. I’m making a living doing it. But, yeah, I hated being a kid. I just wanted to grow up and get on with it. I just felt like the adults had all these secrets and were controlling things, and I wanted to be in control of my own destiny, I guess.
Preet Bharara:
And have you been? Have you found that you have been?
Steven Van Zandt:
No, but I’m working on it.
Preet Bharara:
Right. Well, you’ll get there eventually, a couple, three years, right?
Steven Van Zandt:
Yeah. I think that’s what attracted me to religion in the early days, which ended up getting transferred to the rock and roll world. But, basically, I thought, “That’s where the secrets are. That’s where the answers are.”
Preet Bharara:
And then you grow up and you find out that adults have more questions than the kids even.
Steven Van Zandt:
Well, yeah. Yeah. I mean, you find that the answers… Well, I did, along the way, though, find out who’s pulling the strings, and that was part of my journey, just to find out who is in control of our own destiny and why and how do we deal with that and all those kind of questions. That was-
Preet Bharara:
Right. I mean, you also learn how much luck is involved, right?
Steven Van Zandt:
Oh, yeah. There’s luck involved and destiny and bizarre circumstance. Very little of my life has been planned, very little.
Preet Bharara:
Yeah. No, that’s true, and you had the good fortune of being able to make certain decisions, some of which you’re very honest about in the book that you maybe thought you shouldn’t have made, and then you could undo some of them. You can’t always walk back through the door, but you managed to do that with E Street Band, for example.
Steven Van Zandt:
Well, that was the most interesting one because that’s the one that I’ve carried my whole life, feeling that was the biggest mistake of my life. But then when you examine it a little bit closer, you realize everything I’ve accomplished, literally everything, happened after I left the E Street Band.
Preet Bharara:
Just to remind folks who may not have read the book and aren’t familiar or have forgotten because it’s been a long time, you left the E Street Band in 1980-what?
Steven Van Zandt:
Well, technically, ’82, but most people consider it ’84 because that’s when they started the tour of Born in the USA. I produced most of Born in the USA and then left around ’82.
Preet Bharara:
And then you got to go back after doing all these other great things?
Steven Van Zandt:
Yeah, just a little bit of closure because I left under rather emotional circumstances and always felt that I should go back. But going back and reliving it, I think you really have to transport yourself back when you’re doing a book like this, it was interesting to me, and I think I learned a lot about my decision-making process and what I did what I did. When you really measure it, it turns out that it probably was for the best for everybody.
Preet Bharara:
So I want to talk about the E Street Band in a little bit, but, first, I want to talk about something that I feel is a bit of philosophy in your book, and I wonder if you meant it just about music or about life in the larger sense. You say, and, for me, I found this very profound, “There are two kinds of people in the world, my friend.” I’m glad you called me your friend in the book. “There are two kinds of people in the world, my friend, solo guys and band guys.” Did you mean that in some larger sense than just music?
Steven Van Zandt:
Yeah, I mean almost everything in the larger sense in this book. I did not intend for it to be a music book for music people exclusively. There’s plenty of that.
Preet Bharara:
I found it to be a good book for lawyers.
Steven Van Zandt:
That I did not intend.
Preet Bharara:
I’m actually not kidding. There’s a lot of wisdom in here, and we can talk about some of it. So what’s the difference between a solo guy and a band guy?
Steven Van Zandt:
Well, obviously, in regards to show business, it’s the obvious. The solo guy, it’s all about me, me, me, the one guy in the spotlight, and the audience either digs him or they don’t. A band is a completely different communication. It is communicating friendship and family and the team, the posse, the gang. Ultimately, it communicates community. That’s what interested me. I never have been interested… Well, as a kid, I wasn’t interested in show business at all and certainly not solo artist. It was the discovery and revelation of a band, which happened February 9th, 1964, that really made me want to do it, made me want to be a part of it.
Preet Bharara:
For the young people, could you remind them which band that was?
Steven Van Zandt:
Yeah. It was on a variety show that the entire family would watch every Sunday night called Ed Sullivan, and he had something for all the different age groups, puppets like Topo Gigio for the kids and opera for the old folks and something for the teenagers. That night, it was The Beatles for the teenagers.
Ed Sullivan:
Ladies and gentleman, The Beatles.
Steven Van Zandt:
And what an extraordinary epiphany that was because there weren’t that many bands in America at that time. You didn’t see bands. If you went to your high school dance, it was an instrumental band. You didn’t see four or five guys singing and playing. It was just not a thing.
Preet Bharara:
As you pointed out, all of them could’ve been the lead.
Steven Van Zandt:
Well, yeah. In The Beatles’ case, yeah, you had all of them lead singers. They were just extraordinarily sophisticated and highly evolved. They started in ’57, were gone by ’69, so this is halfway through their career. That’s why I always connect this to The Rolling Stones coming four months later, because The Beatles were just perfect. I mean, their harmony was amazing, the hair, the clothes, everything about them. So you look at them and they certainly presented an entirely new option in the world, which I desperately needed. But then, four months later, The Rolling Stones come. They’re wearing casual clothes, and the hair’s not perfect, except for Brian Jones, and there’s no harmony, really. They’re making it look easier than it was. They really were the first punk band. So you looked at that and you think to The Beatles, “Well, I love that, but I don’t think I can do it. The Rolling Stones, I don’t know, I could give that a shot.” As I like to put it, The Beatles revealed a new world to us and The Rolling Stones invited us in.
Preet Bharara:
What’s interesting about the point you make in the book, you basically say the Big Bang of rock and roll was The Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show, and then you allow this concession. You say, “Some would argue Elvis’ appearance, Elvis Presley’s appearance, on the Ed Sullivan show was really the Big Bang of rock and roll, but it wasn’t mine.” The reason I find that interesting is, as you may know, when your friend Bruce Springsteen opens up his Broadway show, it’s basically an homage to Elvis and how Elvis was the thunderclap for him and the gyrating and the guitar-playing. So does that make Bruce a solo guy versus a band guy?
Steven Van Zandt:
Well, it’s interesting, since he’s only one year older than me. It is actually quite interesting, and we both talked about this. Well, it makes him both. It makes him both. But he certainly is capable of being the solo guy and has become that whenever he feels like it, the Broadway show being the greatest example. It was hard to say what percentage his… But it’s certainly 50/50. He is certainly both.
Preet Bharara:
There’s a line in Pulp Fiction, I think.
Mia Wallace:
There’s only two kinds of people in the world, Beatles people and Elvis people. Now, Beatles people can like Elvis and Elvis people can like Beatles. But nobody likes them both equally. Somewhere, you have to make a choice, and that choice tells you who you are.
Preet Bharara:
So fair to say, apart from the Big Bang moment, you’re more Beatles than Elvis.
Steven Van Zandt:
Oh, it’s not a close call for me. I didn’t even like Elvis.
Preet Bharara:
You didn’t?
Steven Van Zandt:
No, not at all. I mean, I-
Preet Bharara:
We’re going to have to edit that out of the show.
Steven Van Zandt:
I went back, of course, and studied the ’50s, and, of course, I completely understand his extraordinary place in history, and I enjoy his Sun singles mostly and a few others. I enjoy it. I don’t know. I might enjoy a dozen of his songs or so, a dozen of his records. But he’d never meant a thing to me, nothing.
Preet Bharara:
Is part of the reason that he wasn’t doing the writing? Do you have a lesser view of him?
Steven Van Zandt:
No, I wasn’t that conscious of that. No. No. I didn’t know who was writing what. I mean, I thought The Beatles were writing everything they did, for all I knew. I never heard of Chuck Berry. I never heard of Bo Diddley. I never heard of Little Richard. I never heard of these people. I never heard of Muddy Waters. It was the British invasion that introduced me to all of our American music. I never heard of it. I never heard of Arthur Alexander or Larry Williams. Where would I have heard them? So the British invasion was extraordinarily important to our education about our own music in America.
Preet Bharara:
You say something else that’s kind of a variation on the theme of being a band guy, and that is that you always like to be the guy behind the guy, kind of like the consigliere. As you taught me about your own book, it’s in the subtitle, Rock and Roll Consigliere. Why is that something that appeals to you?
Steven Van Zandt:
Well, it’s not a matter of appealing. I think this is in your DNA. I don’t think it’s a choice, really. I don’t think we have that many choices in the world, actually. We think we do, but I don’t think so. We could psychoanalyze it all day long, but I think it comes from a certain need that happens early in life. Even though my mother got divorced when I was very young, which should be one of those traumatic events that causes that need, it didn’t happen with me because we moved in with my Italian grandparents and I was the first grandchild so I was divine, I was considered… There were still aunts and uncles in the house. It takes a village of goombas to raise a rock and roller, and that was the case with me.
Preet Bharara:
You said that, not me.
Steven Van Zandt:
I’m just saying I grew up just feeling very secure. I think people who are really natural front men and the guys who become the superstars and celebrities, I think they need that spotlight. I think they need that audience to complete them a little bit. I just never had that need.
Preet Bharara:
People enjoy all the stories in which you’re pretty candid with folks, which is one of the reasons you got into fights on occasion. I saw that you said elsewhere that you ended up writing more about Bruce than you intended or expected to. How come?
Steven Van Zandt:
Well, I didn’t want to make any Bruce news whatsoever. That’s why I consciously waited for his book to come out first, or else I would’ve just been besieged. He’s an important part of my life, and E Street Band, certainly an important part of my life, but I got a lot of other stuff that is equally important to me. As I was going through what to leave in and what to take out, I just felt I really needed to explore some of those things with the relationship with Bruce that I hadn’t ever analyzed before, which turned out to be revelatory, especially in that Born to Run to Darkness on the Edge of Town period, when, at the time, I was just concerned with making great music. That’s all I was interested in at the time. I had no idea what he was going through. I did not have the sophistication to understand identity or public identity or any of that. I didn’t have the big picture in mind. So looking back as I was reliving it, I just analyzed it for the first time, and I found it to be fascinating, actually.
Steven Van Zandt:
I ended up talking about a bit more than I intended, but that’s why the first thing I did when I finished the book, I sent the book to Bruce, sent it to Bob Dylan because that’s where the most intimate conversations were. That’s the challenge of a book like this because I knew a little bit too much so you’re getting a little concerned about what you’re revealing and what you shouldn’t be revealing. I wanted to make sure that both Bruce and Bob were not going to be blindsided by some journalist pointing something out. I said, “Anything that bothers you, please tell me. I’ll take it right out because it’s not going to be a gossip book.”
Preet Bharara:
And were there things like that, and did they take you up on it?
Steven Van Zandt:
Yeah. Well, neither Bruce nor Bob changed one single word, not one word, no.
Preet Bharara:
Oh, they didn’t? All right. Can we talk about one anecdote, which is not the most serious issue in the world, but I had never heard it before, so I don’t know if it’s news or not? So at some point in the early ’80s, you have a falling out with Bruce. He calls you up and says, “Let’s meet and get past this,” and you reconcile. Then some time later, as you would do throughout your lives, you would play each other some of your new music and get a reaction from the other. So, in your book, you write that he played you a song called Dancing in the Dark that was going to be on the record and then No Surrender, which he said would be an outtake for a b-side.
Preet Bharara:
Your reaction was, which, by the way, I don’t think is a crazy reaction, in the moment, you said, “‘Man,’ I said, ‘you got it backwards. Throw that Dancing thing in the trash and not only put No Surrender on the record but open with it. In fact, make it the damn title, No Retreat No Surrender,'” and then you keep… I’m going to just read at length from this because it’s so great. You write, “To me, Dancing in the Dark had the potential to destroy his long fought for credibility.” You say, “Now, he was going to release what could easily be interpreted as a disco song to blatantly try and get a hit.” What were you thinking when you said that? What was the reaction, and were you incorrect?
Steven Van Zandt:
I was very clear about what I was thinking. I was thinking exactly what I said. Fortunately, this is one of those times that I was very glad that he did not take my advice.
Preet Bharara:
Well, actually, it gets better. My favorite line in this passage, “He not only put it on the album but released it as the first single and not only released it as the first single but filmed a stupid video.” I found that to be just awesome.
Steven Van Zandt:
Well-
Preet Bharara:
So how did he get away with that? How come he wasn’t drawn up as a disco hack?
Steven Van Zandt:
Well, I’m telling you, it was a concern. I didn’t realize how bulletproof he was at that point. I think the credibility was such-
Preet Bharara:
Is that what it was, you think he was bulletproof?
Steven Van Zandt:
Yes. Yeah, no doubt about it. With that video? Are you kidding me? He had to be bulletproof to survive that.
Preet Bharara:
Isn’t that the video that launched Courtney Cox’s career?
Steven Van Zandt:
Yeah. Yeah. Yes. And almost ended his. No, I’m just… I’m kidding. I’m kidding.
Preet Bharara:
So I didn’t love that… So I was in high school. That song has grown on me, and that song in concert is really quite good.
Steven Van Zandt:
Yeah. No. We kill it in concert. It’s a whole different thing in concert.
Preet Bharara:
When you play that in concert, do you ever think to yourself, “I told Bruce to throw this in the trash?”
Steven Van Zandt:
No. No. I just decided that we’re going to do a rock version of it live.
Preet Bharara:
You’ve come along.
Steven Van Zandt:
Yeah. Yeah.
Preet Bharara:
Right.
Steven Van Zandt:
But it was just a funny moment. Obviously, I’m glad cooler heads prevailed.
Preet Bharara:
Yeah. It went on to sell, what, 20 million copies or something like that?
Steven Van Zandt:
Oh, yeah. It paid rent for a while. Yeah. But he did put No Surrender on the record, so that was half a victory anyway.
Preet Bharara:
And that is an incredibly excellent song as well. You say something… Reading this book, in part, caused me to relive my teenage years. I grew up in Jersey, and I don’t know if you know. I don’t know if we’ve ever talked about this. My dad was a practicing pediatrician in Asbury Park for 50 years, so-
Steven Van Zandt:
No kidding?
Preet Bharara:
You’re from Middletown. I’m from Eatontown. My dad did his job and made ends meet by working in Asbury Park, yeah.
Steven Van Zandt:
Holy mackerel.
Preet Bharara:
It’s funny. In the ’70s, Asbury Park had been the scene of a lot of violence, but it’s made a big comeback, and there are great restaurants. The boardwalk is hopping again. I don’t know if you get back there much.
Steven Van Zandt:
Oh, I did last night. We did a big event, big-
Preet Bharara:
Oh, yeah. Well, I guess you do. I guess you do.
Preet Bharara:
You say something else that is fascinating to me about how the invention of the record player gave way to young kids being able to listen to rock and roll because they could go to their own rooms. I had never really thought about it that way. It was the ability of kids to finally, in the privacy of their own rooms, could listen to this music that the adult folk condemned or didn’t like or didn’t understand. I realized that I got my first little stereo when I was 12. It was 1980, and I got my first albums. Around that time, there was this thing where… Young folks will think this is crazy. But you could apply to get 12 albums for one penny, and then you had to buy an album every month from Columbia Records or the Columbia Recording… I forgot what it was called.
Steven Van Zandt:
Yeah. It was the early streaming model, yeah.
Preet Bharara:
For two reasons, one, because I really loved the music on what you call your favorite official album, The River, but also I got… It was a double album, and I think I only had to expend one slot for the double album, so that was also great. I got to listen to that in my room. What makes that your favorite official album?
Steven Van Zandt:
Well, subjectively, it was the first one I co-produced. But in the ’70s was just the worst time to record, and so we had to find a studio and an engineer that could make it sound the way you walk into a room and a band is playing. That’s what you want to hear in a recording studio. That’s what I wanted to hear. I don’t want to hear engineers telling me, “Don’t worry, we’re going to make it exciting in the mix.” I want to hear it now. Finally, we achieved that on The River. So going into work every day on The River, that album could’ve lasted five years, and we wouldn’t have cared. It was just a pleasure every single day.
Preet Bharara:
What makes the E Street Band works?
Steven Van Zandt:
I think it helps that it’s a benevolent dictatorship, a benevolent monarchy, whatever. Democracy is a little bit tough, as you may have noticed going on in Washington, DC right now, but it’s tough in rock and roll, too. It helps, I think, to have a leader that receives input and contributions but ultimately makes the decisions. It also helps to handpick everybody according to not only their musical talent but also their personality, the same thing that made The Sopranos great, David Chase handpicking everybody and ultimately being the benevolent monarch, king.
Preet Bharara:
So that’s a good segue. You mentioned The Sopranos, and I was going to… So when I said earlier you’ve had an amazing varied career, this is one of the reasons why that is so. I didn’t realize this until I read your book, that you were up for a part in The Sopranos when David Chase happened to see you be funny and interesting on a TV show, an awards show, I think it was. He wanted you to be Tony Soprano, the lead, and you had never acted before.
Preet Bharara:
So my opening question, not to take anything away from you but actually to pay you a compliment, is there are all these examples, I was trying to think of it with folks on the team in the last couple of days, people who never acted ever and they go right on the screen and they’re excellent, as you were and are, and they include people like, to my knowledge, had no prior acting experience, Lady Gaga, at one point, Ice Cube, Whitney Houston did that movie with Kevin Costner. Is it the case that every gifted musical artist is a natural actor? You do say somewhere else in the book that every singer is also an actor. How true is that?
Steven Van Zandt:
Yeah. It’s true to an extent. It doesn’t translate exactly to the other art form, but it is true. Whether a singer is conscious of it or not, every singer is an actor, acting out that script, which is that song, and selling the audience that it is basically autobiographical when it isn’t necessarily so. Our art form is perceived as the most autobiographical, and that doesn’t make it true. But when it comes to translating that into the actual acting in a film or TV, it doesn’t hurt, especially if you’re the one writing. I think it helps if you’re also the writer and singer, I think, in the case of a David Bowie, who I thought was a good actor also.
Steven Van Zandt:
But it’s a different discipline that one has to really adjust to, mostly in the sense of just being completely out of control of your own destiny. In music, you sing a song and you go into the control room, you listen to it, and you say, “Ah, well, maybe I can do it a little better,” then you go and do it again. In the acting world, you act and if a director likes it, you see it six months later. It takes a little getting used to because you’re always trying to improve the craft but you only get a chance to improve every six months or so or once a year, so it’s a little tricky.
Preet Bharara:
So how come you didn’t get… I know the story, but to give people a preview, you didn’t end up playing Tony Soprano. That job went to James Gandolfini.
Steven Van Zandt:
Yes, wisely so. At that point, David said, “They won’t let me cast you as the lead. It’s the biggest expense, biggest investment that HBO’s ever made. So what other part do you want?” I said, “Well, now that I think about it, I really kind of feel guilty taking an actor’s job.” My wife is an actor, and I see what she goes through, going to classes for years and off-Broadway and off-off-Broadway. I said, “I feel kind of guilty.” So he said, “Okay, in that case, I’ll write you in a part that doesn’t exist, so you’re not taking anybody’s job. What do you want to do?” I said, “Well, I”… I’d never thought about acting, but I did think about writing and maybe directing someday, so I had a treatment. It wasn’t a script yet. It’s a script now. But, at the time, it was just a treatment about a guy named Silvio Dante that has an old-style Copacabana club, big bands and the Catskills comics and the dancing girls, and kind of lives in the past. He looks like a ’50s guy.
Preet Bharara:
You liked that idea of the Copacabana type club, didn’t you?
Steven Van Zandt:
Oh, yeah. I love it. I still do. I want to do this as a show still.
Preet Bharara:
Oh, why don’t you do it as a real thing?
Steven Van Zandt:
Oh, well, you see that’s the thing. I would do both. That’s exactly right. [crosstalk 00:40:32]-
Preet Bharara:
You could make it a reality show.
Steven Van Zandt:
Yeah. Well, okay. Let’s get some investors and go. I’m ready.
Preet Bharara:
I’m in.
Steven Van Zandt:
I’m ready. I’m in.
Preet Bharara:
I got time.
Steven Van Zandt:
You can be in it. What part do you want? You want to be the maitre d’? What do you want to do?
Preet Bharara:
I’m going to be the feds.
Steven Van Zandt:
Oh. Okay. You’ll have a table.
Preet Bharara:
I’m going to be the law.
Steven Van Zandt:
No, you can have a table. All the five families will have a table, [inaudible 00:40:54], the feds.
Preet Bharara:
I think this is a real thing. I think you should talk to your people, I’ll talk to my people.
Steven Van Zandt:
All right. All right. We’ll do that.
Preet Bharara:
I don’t recall there being a big Copacabana club in The Sopranos.
Steven Van Zandt:
No, no, no. So he came back two days later, said, “Nah, we can’t afford it. We’re going to make it a strip club.”
Preet Bharara:
Close enough. Same thing. There’s another point at which I bonded with you. It’s a trivial, obscure passage where you go to the reading with the executives and you see James Gandolfini, I guess, Jimmy Gandolfini, who was not well-known at the time, right? This was before-
Steven Van Zandt:
No.
Preet Bharara:
I mean, he became well-known because of The Sopranos. You mentioned a film in which he played a smaller role that I watched and, like you, as you say in the book, has never gotten its due. It’s a much underappreciated movie, True Romance, screenplay by Quentin Tarantino.
Steven Van Zandt:
Yeah, just a terrific movie that no one had ever seen. I don’t know why. I mean, I think-
Preet Bharara:
I have a theory. You know what my theory is?
Steven Van Zandt:
No. Yeah. What?
Preet Bharara:
Terrible name for a mob action thriller directed by Tony Scott.
Steven Van Zandt:
Oh. Yeah, I guess so. Undermarketed, I guess. But, yeah, people have seen it now. Back then, I was with a very big casting agent, and I said, “Do you know who that is,” and she said, “No.” I had seen him in that. I think I had seen him in Get Shorty by then also and maybe even the submarine movie with Denzel. I forget what that was called.
Preet Bharara:
Yeah. You see these movies later on cable and you realize, “Oh, these people were not an overnight success.”
Steven Van Zandt:
Right. But-
Preet Bharara:
There’s much made of overnight success. They were working hard for years and years and years.
Steven Van Zandt:
But he stood out. I remembered him. I remembered him very distinctly for True Romance. He was amazing in that.
Preet Bharara:
Well, there’s that really harrowing scene with Patricia Arquette that is not for the weak.
Steven Van Zandt:
No. I mean, he is as merciless, ruthless as it gets. But there’s many classic scenes in that movie, my goodness. Anyway, before we digress here, I said, “You know who that is?” She said, “No.” I said, “I just saw him, and I’m telling you right now, he should play Tony Soprano. He should be the guy playing Tony Soprano.” I didn’t realize how-
Preet Bharara:
You were betting against yourself.
Steven Van Zandt:
Well, I just was being honest. I didn’t understand the acting world at that point, how competitive it is. It’s very different than the music world, very different. They are life and death, dog eat dog competitive in the acting world. It’s very different. In music, we feel like there’s room for everybody ultimately, might get into a little bit of a competition here or there, but there’s room for everybody. In acting, it’s like you get the job or they get the job. It’s very different. She looked at me like I had three heads, like, “What? What are you talking about? You got the part.” I said, “Oh, I’m just saying.” So that’s what happened. Yeah. Luckily, he did get the part, and all is well.
Preet Bharara:
And you got to be Silvio, and the rest is history.
Steven Van Zandt:
Yeah.
Preet Bharara:
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Preet Bharara:
How involved were you in the musical selection for the soundtrack of The Sopranos?
Steven Van Zandt:
Really not at all.
Preet Bharara:
Because that was pretty great.
Steven Van Zandt:
Thank you. Yeah. David Chase loved that part of the process more than anything. He would come to me only when he needed something new. When she opened the club in Asbury, occasionally, he would need a band or a new song, and he would come to me then, but that was rare. Mostly, he loved doing it. That’s his favorite thing. So he’s a very, very musical guy. I don’t know if anybody saw his first movie, Not Fade Away, but that’s what that’s all about. He was actually a member of a band as a kid, and Not Fade Away is really kind of autobiographical. It’s a cool little movie. People should catch that, go see it.
Preet Bharara:
Here’s another example. Spoiler alert for folks. There’s that famous, obviously, final scene in the last episode of The Sopranos, the last episode of the last season, and one of the questions was what song do you play for that. You had some ideas, and when you were told what it’s going to be, you write, “After 10 years and seven seasons of the most amazing music ever used on a TV show, David wanted to use (beep) Journey.” You’re very quick to say, “Nothing wrong with Journey, of course. They made terrific records, have one of the best singers in rock, and were huge.” Nice. That was a nice save. I’m sure your editors told you to put that in there.
Steven Van Zandt:
Which is true, all true.
Preet Bharara:
Now, were you wrong about that, just like you were wrong about Dancing in the Dark?
Steven Van Zandt:
Oh, no, no, no. I was right about this.
Preet Bharara:
You were?
Steven Van Zandt:
I mean, just think of how amazing it would’ve been if Loose Ends came in or-
Preet Bharara:
As you said, Bruce’s Loose… That was a little too much on the money. I’m not going to ask you the question, though I want to, because I know you’ve been asked it a lot before and it’s not your favorite question. What really happened at the end of that show? I’ve seen how you’ve answered it kind of obnoxiously, and you said, “Yeah, the director yelled cut and we all went home.”
Steven Van Zandt:
That’s exactly how I answer it. That’s how I answer it now, and I always will. Yeah.
Preet Bharara:
Were you sad when the show ended, or was it time?
Steven Van Zandt:
Yeah, I guess. I think so because I’d always fantasize about writing for it and maybe directing, so I was a little… That was the compromise I made when I rejoined E Street Band because I really had to think about it for a minute because I knew if I rejoined the E Street Band… First of all, I was very fortunate that David Chase was a big enough fan that he allowed me to do both, which was incredible, that I did 10 years of Sopranos, seven seasons in 10 years, and three seasons and four years of Lilyhammer, and in those 14 years of TV, I was touring the entire time. I only missed one month of one tour and one month of another tour, literally two months in 14 years, so it was remarkable. I was lucky that David Chase allowed that. But I knew that I would be diluting… I would not be in the show as much as I would’ve been, and I was probably killing my chances of ever writing or directing. So I saved all that for Lilyhammer. I was able to-
Preet Bharara:
A successful show. It went three seasons.
Steven Van Zandt:
Yeah, able to do it all on Lilyhammer. But it was a compromise at the time that I really seriously considered… But I needed the closure with E Street.
Preet Bharara:
So we’ve talked about music, we’ve talked about acting. I want to talk about activism. The first thing that struck me was your political awakening came in the ’80s and you managed to get through the ’60s without thinking about politics. How did you manage that?
Steven Van Zandt:
That took some-
Preet Bharara:
Were you aware of what was happening in the ’60s, Stevie?
Steven Van Zandt:
There was a few things I heard, huh?
Preet Bharara:
A few things.
Steven Van Zandt:
A few memorable-
Preet Bharara:
You were busy doing other stuff, which you also describe in the book, but this is a family show.
Steven Van Zandt:
I had a tunnel vision that was concrete. That’s all I was interested in, was rock and roll. I managed to just ignore everything that was going on. I don’t know how because it was all over the place. I describe the scene when I got drafted and all of that. Again, then the ’70s was a whole nother thing. Then that became the whole liberated ’70s. But, yeah, it wasn’t until the River tour in the ’80s that I suddenly, finally became aware because the tunnel vision finally faded once we actually made it to the top. That felt like the top, the River tour. You’re selling out arenas, and that was a miracle. It just was the impossible dream come true, and suddenly the tunnel fades and you’re like, “I wonder what I’ve been missing for the last 20 years.”
Preet Bharara:
One of my favorite passages in the book is when you describe what you believe to be the origin of rock and roll being political, and you talk about Bob Dylan and a song of his, Subterranean Homesick Blues, and you say these two sentences. “Johnny’s in the basement mixing up the medicine. I’m on the pavement thinking about the government.” You say that those are the two most important sentences in the history of rock, and then you go back to the second sentence, “I’m on the pavement thinking about the government,” and you write, “What? Thinking about what? What the fuck does that mean? All we thought about was sex. All we knew was love songs. That’s all there was. That line is a politics meets pop shot heard around the world.” You call it the Big Bang of political consciousness in pop. Want to elaborate on that?
Steven Van Zandt:
Well, that’s just true. Bob single-handedly introduced ideas and themes and subject matter that was only happening in folk music and blues. There was just no such thing in the pop idiom, which soon to become the rock idiom. There was no such thing, nothing even close. For him to start suggesting you should be thinking about the government was like-
Preet Bharara:
Well, we know you weren’t at the time.
Steven Van Zandt:
That’s for sure. Yeah, I wouldn’t listen to him for 17 years or so. I wouldn’t pay attention. But it was the beginning of the art form. At that point, Bob was starting to bring in personal lyrics as well as political and social lyrics. By Like a Rolling Stone, which was, what, a year later or maybe even the same year, suddenly, he and The Beatles and The Stones and The Byrds and The Who all started influencing each other, and the whole art form is born, and the whole pop idiom is elevated to the rock idiom, and suddenly we have a whole new world. Bob really initiated that.
Preet Bharara:
Do you think that recording artists generally or rock and roll artists have some obligation to address politics and social conditions, or is that really up to any individual artist?
Steven Van Zandt:
I think it’s up to every individual citizen. When it comes to the show business world, it’s up to you. The old show biz dictum, the conventional wisdom, was always, “Never discuss politics or religion,” and there was a reason. The obvious reason is if you do, you’re eliminating part of your audience. But for those of us who money isn’t everything, I think we have an obligation as citizens to do that. I always add to that do your homework first and do enough research. If you are going to take a stand, make sure it’s a righteous stand because we do have an obligation because we have people listening and we have that soapbox or whatever you want to call it and it should be used wisely as opposed to our former malignant orangutan. He used the soapbox of all time to do nothing but bad things.
Preet Bharara:
By the way, I was so studious in reading your book, I also read the thank you notes. This is, I think, my favorite thank you I’ve ever seen in a book. You thank all the people you would expect. You say, “I am compelled to thank the Trump kakistocracy, the most extraordinarily incompetent, malevolent, ignorant, and embarrassing government in history, for providing the nine months of quarantine that allowed me to give birth to this unlikely fable.” Take your point. No quarantine, you wouldn’t have had the patience to write the book?
Steven Van Zandt:
I honestly don’t know if it ever would’ve happened, Preet, and I’m not kidding. I can’t imagine stopping long enough to focus on… Because it was work, man. I was doing therapy sessions three times a week with my editor, just trying to sort it out because it seems simple now that it’s done but it was a very complex-
Preet Bharara:
Yeah, it was a lot of raw stuff. Well, look, it worked out because, as I said, it’s like you’re talking to the reader. It’s like listening to you talk.
Steven Van Zandt:
Well, yeah. But I wanted the balance. It was very important to me to have the balance of not just the narrative but the history that I’ve lived through most of, I just only missed the first decade of rock and roll, and the crafts. I wanted to make sure that my observations of all of these crafts were in there to hopefully be useful. I wanted the book to be useful more than anything.
Preet Bharara:
Well, I’ll pay you a higher compliment than that, not just useful, but parts of it are inspiring. We were talking about the ways in which you became awake politically not long after that. I hate to say this. I shouldn’t admit this. But I forgot that this was you in the way that it came about. But when I was in high school, as I said, this is like a trip down memory lane, I remember becoming politically aware myself and learning about injustices around the world, including apartheid in South Africa. There was a song that you wrote and produced called Sun City, which addressed the issue of apartheid, and it was sort of an ingenious step for, I think, a musician to take.
Preet Bharara:
Can you remind people that back then in, I guess, 1984 or ’85 that apartheid was the law of the day in South Africa? There was a worldwide boycott led by the UN, but there were three important countries that were not part of the boycott, who believed instead that they wanted to engage in constructive engagement, the UK, Germany, and the United States of America, and there was this resort called Sun City. What happened?
Steven Van Zandt:
Well, I know it’s a little hard to believe, but it was not an issue in America. It just wasn’t. It wasn’t a forgotten issue. It just was never an issue. A couple people would mention it from time to time, a Harry Belafonte or Randall Robinson, and they were trying to make it an issue, but it didn’t happen. It was certainly big in Europe and the UN, as you said. So it was on my list. I had started studying foreign policy since World War II and being shocked to discover that we were not the heroes of the world and the heroes of democracy around the world. We’re supporting a lot of bad guys, a lot of bad regimes, and South Africa was one of them, just one of the names on my list as I started to do my research. I just couldn’t find out much about it. It was one of those mysteries. The New York Times, everybody else was saying that they’re going through these reforms of the government, and I went down there with a completely open mind hoping to see these reforms.
Steven Van Zandt:
It took me two trips down there to really get it. But when I got it, I got it big time, and I realized that these are bad people and this government needs to come down. There’s no reforming. This is modern-day slavery. It’s horrible. So I sat down and said, “Okay, how do you bring down a government?” This is something I didn’t learn in school, I didn’t learn from a rock and roll record, but I would use rock and roll to do it. The sports boycott was in place, thanks to Arthur Ash and others, and it was very successful because the Afrikaner were just completely megalomaniacal and hated not being in the Olympics and all that. I knew the home run would be the economic sanctions, but the trick was we had to raise the consciousness of America to a point where once that sanctions bill crossed Reagan’s desk, we knew he would veto it. We had to have enough momentum to override a Reagan veto, which had never happened.
Steven Van Zandt:
So we used a cultural boycott to connect the sports boycott with the economic boycott and bring attention to the subject. In a very rare case of a complete victory, we actually did manage to raise the consciousness to the point where the sanctions bill came across his desk, he vetoed it, and we overrode the veto with Republican votes, just to show you how the Republican Party has changed a little bit in these years. Richard Lugar I remember standing up saying that this is tyranny and we’re against tyranny, and the Republicans voted to help Black people in South Africa vote, as opposed to the modern Republican Party, who are doing everything they can to keep American Black people from voting. So I think things have changed a little bit in these past 45 years.
Preet Bharara:
But just so people understand, that awareness was raised by the creation of a song. I never knew that the name of the song was Sun City. I remember the refrain, “I ain’t going to play Sun City”-
Steven Van Zandt:
Oh, right. Right.
Preet Bharara:
… where you got 50 of the biggest recording artists in the world to basically say they’re not going to play Sun City, even though, at the time, South Africans were paying huge amounts of money to get big ticket artists from around the world to come play there. I think, as you say in the book, you shut down that place overnight.
Steven Van Zandt:
Yeah. Let me just spend 60 more seconds trying to do this in a soundbite, which is impossible, but-
Preet Bharara:
Podcasts don’t need soundbites. We’re good.
Steven Van Zandt:
Yeah. Let me give you another 60 seconds here to explain. The concept of the South Africans… And they learned from our Indian reservations. The concept was take the Black people out of South Africa proper, if you will, and return them to their so-called tribal homelands. Now, they were not very tribal in South Africa, as it happens, except for the Zulu, which is another story. But these are tribal homelands that were maybe hundreds of years earlier. They were not relevant. But their idea was return them to their tribal homelands, and they would do this by knocking the person’s shack down, putting their few possessions on a truck, and driving them out to this wasteland, okay? The idea was get them all back into their homelands, declare those homelands as separate countries, then declare South Africa as a democracy, and then bring the Black people back into South Africa to work as immigrant labor. That was the concept, which was brilliant and evil.
Steven Van Zandt:
The resort of Sun City was in one of these phony homelands, called Bophuthatswana. They sold it as a separate country. So everybody who came to play Sun City, they said, “Don’t worry. You’re not violating the boycott. You’re playing a different country.” Everybody who came and played Sun City was just endorsing that fantasy. By exposing that phony homeland policy, we could also basically publicize what was going on in South Africa in general. So that was the thinking of, “Ain’t going to play Sun City.”
Preet Bharara:
And it was very successful. Look, I remember it as an anthem when I was in high school. Around the same time… It was different, but around the same time, there were lots of artists coming together on other causes, too, including the famine in Ethiopia. We had We Are the World and Live Aid. Do you think we need more protest songs, or do we have enough of that going on?
Steven Van Zandt:
Well, at this point, what are we all going to do, say, “Let’s crucify Manchin?” What’s going to be the song? I mean, what’s the-
Preet Bharara:
That might not be played on a loop in lots of places. Well, what’s interesting about the [inaudible 01:05:40]… You remind me again because you go into a lot of detail about this, and it’s worth reading, people should realize. If you’re of a certain age, you know the song, and you say in the book, “If you know Sun City, it’s because of MTV.” It didn’t get radio play because people were too concerned about playing a political protest song like that, and I had forgotten about that.
Steven Van Zandt:
And it was too Black for white radio, too white for Black radio, just to show our own apartheid right here in America. They would say that right to me. We even went to Stevie Wonder’s radio station, and he had spoken up about South Africa a little bit at that point.
Preet Bharara:
It’s a good video. I played it for my son last night at dinner. Is it Jonathan Demme who directed it?
Steven Van Zandt:
Well, it was a bunch… Yeah, Jonathan Demme directed the action, but Godley & Creme, who were the most famous video-makers at the time, did the edit, and they’re the ones who put the rips in. They stylized it. And, also, Hart Perry, who had filmed all of the sessions. We’re going to release an extended version of the Sun City documentary, which we won an award for. But there was so much more we should put in because we did interviews with almost everybody, and half of those guys are gone. So we’re going to do an extended Sun City documentary one of these days, and that was all Hart Perry. Hart Perry was doing the West Coast filming, Jonathan Demme did the New York City, and Godley & Creme just did the actual edit. It was amazing because we really needed an amazing video to save the day, and they did it.
Preet Bharara:
Can we talk about something else you care about? That’s the arts and school. The reason you and I got to know each other a few years ago is because of the work with you do with respect to an organization you set up called the Rock and Roll Forever Foundation and the TeachRock curriculum. Interesting fact that you discussed in the book on education policy, it happens to be the case that with the No Child Left Behind Act and other acts of localities and also the federal government that the easiest thing for the budget folks to slash is art and music. You make the argument, and you can make it better than I could paraphrasing you, that it happens to be true that kids who take music classes do better in math and science. So can you tell folks a little bit about that work?
Steven Van Zandt:
Yeah. The whole thing is based on a misinformation or misunderstanding that somehow testing is learning, okay, which it’s not. That’s the fallacy in all of this. That’s the bottom line. Let’s increase the testing on math and science and everything else. They suddenly became obsessed with testing. In the end, it’s jive. It’s just a way of justifying one’s budget, but it has nothing to do with learning, nothing. Anyway, at the time, I went and I talked to Teddy Kennedy, I talked to Mitch McConnell. They said it was unintended consequence, and I said, “Okay. So why don’t you fix it?” They were like, “No, we don’t fix things in Washington. We just blow them up.” So I came back to the teachers, I said, “Look, we’re not going to put instruments in kids’ hands for a while, but I got an even better idea, actually. Why don’t we do music history instead? This way, we can reach all the students, not just musicians, and keep the arts in the DNA of the public education system,” which I feel is extraordinarily important.
Steven Van Zandt:
The more I’ve done this, the more I’m convinced that someday the arts will transform the educational process, not by being an extra class or an afterschool class but by actually integrating art into math, into science, into technology, into engineering, actually into the discipline itself. I’ve seen it work. We have 40,000 teachers registered. We have dozens of partner schools now using it, and I witnessed one from kindergarten to sixth grade, every single grade level and every discipline using our curriculum. It’s just amazing, the enthusiasm from these kids and the teachers. It’s just extraordinary.
Steven Van Zandt:
What happens is kids come to school with these gifts, they come with curiosity, they come with imagination, they come with emotion, instinct, and what do we do in school? We crush it. We ignore it. We eliminate it and stuff a bunch of facts down their throat, which they don’t know how to use or have any use for. We have got to change the methodology. We can’t keep saying, “Learn this now and someday you’ll use it,” not with this generation. Give them some reason to sit there and not find an answer in 20 seconds on your device. You got to give them something they can use now, not tomorrow, now. They’re a now generation. We got to start teaching in the present tense.
Steven Van Zandt:
So we do that with our curriculum. We go to them instead of dragging them to us. We use the arts as a way of stimulating them and making them feel like they’re on common ground because, in the end, it’s the arts that teach kids how to think, and that’s what’s important, teaching kids how to think, not what to think. So we go to them, very simply, we say, “Who’s your favorite artist,” and they’ll say, “Beyonce,” and we say, “Well, she comes from a lady named Aretha Franklin, and Aretha Franklin comes from Detroit,” talk about Detroit. She comes from a gospel church, we talk about that. It comes from the Civil Rights Movement, we talk about that, and they’re rapt. They’re completely giving you their attention because you’re on their-
Preet Bharara:
Because you’re making the information interesting-
Steven Van Zandt:
In their world. Yes.
Preet Bharara:
… and accessible and relatable.
Steven Van Zandt:
And you’re in their world. They’re learning about something that they’re already interested in, and they want to learn about things they’re interested in. As long as they feel like there’s a reason to do it, they’re going to do it. So we’re starting to transform the whole system, I think, and if we can get enough dissemination, if we can really get this thing out there, I think it’s going to change the entire education system. I really do.
Preet Bharara:
Stevie Van Zandt, congratulations on the book, Unrequited Infatuations. It was really tremendous, and I’ll say again, for me personally, it’s been a real treat and honor to spend all this time with you. Thank you for your music, thank you for your other artistic output, and thank you for your service to our country.
Steven Van Zandt:
Oh, thank you, Preet. Always great talking to you.
Preet Bharara:
My conversation with Stevie Van Zandt continues for members of the CAFE Insider community. To try out the membership free for two weeks, head to cafe.com/insider. Again, that’s cafe.com/insider. Before we end the show, I want to highlight an initiative Stevie spoke about earlier. You heard about his passion for teaching art and music to young people and how important it is for them to find something in their schools and curricula that they can connect to. The organization we talked about, the Rock and Roll Forever Foundation, is really quite something. Stevie launched it in 2013 along with Bono, Jackson Browne, Martin Scorsese, and Bruce Springsteen. Their goal has been to incorporate popular music into school curricula to create interdisciplinary, culturally relevant lessons for students that keep them engaged, interested, and passionate about what they learn.
Preet Bharara:
Anyone can access their lesson plans, which range from teaching Indigenous Colombian history to the science behind the way we hear sounds. The foundation’s online curriculum is called TeachRock, which you heard Stevie and me talk about, and it has only grown in popularity during the pandemic, when students around the country have lost access to traditional arts education. The government of Connecticut, Ned Lamont, recently announced the state will be incorporating the TeachRock curriculum in Connecticut classrooms. It’s an incredible mission and project, one that I support and one I hope many more students have an opportunity to learn from. If you want to get involved or support the Rock and Roll Forever mission, head to teachrock.org. There’s also a link in this week’s show notes at cafe.com.
Preet Bharara:
Well, that’s it for this episode of Stay Tuned, and a special thanks again to my guest, Stevie Van Zandt. If you like what we do, rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. Every positive review helps new listeners find the show. Send me your questions about news, politics, and justice. Tweet them to me, @preetbharara, with the hashtag #AskPreet, or you can call and leave me a message at 669-247-7338. That’s 669-24-PREET, or you can send an email to letters@cafe.com. Stay Tuned is presented by CAFE and the Vox Media Podcast Network. The executive producer is Tamara Sepper. The technical director is David Tatasciore. The senior producers are Adam Waller and Matthew Billy, and the CAFE team is David Kurlander, Sam Ozer-Staton, Noa Azulai, Nat Weiner, Jake Kaplan, Chris Boylan, Sean Walsh, Chelsea Simens, and Namita Shah. Our music is by Andrew Dost. I’m your host, Preet Bharara. Stay tuned.
