Steven Van Zandt On His New Memoir And Lifelong Pursuit Of Greatness

“I'm probably one of the more recognizable people on the planet,” Steven Van Zandt says over Zoom, the corners of his mouth turning slightly upward into a wry smile. “But people usually don't know why.” 

Van Zandt is probably selling himself short. The bandana-wearing vagabond — whose memoir, Unrequited Infatuations, is out today — first rose to prominence as Bruce Springsteen’s guitarist and right-hand man in the E Street Band, which he helped elevate from scrappy New Jersey bar band to chart-topping rock stars. Then, just as they were on the cusp of stratospheric fame in the early ‘80s, Van Zandt walked away from the E Street Band (which he would rejoin in 1999), reinvented himself as Little Steven and released a series of politically charged solo albums with the help of his backing band, the Disciples of Soul. 

Along the way, Van Zandt also got a crash course in showbiz by supporting first-generation rockers on the Las Vegas oldies circuit, co-founded the seminal rock and soul band Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes, stumbled into the iconic role of Silvio Dante on The Sopranos and starred in the first Netflix-exclusive TV show Lilyhammer, about a former gangster trying to start his life anew in a sleepy Norwegian town. He even found the time to form the Artists United Against Apartheid activist group, whose star-studded Sun City album became a catalyst for the global effort to end apartheid in South Africa.

At every crossroads, Van Zandt chose the path of most resistance — and, consequently, of less money. But those decisions resulted in one of rock’s most diverse and exciting careers. “My life is sort of like triumph of art over commerce, because I've never had any success,” Van Zandt says. “My own visions, my own art, my own creativity has never really found an audience. So it's a triumph to just still exist.”

Ahead of the release of Unrequited Infatuations, Van Zandt discussed more of his wild adventures and lifelong devotion to rock and roll with Forbes. 

When did you start writing this book? What was the process like?

I tried it like 10 years ago, 12 years ago. It just didn't feel like the right time. So, these last three years — ‘17, ‘18 and ‘19 — I really got reconnected with my life's work, with my music work, and did two tours and two new albums and ended up having the most productive three years of my entire life, with six album packages between ‘17, ‘18 and ‘19. So in comes the quarantine, and I got these new managers — I never had managers before — and the managers suggested, "Why don't you write a book?" And they even came up with a good idea for the ending, and I thought, "Well let's give it another shot." I didn't keep almost anything from the first time around, so I kind of rewrote the whole thing, but it was done entirely during quarantine.

Was it a challenge to figure out which well-known stories you wanted to include versus the lesser-known stories? 

Well, let me put it this way: It was good that Bruce's book [2016’s Born to Run] came out first, so that kind of took a lot of the pressure off. 'Cause I knew this was not gonna be the definitive E Street Band book. In fact, I didn't want to make any Bruce news at all, but he ended up in the book, probably more than I planned on, as I went through my life chronologically. You know, he has played a big role, at least in the first half of the book. And you just kind of go chronologically and see where it goes. But in the end, it's hard to say what's well-known and what's not well-known, really. I have a couple stories that have become pretty well-known stories. I did include a few of those, you know, the “Tenth Avenue [Freeze Out]” story and the “Born to Run” riff story, those two in particular. I figured I had to give the definitive versions of them. But mostly my story is not that well-known, to be honest.

One common thread throughout this book is that you've always been passionate about advocating for underdogs and marginalized people, from your political activism to working with older musicians who had been forgotten by history. 

That was particularly the case with the first generation of rock and roll, the pioneers of the ‘50s, who just got shafted by history in a weird, ironic way with the British Invasion coming in '64, led by the Beatles. And it had the unintentional consequence of putting all their heroes out of work. It's the only time it's happened in history, because every other succeeding generation, the audience grew with them. Who were the biggest acts in '64? The Beatles and Stones. Who are the biggest acts now? The Beatles and the Stones. But that didn't happen with the guys who invented it, which is just a weird thing that happened. If you had three hits when the Beatles came, you played those three hits the rest of your life.

And I ended up having the good fortune to do what was called the oldies tour, the oldies circuit, in '73, when all these guys were put out to pasture. They were in the prime of their lives, mid-thirties, late thirties, early forties. I got a chance to meet them all and complete my education, which was a street-level education, but they were all just miserable. Very few of them ever recorded again. So once I got into the studio, beginning with the Jukes in '75, right away I started bringing back some of those [artists]: Lee Dorsey and Ronnie Spector, and then we reunited the Drifters and Coasters and Five Satins. And then me and Bruce worked with Gary U.S. Bonds, and I just did Darlene Love's first album at the age of 73. And she's still the best singer in the world. So you try to give back a little bit, try and show your gratitude with those wonderful, really talented people of the ‘50s and early ‘60s, who were the most talented, really, of everybody that came after in terms of pure singing talent.

I imagine spending a couple years on the road with those artists taught you a lot about performing that you were able to apply to the E Street Band and the Jukes. 

That's absolutely right, and then we kind of started to change history with the Jukes. You know, we changed the definition of a bar band. We didn't realize it at the time, but by adding those horns and combining rock and soul like we did, we really began a new definition of what a bar band was. And for the first time, it stopped being an insult. It started being a legitimate genre. They called it pub rock in England, and that all followed the Jukes, you know, Graham Parker and Elvis Costello, Mink DeVille, David Evans and all those guys. And it was all part of that same sort of movement at the same time, where the bar bands suddenly became cool. 

Also, in the bars at that stage of the game, in the mid-’70s, they were still dancing to rock and roll and soul music, where the rock audience really had stopped dancing and started listening. It had become concerts by the end of the ‘60s, early ‘70s. But in the bar world, they were still living in the past a little bit, which was good because we all came up as dance bands, just like the ‘60s guys, the second generation. The Beatles, Stones, the Who, Yardbirds, the Kinks, Dave Clark Five, they were all dance bands. You had to make people dance, and that really changed your performance energy. So when we ended up doing concerts later, you carried that dance band energy into that concert world. 

In the book, you said that despite all of the things you accomplished as a solo artist and an activist in the ‘80s and ‘90s, you were messing with destiny by leaving the E Street Band in the early ‘80s. If you had stayed, you would have had more freedom and financial stability to pursue different projects. But do you think you would have actually had time to do any of those things? 

That's the big question, and that'll obviously never be answered. So it remains this paradox, or conflict in your mind. I mean, obviously you look back, and in an attempt to sort of rewrite history, you wish you could have done both. That's the bottom line. I wish I could have stayed and done those solo albums, and done Sopranos, and done Lilyhammer, and brought down the South African government. [Laughs] Is that realistic? Probably not. You probably would not have done all those things. But in your fantasies, when you look back, you do wish you could have been able to do both things. Realistically, probably would not have happened. So, you know, things happened the way they were supposed to happen.

The rock world was changing drastically by the time you launched your solo career in the early ‘80s. Did you feel like you understood that scene or still fit into it? 

Nothing I've ever done has ever been fashionable. I can't think of anything that was actually trendy when I did it. I don't really know why that is. I don't make a point of not being trendy. It's not my intention every morning to be different, and to be less commercial than I already am. It's just what you like. When you really, really love something, time no longer matters. Fashion no longer matters. You've got to go with what you love. Not just the music but the entire sensibility of what's around that. I mean, I'm a ‘60s guy, and I'm not a ‘60s guy because I'm nostalgic. I'm a ‘60s guy because I never left. I'm that guy. I'm still that guy. And I don't know how our world has become so f***ing boring. I don't get it. Really. I look around, and I'm just like, it's so boring! Why does it have to be this boring? I mean, the architecture, the music, the clubs, the scenes, the clothes, everything is just so f***ing boring.

I've always felt like we just need to try and create our own world. I mean, that's kind of what rock and roll is really all about anyway. From the moment Little Richard opened his mouth, out came liberation, and out came, "Hey, we make our own identities," you know? Not only can you make your own identity in rock and roll, it's almost a prerequisite to do so. It's almost essential that you create your own identity. No one's born a rock star, just like no one's born great. Greatness isn't born, greatness is achieved. Greatness is earned and developed. 

I love the parallels you drew between your relationship with Bruce and Silvio’s relationship with Tony on The Sopranos. Did that feel like an extension of your natural relationship with James Gandolfini, or did you both have to transform into those characters? 

It was really quite natural. The whole relationship and experience was all very organic. I think we bonded first of all by us both being character actors, if you will. He's a character actor. I was a natural born sideman. That was my inclination. My inclination was not to be the front guy. I think his also was to be the character actor, so he was surprised to find himself in the lead role, which he never really got comfortable with. I think we bonded in that sense of our natural inclination being more of working-class journeymen. And then I had written a biography of my character. They had grown up together, him and Tony Soprano, and they were best friends. And I was really the only character on the show that didn't want to be the boss, that was comfortable watching his back.

And somewhere in that first season, it kind of just seemed like it was compelled to become what it was. Because that role of underboss — and also of consigliere, which sometimes can be two different guys, but in this case it was one guy — that wasn't really in the pilot. That didn't exist, so once David Chase wrote my part in — because I told him, “I'm really not comfortable taking an actor's job,” and he said to me, “Well, you're not going to take an actor's job because I'm going to write you in a part right now” — he wrote it in kind of just as one of the guys, kind of unclear. And then by the end of the first season, we realized that this is playing an important role in that family jigsaw puzzle.

That role of the underboss really didn't exist, and it needed to exist. So it turned out to be quite a natural thing. And then once I was in that role, I was like, “Oh, well, I know how this goes.” I understand this relationship. I understand these dynamics. I understand being the one guy that doesn't want to be the boss, the one guy that wants to look out for the boss. The one guy that has to bring the boss bad news. The one guy that doesn't fear the boss. This was a very important role in the family that didn't exist, so it ended up being a good thing.

There are a few episodes in the last season where Tony's in the hospital and you’re briefly the acting boss, and you see just how exhausting it is. I feel like that’s the point you’re making throughout the book. You didn't want to be the boss or the frontman, because once you’re the frontman, you’ve got to worry about so much stuff before you can even start what you set out to do in the first place.

Yeah, that's true. You’re the lightning rod suddenly. You're the one that's gonna be on Page Six. And the ability to observe life starts to become a problem, because you're being observed, rather than doing the observing. And suddenly the quality of life changes. So it's an interesting dynamic that ended up really working out well.

I feel like everybody wants success until they get it, and then they don’t know what to do with it. 

Exactly, and you gotta give people like Bruce Springsteen a lot of credit for being that successful for that long, and yet still being productive. I only experienced that one time in my life, on my third album [1987’s Freedom – No Compromise]. I had two hits in Italy off of that album, and my wife came over just to hang out, go to cafes, do some shopping. And we could not walk down the street. Kids [were] all over the place, running up for autographs and pictures. And I thought, “Jeez, I really should be enjoying this because this is the first success I've ever really had,” and it would be the only success, really, I ever had. And I thought to myself, “I really don't like this. I don't like it. I should like it.” In a way, it's an endorsement of your work, so you should like it, but I really didn't. Obviously, you want to have some commercial success, but I don't like the celebrity stuff. I'm like, “Man, this is what people go through every single day of their lives? No thanks.”

You end the book with a great story about jamming onstage with Paul McCartney. That’s got to be the ultimate validation. 

Yeah, I mean, that's equal to 100 hit records. At that point you think, "Well, I must be doing something right." Because that's really something special. You wouldn't have dreamed of such a thing when you're a kid. That's how important the Beatles were. And I'm just so grateful that he's still around. Ringo too. And you know, the Stones are still working. We unfortunately lost Charlie, which was a big loss. He's really one of the great gentlemen of the business, but they're going to continue, and they should continue, because it's the music. And as long as Keith and Mick are there, it's a band.

Did you ever meet Charlie?

Yeah, I had some great conversations with him. He's just the greatest guy in the world. Just a very normal guy who never quite understood their success. [Laughs]

He was like the anti-rockstar. He played in the biggest band in the world but he hated touring, and that was his cross to bear. 

In his mind, he's still in a local little jazz band, and that's all he wanted. He was just thrust into this crazy world, this mainstream world that he couldn't ever quite understand, which was part of his charm, really.

Do you identify with that at all? I feel like at your core, you just like being the rock and roll guitar player in the best bar band.

Yeah, actually I do relate to that attitude. [I’d love] if you could just have the work without the celebrity part. A low level of celebrity is nice, when people say hello to you on the street and you can usually get into a restaurant. There's some perks that go along with it, but really it's the work that counts, you know, the craft. And that’s what keeps you searching, keeps you trying to realize your potential, which is a lifelong journey. 

I feel like you’re still hungry, and you’ve built an audience that’s willing to take the ride with you wherever you go.

And I'm proud of that, I really am. People know that when they see my name on something, it's gonna have a high standard. You may like it, you may not, but it's gonna certainly be pretty damn good. Because I don't do that much. And why is what I do good? It's because I make a point of it. I'm not doing things casually. I'm doing things, again, to realize my potential and to reach that standard that I grew up with, which I will never reach. I'll never reach the renaissance standards that I grew up with, but I'm always gonna be reaching for that greatness, because my life really is chasing greatness.