AVC: Do you dress the way you dress onstage in everyday life?
SVZ: Yeah. I dress the same all the time.
AVC: You get up in the morning and pick out your bandana?
SVZ: It's part of my life, yeah. [Laughs.] We don't separate those things, we '60s guys. Being a rock 'n' roll star ain't a part-time gig. [Laughs.]
AVC: Part of the appeal of the E Street Band is that you weren't trashing hotel rooms or snorting cocaine off supermodels, but were more into hanging out, drinking beer, playing Monopoly, watching TV. More a working-class ethos.
SVZ: I think that's because we achieved success a little later in life. We weren't 18 years old when we sold a million records. I think that could screw you up. We weren't successful until we were in our late 20s, you know? So it's different then. You go a little crazy, you have a little fun, and you do those things to some extent. But we never lost sight of the big picture, or our place in that continuum of rock 'n' roll. We always took that quite seriously. It was miraculous that we were able to make a living playing rock 'n' roll, and I think we never forgot that. We never, ever took that for granted.
I don't take it for granted now, with my radio show or whatever. We try and communicate fun on our live show or in my radio show, but I'll never forget that it's important and life-changing and life-giving and life-saving. That's part of it, too. It's that tradition that you want to honor. Whether that tradition is an illusion doesn't matter. But the illusion of rock 'n' roll, we turned into the reality of rock 'n' roll. It's about family and friendship and community. That's what it implies. That's what it communicates.
And that's what's missing right now. We don't have that any more. There's something about hard rock and hip-hop and pop—which are the only three genres, really, that we're allowed to hear—that's different. It doesn't quite communicate that same sense of community.
AVC: It's more self-absorbed?
SVZ: I'm not making any value judgments, but it's a different kind of communication. Just the fact that you can make a living doing what you want to do is difficult, and we never understood the concept of people going onstage and giving anything less than 100 percent. Maybe that's a blue-collar work ethic, but I call it just ethics. People are paying to see a show. You asked them to be there. You're not doing anybody a favor. You asked them to be there. So, give 100 percent. I'd never go onstage in my life without fully intending to do the best show you've ever seen. I never made a record without feeling that I wanted to make the best record humanly possible. I carry that with everything I do. For every Sopranos show, every radio show, I assume it might be my last. So I do it as good as I can possibly do it.
I think, especially these days, we have an obligation—those of us who know better—to raise the standards. The standards are so fucking low. We're all drowning in this mediocrity we call culture. I think it's up to those of us who know better to try and get the standards back up. That's another reason for doing the radio show. I figure if I play one great song after the other, people are going to be affected by it. New bands are going be affected by it. Realize they shouldn't be listening to mainstream radio or MTV and comparing themselves to that. They should be listening to the greatest records ever made, and comparing themselves to that.
AVC: When you took on your role in The Sopranos, did you have any idea of the phenomenon it was going to become?
SVZ: No. Not at all.
AVC: Did you think you'd still be doing it years down the road?
SVZ: We have eight more shows and that's the end, I think. Nobody really knew it was going to be that big. You couldn't possibly know that. It's one of those odd things.
AVC: One of the most important moments in the series comes in the second season, when your character—who seemed like one of the nicer guys—suddenly beat the living hell out of one of his dancers. A lot of viewers weren't sure if the show was headed in the right direction, because it wasn't as "fun," but in retrospect, it was an indicator of what the show was really trying to say, that none of these guys are nice.
SVZ: That's true. We never ever wanted to glamorize these guys, and the writers have been very careful not to. Part of the brilliance of the writing is not only making a very mundane job compelling—which, believe me, the modern mafia is not exactly like the Roaring 20s—and at the same time, not glamorizing or romanticizing what these guys do. I think it's a remarkable achievement to take these guys who are basically rather superficial, one-dimensional, and boring, and make them compelling. I think it's brilliant writing.
AVC: How do you juggle The Sopranos, your radio show, and touring with The E Street Band?
SVZ: You gotta love everything you do. You just gotta do it. I filmed two seasons of Sopranos while I was on the road, and they were nice enough to move my scenes to days off, and I would fly home every day off, no matter where I was, whether it was in California or France. I would fly home, say two lines, and get back on the plane. And we had an ISDN line installed in every hotel room so I could do the radio show every week. And you know, you do what you gotta do. You have to love it all, or else it doesn't get done. I mean, you just couldn't. Nobody has that much energy. Nobody's that good an actor. You have to love what you're doing in order to find the energy.
AVC: The radio show lets you play the music you like, but you can also insert commentary. On a recent episode, you pointedly read from Thomas Paine's Common Sense at the beginning of the show. Is having that kind of platform as important to you as playing music?
SVZ: Not like it once would have been. You know, I spent 10 years doing nothing but international liberation politics, and I was quite obsessed with it, and I wanted to make a point when I started this show that it was not going to be political. Really. I have a bigger mission now than any kind of specific politics, which is trying to restore the accessibility of rock 'n' roll. It's a much bigger job, and more important, I think. So I never wanted to make the show a political platform of any kind, and I very rarely wander into that area. In that sense, it's not important.
I probably talk 20 minutes out of two hours, and usually it's about the songs, the music, or celebrating pop culture. We may talk about the guy who invented the drive-in theatre, or the guy who invented the hot dog, or maybe talk about Allen Ginsberg, or whatever, and just try to celebrate pop culture and the music. Occasionally I'll do a rant about something that's bugging me. Just to vent. But usually it's not of a political nature, necessarily, other than natural sort of anti-authoritarian things we're all born with. I try not to make the show a political platform. I really made a point not do that.
AVC: Having completed the five-record cycle you announced decades ago, do you feel a sense of satisfaction, or do you have new places you want to go with your own music?
SVZ: I may never make another record. I may write a song or two for somebody, or co-write, or maybe even produce something now and then, but I don't have any real screaming need to express anything. The radio show kind of satisfies that artistic urge, in an odd way. It's never going to be the same as writing a song, exactly, but it's close. It feels like you're realizing your own potential somehow, or accomplishing something.
At the same time, going into a studio and making records is fun. It's my idea of a vacation, so I hope I get a chance to do a little of that in the future. But I may never make another solo record again. I don't feel the need to. I said everything I wanted to say in those five records, really. So that may be it.
AVC: Did you get to work on the new Springsteen album? The Pete Seeger one?
SVC: No. I heard some of it a couple years ago, and I'm ashamed to say I have not gone down to hear the record all the way through. I've been too busy. But I gotta get down there. The things I heard were a couple years old and were just great stuff.
He's always got an album in his pocket. He's just one of those guys. It doesn't matter what's going on, in his back pocket, he's got an album. It could be this. It could be that. But it's always interesting, and it's always good. I love the fact that he does those odd things with folk-music records, or this kind of thing, bringing attention to Pete Seeger. Who else is going to do that? Who else has the balls? Who else has the ability? And who else has the platform? If he doesn't do it, it's not going to get done, and it's just nice to turn people on to things. It's the greatest thing about doing my radio show, and I think it's great about what he does. Turning people on to where we came from. It may not be the most commercial thing in the world, but all the more congratulations to him for doing it.
AVC: Any final message for the youth of America?
SVZ: Go out and support your local rock 'n' roll band. Rock 'n' roll is a participatory sport. [Laughs.] It ain't passive. It ain't TV. Go out there and rock 'n' roll and dance and have fun.
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