Latest / Booked On Rock with Eric Senich / Rock and Soul: The Career Of Stevie Van Zandt [Episode 231]

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Rock and Soul: The Career Of Stevie Van Zandt [Episode 231] · Booked On Rock with Eric Senich

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: We're totally booked rock and roll.
• 0:04
  Speaker 2: I think I'll leave you. You're reading Little Hands says
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: it's time to rock and roll, Rock bad, Roll Up,
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: I totally booked.
• 0:16
  Speaker 3: Welcome back to Booked on Rock, the podcast for those
• 0:18
  Speaker 3: it was about to read and rock. Find the podcast
• 0:21
  Speaker 3: at booked on rock dot com. Every episode there in
• 0:24
  Speaker 3: both audio and video. Exclusive video segments from episodes, links
• 0:28
  Speaker 3: to all of the social media sites the latest rockbook releases,
• 0:31
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• 0:33
  Speaker 3: t shirts, mugs, stickers, and more. All at Booked on
• 0:36
  Speaker 3: Rock dot Com. A first time guest on the podcast,
• 0:39
  Speaker 3: it's Robert Lawson, the author of the brand new book
• 0:42
  Speaker 3: Solidarity Forever, the Art and Soul of Stevie van Zandt.
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  Speaker 3: As soon as Robert heard Van Zandt's debut solo album
• 0:49
  Speaker 3: Men Without Women in early nineteen eighty three, he was
• 0:51
  Speaker 3: completely devoted to every note. He first met van Zant
• 0:55
  Speaker 3: backstage on his Voice of America solo tour in nineteen
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  Speaker 3: eighty four, and he's kept in touch with him ever since.
• 1:01
  Speaker 3: He's now doing a serious deep dive to definitively document
• 1:04
  Speaker 3: the musical career of the great Stevie van Zandt, from
• 1:07
  Speaker 3: his early days in New Jersey bands to teaming up
• 1:09
  Speaker 3: with Bruce Springsteen and the EAS Street Band, to the
• 1:11
  Speaker 3: Sopranos and beyond head to this episode show notes for
• 1:15
  Speaker 3: a van Zandt approved Spotify playlist laws and put together
• 1:19
  Speaker 3: to go along with the book. Robert, thanks so much.
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: For being here.
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: Hey, thanks for having me. Eric.
• 1:25
  Speaker 3: I got to start out with your introduction, great story
• 1:27
  Speaker 3: of being backstage and an EA Street Show in two
• 1:29
  Speaker 3: thousand and there's something called a Little Stephen Trivia game
• 1:32
  Speaker 3: that seemed to break the ice with Stevie. Can you
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: tell this story.
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I had a project in college where you had
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: to make some kind of a trivia game. So I
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: did a Little Steven trivia game. It was a life
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: size replica of a certain guitar that he used to
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: play back in the eighties. You can see it in
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: the Glory Days Bruce Springsteen video. So it's a life
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: sized replica of that. And I had questions and you
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: move up the neck as you get questions, right, real
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: nerdy geek type stuff. So I played a couple of
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: rounds with Steven and he didn't do too well.
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: He didn't know a lot about himself. No, that's great.
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: You met him for the first time back in nineteen
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: eighty four right in the Voice of America tour. Yes,
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: and then later in twenty twelve at the Rogers Center
• 2:18
  Speaker 3: in Toronto, you shared strong opinions regarding the box set
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: of his solo material being worked on that box set
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: by the Way Rock and Roll Rebel. The early work
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: would eventually be released in twenty nineteen, and you get
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: a credit in the liner note. So you're clearly a
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: huge fan. When did you first become a fan of
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: Stevie van Zanen? What was it that made such an
• 2:37
  Speaker 3: impact on you? A song on the radio, a video
• 2:39
  Speaker 3: on MTV, an album that.
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: You heard, Yeah, I saw the video for the song
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: a song off his first solo album. The album came
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: out in eighty two, called Men Without Women, and I
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: saw the single or the video for the first single
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: in February of eighty three. So that's a song called Forever,
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: and when I heard it, it just kind of hit me.
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: I knew who he was, didn't know too much about him,
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: and I mean, he only had the one album out,
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: so but that song really hit me and I went
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: out and got the album the next day and it
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: just really knocked me out. I just loved it. It
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: kind of brings together a lot of different parts about
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: music that I love altogether. So you got stones kind
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: of guitar. He plays the Keith Richards five string g
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: tuning a lot Motown kind of horns. The vocals sound
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: kind of like Bob Dylan. Just all these things coming
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: together just really hit. And then yeah, the next year,
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: in eighty four, he put a second solo album. I
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: went to see that, met him, and after that I
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: was just like, you know, obsessed, just you know, and
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: he didn't put out that much music back then, so
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: it was really kind of frustrating. You'd go a few
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: years without really you didn't see his name in magazines
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: as much as you know, you kind of do in
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: the last few years. I think since twenty seventeen, he's
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: put out more albums, more alan between twenty seventeen and
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: now than he did in the first like six years
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: of his career.
• 4:05
  Speaker 3: So yeah, it is an amazing the older he gets,
• 4:07
  Speaker 3: the more he's doing. How familiar were you with his
• 4:11
  Speaker 3: work with the East three band at that time? He
• 4:13
  Speaker 3: wasn't in the Eastree band in the early eighties. Oh no,
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: actually he was right up until eighty four.
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: Right, So that's kind of how I got into him.
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: I mean, I wasn't a spring Steen. I wasn't a
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: fanatic or anything, but I was really into him, which
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: is what made me watch the interview with him with
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: Steven on TV where they showed that video because I thought, oh, yeah,
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: this is the guy who plays in Bruce's band. But
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: I didn't really know all the individual members as much
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: as I would get to know in the eighties.
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: Before we get into when he first joins with Bruce,
• 4:44
  Speaker 3: Can you give us the brief story of Stevie's childhood years.
• 4:47
  Speaker 3: He's not originally from New Jersey.
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: Right right, born just outside of Boston. His parents divorced
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: very early. His mother got remarried, I think when he
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: was seven or so, to a man whose last name
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: was van Zant. So that's how a one hundred percent
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: Italian American guy ends up with a Dutch last name. Yeah,
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: and then.
• 5:11
  Speaker 3: Sometimes people confusing with Ronnie and Johnny van Zant Linen skinning,
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: you get that a lot. Yeah, not related.
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: No, you know, he's not really to anybody named van Zante. Yeah,
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: not by blood. Anyway, but he uh, like a lot
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: of kids at that time, he sees the Beatles on
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: it at Sullivan, he sees the Rolling Stones on television,
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: and he gets really interested in music and starts forming bands,
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: and once he kind of hooks up with a bunch
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: of people in Asbury Park just obsessed with music. And
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: i'd list the whole period between like sixty six maybe
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: leading all the way up to like Bruce's first album,
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: when those guys are in like twenty five different bands
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: or something. It's constantly just mixing up, and you have
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: the exact same number or the exact same guys in
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: the band, except Steven is the lead vocalist, and then
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: they changed the name and Bruce is the lead vocalist,
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: or they changed one guy out and someone else is
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: the lead vocalist, or the drummer changes, and this real
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: weird New Jersey scene where just like a lot of
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: young people playing a lot of music and playing with
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: a lot of a lot of different people, they're all
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: interchanging constantly.
• 6:26
  Speaker 3: Did you learn anything new in the process of writting
• 6:28
  Speaker 3: the book about Stevie that you didn't know prior to
• 6:31
  Speaker 3: starting it, Because that's a lot of research You got
• 6:33
  Speaker 3: to do to get to that, to the details of
• 6:36
  Speaker 3: the early part of his career.
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and some of the stuff I was most interested
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: in were those little areas, like I have a lot
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: of raw data because I was such a hardcore Stephen
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: fan for years. I don't know if you can see this,
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: there's a whole filing cabinet.
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 6:57
  Speaker 3: Just so for those it's just on video on YouTube,
• 7:01
  Speaker 3: as you will be able to see it's a file
• 7:03
  Speaker 3: cabin It's like, it's like you're private detective. Yeah, all
• 7:07
  Speaker 3: the files on Stevie Van's and yeah.
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and and a lot of that detective work is
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: what I like the most. Like, that's that's the most
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: fun for me to find little areas that even I,
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: as like a super fan, have always wondered about, or
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: you know, real curious about, well, what order did that
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: really happen in? Or you know, something that maybe was
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: never I find it with a lot of these guys.
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: And it's not their fault, but a lot of these
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: rocker guys, especially once they get to a certain age,
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  Speaker 2: when they get interviewed by a lot of mainstream media,
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: they just kind of revert back to telling the same
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: stories A lot of times, so those are the stories
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: they're comfortable with. They they kind of know how they end,
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: and maybe they have told the story so many times
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: that they know the story more than they know the
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: actual truth. So, you know, sometimes people out will ask me, yeah,
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: well did you interview you know, like Bruce or did
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: you interview subside Johnny? And that would kind of be cool.
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: But I also like interviewing a lot of the guys
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: that don't always get spoken to. I hear you, yeah,
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: And that's where I find like I get some little
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: details that you usually don't really you know, hear about,
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: you know. So interviewing a lot of the guys from
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: the original nineteen eighty two Disciples of Souls that was
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: really important to me. Interviewing guys from the nineteen eighty nine,
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: very short lived version of the band that a lot
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: of people don't really know because that album didn't come
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: out in North America. You know. I like to kind
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: of get in those little nooks and crannies a little
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: bit and find out that kind of information. One thing
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: that I that I found out that I was really
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: kind of happy about was that guitar that I mentioned
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: from nineteen eighty four that he plays in the Glory
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: Days video. He plays it in his own Out of
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: the Darkness video. It's a Guild X eighty two leopard,
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: like a black and white zebra stripe thing. That was
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: actually Jean Beauvoir's guitar. Beauvoir ordered it from Guild and
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: when Steven saw it, he loved it, so he bought
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: it from Beauvoir.
• 9:19
  Speaker 3: Well, yeah, and that was an interesting name because Jehan
• 9:22
  Speaker 3: is famous for being in the Plasmatics, Right, this is
• 9:27
  Speaker 3: the same Jean Boir he was on this podcast because
• 9:30
  Speaker 3: he put out a great book.
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, I didn't know.
• 9:33
  Speaker 3: I didn't know he had a history with Stevie van Zan.
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he's in the He's on the first two albums.
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: He played bass on the first album and second album.
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: By the nineteen eighty four tour, he switched over to guitar.
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: So he joined Little Stephen. I guess right after the Plasmatics.
• 9:52
  Speaker 3: How far back does he go in terms of meeting Bruce.
• 9:55
  Speaker 3: They were kind of in the same circles there for
• 9:57
  Speaker 3: a while. They're playing in bands in the same area, right, Steven, Yeah, Steve,
• 10:02
  Speaker 3: Stephen and Bruce, and then eventually they they're in the
• 10:04
  Speaker 3: same band together.
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: But they yeah, yeah, they met when they were like
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: fifteen years old, sixteen maybe, yeah, and right away they well,
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: they each had they were in different bands. Bruce was
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: in a band called the Castiles, that's his first band,
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: and Stephen was in a band called The Source, and
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: he had a band called the Shadows, and they would
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: they would compete, actually, Bruce and Steven on some nights
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: they would play the same shows. You know, both bands
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: would be part of the same gig. So they got
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: to know each other. Yeah, so that's like nineteen sixty six,
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: he was way back. Yeah. So then from there they
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: start that's when they start playing together, and they start
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: hanging out at a place called the Upstage Club in
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: New Jersey. So the Upstage was famous. That band could
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: play like till until midnight or something. Then I think
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: they'd have an hour to clean up and then they
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: play again, and they could go all the way to
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: like six or seven am. And the thing that made
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: the Upstades unique it was a non alcohol venue, so
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: kids being sixteen seventeen years old could play. So that's
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: where you get Bruce, Steven, Gary tallon Southside Johnny just
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: doing these jam sessions and just playing for hours and
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: hours and hours and really honing their chops.
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: Booked on rock podcasts. We'll be back after this.
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: I think you'd be glad later if you weren't here now.
• 11:43
  Speaker 3: So outside Johnny, he's important. When you talk about the
• 11:47
  Speaker 3: history of Stevie van Zan and Bruce Springsteen, there was
• 11:50
  Speaker 3: a band known as the Jukes. So but when does
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: that band for him? And then talk about how they
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: play a role in the early years of Bruce in
• 11:56
  Speaker 3: the East Street band.
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, they that's kind of That's one of the
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: bands that come from all these different groups that are
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: changing members. Like when I when I said before that
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: Bruce and Steven and all these guys would be in
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: different bands. Southside Johnny is with them. He's the harmonica player.
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: Often he sings lead vocals on some of the songs.
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: So you got all these different bands. You know, there's
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: a Dusty and the Brooms or something, Doctor Zoom, Bruce
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: Springsteen and the Friendly Enemies. That's a group that people
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: don't really know about. So all these all these different groups.
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: Southside Johnny and the Kid was an acoustic duo that
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: was just Steven and Southside. Steven would play acoustic guitar
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: and Southside would sing and play harmonica. So Subside gets
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: in there pretty early, and there's a there was a
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: group called the BlackBerry Booze Band. They kind of morphed
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: into Southside Johnny and Asbury Jukes and Steven becomes the manager,
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: plays guitar, produces the records, things, background vocals. So if
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: there are Springsteen or eas Street Band or Little Stephen
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: fans who don't know the first three Subside Johnny albums
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: the great records, and they really have to have that
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: same sound. It's not unlike what Bruce did and not
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: unlike the first Steven album, you know, big horn section.
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: Bruce wrote some of their material as well. So Soubside
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: Johnny and Asbury Jukes are a real important part of
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: that whole scene for sure.
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and he wasn't in the EA Street Band as start.
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: As you know.
• 13:31
  Speaker 3: It happens around the time of Born to Run. It's
• 13:34
  Speaker 3: the song tenth Avenue Freeze Out that's important to talk about.
• 13:38
  Speaker 3: He just stopped by for a visit during the recording
• 13:41
  Speaker 3: sessions and then he notices the guys are kind of
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: frustrated with the song. You could take it from there
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: that leads to Vin's Ant's role in the EA Street Band.
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: Well, when Bruce got signed, Stephen was in his band,
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: so that's an earlier kind of version of the EA
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: Street Band. And during the sessions for Bruce's first album,
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: Green's from Asbury Park, Steven kind of gets let go.
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: The Bruce's management and the record company they don't really
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: they thought Bruce was going to be an acoustic guy,
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: because that's how they signed him. They saw him playing
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: like coffee houses and stuff as he was kind of
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: taking a break from band stuff and doing acoustic shows.
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: So they hire him to be like a solo acoustic
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: Dylan and he comes in with you know, like a
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: seven piece band or something. So they figured out extra
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: guitar players too much. So Steven did record a little
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: bit for Bruce's first album, wasn't really used. So yeah,
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: so at that point he leaves and he's just friends
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: and he's doing his own thing and he's with south
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: Side and you're right, he's visiting the New York City
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: sessions for Bruce's third album and the horn guys are
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: not really getting the feel of what Bruce is hearing.
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: For the song tenth Avenue freeze Out, and you know
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: the story that Steven barges into the recording studio and
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: starts barking orders at these very respected session guys who
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: are used to just reading, you know, charts real straight,
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: do your work and get out, get paid, and get
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: out of there. So Stephen, you know, Steven doesn't read music,
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: so he doesn't even have like charts or anything. He
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: just goes in there and he starts humming the horn
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: parts to them. And that's the way he used to
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: arrange horns with Asbury Jukes. He would just like sing
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: the parts to the band. Which is really interesting because
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: years years later, in twenty seventeen, I was at a
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: little Stephen show during the sound check and they were
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: rehearsing a new song and he was doing that. He
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: was actually like stinging the parts to the horns and
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: to Eddie Mannion, who's like the horn director, and I
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: was thinking, Wow, he still does it that way.
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Like he's.
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: Still doing it the way that he did it during
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: Tenth Avenue Freeze Out in nineteen seventy five, seventy four.
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: That's the Miami Horns, right, Okay. Because his nickname was
• 16:14
  Speaker 3: Steve had a nickname Miami, Miami, Steve, Steve right, right, Yeah, So.
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: During tenth Avenue freeze Out, they realize it's like they
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: had a problem because they couldn't figure out how these
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: horns should sound. Steven fixes it because he knows how
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: to talk to horn players, so he fixes it, and
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: then Bruce is able to get him back in the
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: band as second guitar, and after that he's in the
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: E Street Band for quite a while.
• 16:38
  Speaker 3: Didn't he have an influence on Born to Run as well?
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: Wasn't there a part of the song Born to Run that.
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: He Yeah, Yeah, there's a guitar part I'm born to Run.
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: And what's interesting about that is, for a long time
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: Steven wouldn't say specifically what it was. I've got interviews
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: with him in magazines saying, well, I fixed something and
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: Born to Run, but I don't really want to talk
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: about it because it's kind of embarrassing. And then now,
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: all these years later, he talks about it in his autobiography,
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: and I've seen interviews with him and Bruce together where
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: they talk about it. It was just something that Bruce
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: was playing a chord wrong or something, and Steven thought
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: it should sound a different way, and even Bruce maybe
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: thought he was playing it that way. So it gets
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: a little techie for gearheads that Bruce thought he was
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: playing a certain way and Steven says, well, no, but
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: that's not the chord that you're So they changed this
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: little rift that's kind of in the middle of the song. Yeah.
• 17:37
  Speaker 3: I thought it might have been dodoo doo doo. Yeah,
• 17:41
  Speaker 3: I think it might have been that part because I
• 17:44
  Speaker 3: remember watching a documentary on just that album.
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 17:47
  Speaker 3: Yeah. He's quoted in the book talking about the first
• 17:49
  Speaker 3: three Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes albums. That's seventy
• 17:52
  Speaker 3: six as I Don't Want to Go Home, seventy seven's
• 17:55
  Speaker 3: This Time It's for Real, and seventy eighths Heart of Stone.
• 17:58
  Speaker 3: He said, quote, those first three albums were me just
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: learning how to produce records. Then you follow that by writing, quote,
• 18:04
  Speaker 3: these informal lessons would sue next lead to new production opportunities,
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: including with his oldest friend for an Early Hero and
• 18:11
  Speaker 3: eventually himself talk about those projects, one of them a
• 18:14
  Speaker 3: co producing credit on the River.
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so he starts. He got a production assistant credit
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: on Darkness on the Edge of Town seventy eight and
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: then joined the production team for Bruce. So the East
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: Street Band their next project, The River, which took years
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: for them to complete. They're working on that and Steven
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: is considered one of the producers of that. At the
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: same time, they started working on an album for Garyus Bonds,
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: and Garyus Bonds was a sky It was like a
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: lot of hits in like the early sixties, earlate fifties,
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: and then like a lot of those early rock and
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: roll kind of pioneers Chuck Berry, Chubby Checker, little Richard
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: Roy Orbison even started playing like car shows and stuff.
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: You know. It's like they got supplanted by the Beatles
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: and the Stones and all that kind of stuff, so
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: they didn't have that relevance anymore. So Stephen and Bruce
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: end up a co producing al though when you look
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: at the credits, Steven produced more of it than Bruce did,
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: so it's not quite a co production credit. But I'm
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: just nitpicky about stuff like that. But yeah, So they
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: do a Bonds album. The musicians on it are the
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: EA Street Band and a bunch of the horn guys
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: from the Asbury Jukes. So that record called Dedication also
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: really fits in there. So it's like, you know, if
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: you like the sound of the River, and you like
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: the sound of Steven's first album Women, and you like
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: the Hearts of Stones Outside Johnny album to Gear us
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: Bonds dedication album, that's right in that wheelhouse too.
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: That's one to listen to.
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: That's a great record.
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: Book on Rock podcast will be back after this, We're
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: gonna take a break. Can't be back.
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: Robert Laws and the author of the brand new book
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: Solidarity Forever, The Art and Soul of Stevie van Zant,
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: which is out now today October seventeen. As we record this,
• 20:08
  Speaker 3: we'll get some more details on that. Stevie, he worked
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: with Gary us Bonds. As you mentioned, Gary became good
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: friends with Bruce and there's something we see in the
• 20:17
  Speaker 3: video for Bruce's song cover Me from Born in the
• 20:19
  Speaker 3: USA that has a connection to Gary.
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: Correct.
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, you know, from doing that album, they really
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: brought Gary back from just playing car shows and you know,
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: state fairs and stuff like that. So he started a
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: game played on the radio again. So Gary showed a
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: lot of appreciation for that. He gave Bruce a brand
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: new car and you can see a car on the
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: seven single for you have the song cover me and
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: very small on the car, it's written the word Dedication.
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: It's over like one of the wheels, I think the
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: front driver side wheel maybe. So yeah, they were really
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: close for a while and Gary would jump up on
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: stage at a lot of EAS Street Band shows in
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: New Jersey and maybe even like Philly and areas like that.
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: Bruce who joined Bonds often and they were very close.
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: Stephen and Bruce did do a second album for Bonds,
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: but at that point the EA Street Band wasn't really
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: touring anymore. Steven was working on his album, Bruce was
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: doing a lot of recording trying to finish his follow
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: up to The River, so there weren't really any opportunities
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: for them all to play live again. So that album
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: called on the line. That album might have suffered a
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: little bit because it didn't get that much promotion, but
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: it's also a really, really good record. It's probably even
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: better than Dedication. The first album, Dedication has a duet
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: with Bruce, So for people who are just like hardcore Springsteen,
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: complete its you got to get it just for that.
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: You can also hear Bruce singing really loud backum vocals
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: on a whole bunch of the songs. The second album
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: on the Line has a duet with Steven, so it's
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: like a rare opportunity to hear Steven do co lead vocals.
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: At that time, there was.
• 22:09
  Speaker 3: A product Steven had called Little Stephen in the Disciples.
• 22:12
  Speaker 3: I think you mentioned that earlier to talk about this.
• 22:14
  Speaker 3: They had a critically acclaimed album and they played at
• 22:17
  Speaker 3: the US Festival.
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: That's a big deal.
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they did the US Festival in May thirtieth, nineteen
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: eighty three. That was a great band. That was a
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: really great band, and he really built that band. So
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: he's got the horn section from the Asbury Jukes, he's
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: got the drummer from the Rascals, he's got the bass
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: player from the Plasmatics, who had also played with Gary
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: Wes Bonds. Like, he's not just a punk kind of guy.
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: Really really great band. So they toured a lot. They
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: started touring in the fall of eighty two, and it
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: continued in eighty three and then yeah, leading all the
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: way up to the US Festival in May of eighty three.
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: At that point he did lose the horns and he
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: kind of started a bit of a more stripped down
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: sound for the rest of eighty three, and that takes
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: us to his second album that came out in the
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: summer of eighty four, Voice of America.
• 23:12
  Speaker 3: Voice of America in May of eighty four. Yeah, that's
• 23:14
  Speaker 3: the same year Born in the Usa album is released.
• 23:17
  Speaker 3: Stevie co produced Born in the USA with Bruce, John Landau,
• 23:21
  Speaker 3: and Chuck Plockin, and he does appear on eight of
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: the twelve tracks, but he left the band shortly after
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: it was recorded, he writ in the book.
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: Quote.
• 23:27
  Speaker 3: Although at the time, nothing negative about van Zandt's departure
• 23:31
  Speaker 3: from the Springsteen camp was ever made public, decades later
• 23:33
  Speaker 3: both been opened up about it. What did Stevie and
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: Bruce have to say about why he left that split?
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: That was really interesting because you know, I was following
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: them both in eighty four, and there's lots of interviews
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: where Steven just says, oh, no, we're you know, we're
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: still the best of friends, and he wants me to
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: do my own thing, and Bruce would say, you know,
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: kind of the same thing. You know, he would dedicate
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: a song every night on the nineteen eighty four eighty
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: five Born USA tour to Steven, and you know, and
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: you would tell like radio DJs and stuff. You know,
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: you got to check out Voice of America. It's really important.
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: It's a great album. So everything seemed okay. And on
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: top of that, I could, I would say that it's
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: important to know that during that Mammoth nineteen eighty four
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: nineteen eighty five Born USA worldwide tour, Steven did rejoin
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: the band ten times just to play during the encores.
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: So it's not like they were really never you know,
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: like they didn't speak to each other for years. Sometimes
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: some of the interviews kind of make it seem like
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: that now, but they weren't that far and Stephen came
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: back for the Glory Days video in eighty five, Bruce
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: sang on the Sun City album, which was also that year,
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: So they weren't quite as you know, like, it's not
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: like they hated each other and they never saw each
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: other again. But it was only in current times in Yeah,
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: Bruce's autobiography and Steven's autobiography that they both finally address it,
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: and they don't tell a different story. They both basically
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: tell that Steven wanted to stay in the Street Band.
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: He wanted to balance being in the Street Band and
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: leading the Disciples of soul, but he wanted more of
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: an official place in Bruce's organization. So I think he
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: really he wanted to not just be the guitar player
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: and the co producer. I think he really wanted to
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: like kind of run the band, which he kind of
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: did already in some ways, because I know there are
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: stories of like Bruce being late for a soundcheck or
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: something and Steven would run the sound check wow, or
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: if Bruce isn't, you know, in the studio, Steven kind
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: of stepping up and doing those parts, and that happens. Now.
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: There's some photos just from last year of the EA
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: Street Band on tour and Steven. It's like a little
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: backstage area and Steven's with the horn guys and you
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: can see he's kind of like helping them out with
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: some parts. So he does do that kind of stuff,
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: but he wanted some sort of a real official title almost,
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: you know, like musical director. I guess maybe something like that,
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: and Bruce just wasn't willing to kind of give up
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: that much power. And Bruce liked the dynamic that he
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: had because he would get some advice from his manager,
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: John Landau, he would get some advice from Steven and
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: often it was conflicting advice, and Bruce talks about it
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: in his book that he kind of played them against
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: each other a little bit, like he liked having them
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: kind of being antagonists against each other and then he
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: would get the best ideas that way. Bruce does admit
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: that that's not necessarily the best way to treat people,
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: but it's the way to get the results that he
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: needed and that's the only way he kind of knew
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: how to get them. So it's kind of a dysfunctional way.
• 27:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but that's say that that's happened. My favorite band
• 27:06
  Speaker 3: is Vanhillen and there's nothing there's no shortage of drama
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: and tension there. And David Lee Roth used to say
• 27:12
  Speaker 3: that was what created all that great music was the
• 27:15
  Speaker 3: fact that Eddie and I couldn't stand each other.
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: You know. It's that, you know, I have a killer
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: davidly Ross story that I'll tell you when we get
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: up there.
• 27:24
  Speaker 3: Okay, all right, Before we get to the eighty five
• 27:27
  Speaker 3: Sun City project, there is a story in the book
• 27:29
  Speaker 3: about a Bob Dylan song that produced was produced by
• 27:32
  Speaker 3: Stephen van zand that was ultimately replaced. Though this is
• 27:36
  Speaker 3: an interesting story. Can you tell this one.
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that was a real fun kind of part two.
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: So I'm a big Dylan guy, Like Dylan is kind
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: of my guy. You know, the only reason I would
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: never write a book about Bob Dylan is because there's
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: probably already like three hundred books about him.
• 27:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know what I could come up with
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: that would be original. So when nineteen ninety one, I
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: think Bob Dylan put out a three CD set called
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: the Bootleg Series. So it's three discs of outtakes and
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: demos and stuff that like nobody's ever heard before. And
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: I remember being on a being on a bus because
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: I was going home from university and I bought this
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: box set. I didn't have anything to listen to it on,
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: but I was looking through the booklet and I see
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: that Steven is credited with guitar on a song I
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: didn't know anything about that. It was crazy. So it's
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: a song on Bob has an album called Empire Burlesque,
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: a song called when the Night Comes Falling from the Sky.
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: So that Bootleg Series had an earlier alternate version that
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: had Steven on guitar. So that was kind of mind
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: blowing for me. So I always kind of wondered about
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: that always, you know, like how did that really come together?
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: And Steven does talk about it in his book, but
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: I kind of wanted a little bit more, so I
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: talked to Steven about it. But then I also talked
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: to Arthur Baker, who is kind of a co producer
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: for those Dylan sessions, and Arthur Baker produced a Sun
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: City album with Steven as well, So hearing from both
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: those guys, I got kind of a lot of information
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: about those sessions. And this is a really kind of
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: neat thing that happened that, you know, Steven's playing was
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: like one of his heroes, but at the time, he
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: wasn't really sure if he was producing. And then the
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: album comes out and they didn't use that version anyway,
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: So it's great that it finally came out on the
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: bootleg series. But yeah, the version on Bob's actual album
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: is not the one with Steven. How different are they
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: They're pretty different. They're pretty different the like you can
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: really hear stevens he plays like these real big guitar
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: chords during it. Like he's not the only musician that's different.
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: Like Bob was trying a few different things. It's definitely
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: the same song. And since then there's been another bootleg
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: series that has like two more versions of the song,
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: also with Steven. So it's just like a little air
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: That was kind of fun for me because, like I said,
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: I'm such a big Dylan guy. So just finding out
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: more information about that because, like I said, I remembered
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: so distinctly buying that Bob Dylan box seat and seeing
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: Steven's name in there and going, how did this ever happen?
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: I've never heard of this? And then so you flash
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: forward a few years and I'm talking to the guys
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: from those sessions and getting really a lot of information booked.
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: On rock Podcast. We'll be back after this. The future
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: is now.
• 30:32
  Speaker 3: I remember the video for sun City on MTV. This
• 30:35
  Speaker 3: was a huge moment for Stevie. First, how did that
• 30:37
  Speaker 3: project come to be and who was part of it?
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: Well, he was doing some research for his third album
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: and he's really interested in the apartheid situation in South Africa.
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: He went there on a research visit. He went there
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: twice actually, and he just wrote this song planning for
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: it to just be another song on his third album
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: that he was just starting to put together. And then
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: somehow the idea came that maybe, you know this, this
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: would be good if we had a duet, and then
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: you know, well, this would be good if we had
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: a couple people sing on it, And before you know it,
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: there's like forty different people on it. So you you know,
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: Bruce Bob, Dylan Hall and Oates are both on it,
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: Jackson Brown, Miles Davis, a lot of jazz guys, and
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: he also brought together a lot of like rap and
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: hip hop guys, and that was when that kind of
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: music was a little bit more still like New York
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: City Underground wasn't quite as mainstream as it became. But
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: he really brought together a lot of different kind of people,
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: Ringo stars on it, Ron Wood, Keith Richard like it's
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: a Pete Townsend, Like it's an incredible list of people.
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: And the song, if you play it now, it's still
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: pretty heavy hitting, like it's still it still sounds it's
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: very aggressive, but it's still very street like. It's not
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: the you know, like weird. The world to me is
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: really a lot of kind of handholding and kumbaiya kinda
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: you know, it's a little too nice, a little too pretty.
• 32:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah, this had a little attitude yeah to it. Yeah sure.
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: I mean the video of it has footage of like
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: white policemen in South Africa like beating like just black
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: people trying to go to work or just walking on
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: the street, like hard hitting stuff. So that was a
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: big song. It increased a lot of awareness for the
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: political situation in South Africa. But it also created a
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: lot of awareness for Stephen himself because all of a sudden,
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: he's being interviewed on political issues by like Time magazine
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: and Newsweek and stuff like that. He's been like really
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: given a lot of attention because of this big thing
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: that he really started.
• 32:55
  Speaker 3: MTV got behind it. From what I remember, I was
• 32:57
  Speaker 3: a kid, maybe twelve thirteen years old, I remember that
• 33:00
  Speaker 3: being on quite a bit on MTV.
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was a big deal. They did like an
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: hour long kind of making of documentary and that got
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: played a lot. Steven and some of the other guys
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: appeared on the Donahue Morning talk show with one of
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: the guys that runs the whole Sun City organization in
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: South Africa and they kind of debated it. You know,
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: to see little Stephen on like nine AM, a morning
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: talk show talking about politics, it was just you know,
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: it's pretty crazy. He didn't really see rock and roll
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: people do that at that time.
• 33:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah, before we get to his return to the EA
• 33:33
  Speaker 3: Street Band, because it would be fifteen years a long time.
• 33:36
  Speaker 3: He left in eighty four, came back around ninety nine.
• 33:39
  Speaker 3: He did stay busy. Actually, it's funny because what did
• 33:42
  Speaker 3: he say. He did nothing but walk his dog when
• 33:44
  Speaker 3: he went into retirement in the mid nineties. But he
• 33:46
  Speaker 3: did stay busy for a while there. He worked with
• 33:49
  Speaker 3: bon Jovi for a period there. He cover his projects
• 33:52
  Speaker 3: during that time extensively. But he did admit later leaving
• 33:57
  Speaker 3: the E Street Band was a mistake he called a
• 33:59
  Speaker 3: career suicide. Thankfully he returned. But there's very little, if
• 34:03
  Speaker 3: anything about how that reunion happened. Maybe they were just
• 34:07
  Speaker 3: friends all along and it was just a simple phone
• 34:09
  Speaker 3: call like and then you want to come back to
• 34:11
  Speaker 3: the East reband. But there's really nothing on that huh.
• 34:14
  Speaker 3: No stories about how they rekindled that relationship.
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: Well, again, I don't think they were really ever as
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: far apart right as Steven makes it sound. And maybe
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: they were. Maybe growing up they were so close that
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: if they just went a few weeks or a few
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: months without talking to Steven. In his mind it's like, oh,
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: we didn't talk for ten years or something like. Maybe
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: it felt that way to him, but yeah, it wasn't
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: really like I said when you look at it. Steven
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: joins the E Street Band ten times on the Born
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: USA tour. He comes back for the Glory Days video.
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: Bruce is there for Sun City and there's you know,
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: you would see them around town. There would be occasionally
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: pictures of them, like either in la or in New York,
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: so they were still doing stuff together. But yeah, Steven's
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: doing a lot of other production jobs and Steven and Bruce, well,
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: there was kind of they tried to do an EA
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: Street Band reunion around the Greatest Hits album. I guess
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: they they recorded some so Stephen was there for that,
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: and then that didn't quite take off. But that's the thing.
• 35:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Bruce in the nineties was doing his own thing anyway.
• 35:17
  Speaker 3: He had his own band in the early nineties with
• 35:19
  Speaker 3: Human Touch and Lucky Town, so he was already.
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: Right, but Steven actually joined that band a few times.
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: Really well, that shows either in New York or New Jersey.
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: He you know, he'd just come out for like Glory
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: Days and you know, one other song or you know,
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: Darling in County or something like that. So he was
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: never really that far away, I feel from from Bruce.
• 35:44
  Speaker 3: Right, there was a connection to the guitarist for Bruce
• 35:49
  Speaker 3: in the early nineties, was a member of a band
• 35:52
  Speaker 3: that had some connection to Stevie. I'm trying to remember now, so.
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Shane Fontaine was the guitar player in a group
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: called Loan Justice Yes and Steven Yes. Stephen co produced
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: a couple of songs and co wrote a couple of
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: songs on their first album. Shane wasn't in the band
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: on the first album. For the second album, that band
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: kind of changed lineup and you get this guy, Shane
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: Fontaine on guitar and Steven co produced that whole album
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: and co wrote a bunch and I think he played
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: a couple of guitar solos, so he knew that guy,
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: and yeah, he that guy became a guitar player in
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: Bruce's other band, booked.
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: On podcast We'll be back after this, now you'll wait,
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: I'll be right back.
• 36:36
  Speaker 3: So nineteen ninety nine, what a big year for Stevie
• 36:39
  Speaker 3: van Zen. Before rejoining Bruce, he lands a role in
• 36:42
  Speaker 3: the Sopranos This all comes from his induction speech at
• 36:46
  Speaker 3: the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in nineteen ninety seven.
• 36:48
  Speaker 3: Another great story talk about this and then how the
• 36:51
  Speaker 3: role of Silvio Dante wasn't even planned.
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so, you know, Stephen Steven has talked about this
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: a lot that, Yeah, he's he's retired, or he's he's
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: what he thinks he's retired, where he's not doing anything,
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: and then all of a sudden he gets two huge
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: job offers at the same time, Like why why did
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: that have to happen at the same time, But it didn't.
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: They made it work. So Steven's at the Rock and
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: Roll Hall of Fame and he's doing this funny induction
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: speech for the Rascals, who are a you know, Italian
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: New Jersey rock band or kind of pop rock group
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: who had some hits in the mid sixties, great, great,
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: great band. You know, they've got some great songs. And
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: he was funny and he was, you know, kind of
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: kind of being a wise guy. And David Chase, the
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: creator Sopranos, who at that time is still just putting
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: his project together, happened to be watching it and he
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: sees this guy being a being a wise guy and
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: being real funny, and so he reaches out to Stevens. So,
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: even though there wasn't a part forced the even and
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: Steven's not an actor, he'd never really done any acting before.
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: Although I busted him on that because I had found
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: out that he did do some school plays in high school.
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: Okay that he that he didn't really remember, so he
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: uh yeah, So he auditioned for sopranos and and he
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: and he got the gig. So around the same time,
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: Bruce says he's putting together the E Street Band and
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: he wants it to include Steven as well as the
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: two people who replaced him when he left in eighty four,
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: which is Neil Slofkan and Patti Skayelfa. So it's going
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: to be a new, a different version of the E
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: Street Band, but kind of bringing together a couple a
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: couple different eras. So Steven had to kind of arrange
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: they would do a thing where if he's on tour
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: somewhere and he has to fly you know, to La
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: or I guess. They actually did filming in New Jersey,
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: like right after a concert, do a bunch of scenes,
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: and then fly out the next day to be at
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: the next show and he was living that kind of
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: lifestyle for a while.
• 39:02
  Speaker 3: What an amazing story though, because he was coming up
• 39:04
  Speaker 3: on fifty and it's just one of those things that
• 39:07
  Speaker 3: we can all be inspired by. You just never know.
• 39:09
  Speaker 3: Good things can happen like that, and it sometimes you
• 39:12
  Speaker 3: can plan things out, but sometimes something awesome will happen,
• 39:15
  Speaker 3: like out of the blue, just like that.
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 39:18
  Speaker 3: I was mentioning Silvio Dante character was not playing. Initially,
• 39:21
  Speaker 3: he tried out for Tony Soprano that role, didn't.
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: He That's what they say, and that just shows how
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: early in the process it was that none of the
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: characters were really all that fleshed out. So he did
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: an audition for this Tony Soprano role. I don't know
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: what that role was like at that time. It might
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: have been pretty different than what it became once James
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: Gandelfini got involved. I kind of would just think that
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: it would have to so it was probably a little different,
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: but he went for it, and HBO were just not
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: comfortable with the idea of a non actor being the
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: main guy in a gangster show, so he and so
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: they created a new role for him, which was Yes
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: Sylvia Dante Steven had the name, and so they make
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: this nightclub owner kind of new character and he's Tony
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: second in command, which is a role that Stephen you know,
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: knows really well from from being with Bruce for so long,
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: you know, And that's kind of the funny thing about
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: it that he ends up being like the number two
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: in charge, where that's what he did right in real life.
• 40:31
  Speaker 3: I love now Bruce when he introduces him on stage
• 40:33
  Speaker 3: and they'll call him one of the sopranos or you know,
• 40:37
  Speaker 3: just teases him about it. He's an actor, big time
• 40:39
  Speaker 3: actor now. Because he did do the follow up, the
• 40:43
  Speaker 3: lily Hammer series on Netflix after the Sopranos ended. That's
• 40:46
  Speaker 3: a great character too, an next mobster who's in the
• 40:48
  Speaker 3: witness protection program and he's relocated to lily Hammer, Norway.
• 40:53
  Speaker 3: I never saw an episode of that show. Have you
• 40:56
  Speaker 3: seen it as a good.
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I've watched.
• 40:59
  Speaker 3: It's still it's not going anymore or is it still going?
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: No, it's only three seasons, so yeah, So that's a
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: that's a brand new original show, uh filmed in Norway
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: where Steven is the lead guy. So HBO didn't think
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: he could be the lead guy and Sopranos. He actually
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: became the lead guy in a in a gangster kind
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: of show, and but he was also a lot more
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: involved with it. So he's involved in the writing and
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: the and just the production and putting it all together.
• 41:33
  Speaker 2: It's similar kind of to Sopranos just in that it's
• 41:36
  Speaker 2: a New Jersey or New York City kind of gangster
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: guy who goes into hiding. But it's got a lot
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: more humor to it than Sopranos did. And of course
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: it's a lot of like fish out of water stuff
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: because he's this you know, made guy from New York City,
• 41:51
  Speaker 2: you know, if you watch Mafia movies, you know, you
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: know that kind of a character. But he's in the
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: middle of Norway, so he has to you know, wear
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: a big tuc and he does. He doesn't really understand
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: a lot of the culture and the customs. And even
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: though he's supposed to keep his nose clean as part
• 42:07
  Speaker 2: of his witness protection, you know a deal, right away
• 42:11
  Speaker 2: he starts, you know, you know, doing weird stuff with
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: his club and committing kind of petty crimes and being
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: a boss basically. So it is very good. I like
• 42:23
  Speaker 2: it a lot. It took me a little while to
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: get into it. When I first watched it, I just thought, well,
• 42:27
  Speaker 2: is he just doing another gangster thing? But I think
• 42:30
  Speaker 2: it's different enough from Sopranos, and it gets kind of
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: crazy by the end. He starts having some of his
• 42:36
  Speaker 2: old Sopranos co stars make appearances in it, which is
• 42:41
  Speaker 2: a lot of fun. Yeah.
• 42:43
  Speaker 3: Yeah, And you got to think this is not the
• 42:44
  Speaker 3: end of his acting career. You got to think something
• 42:46
  Speaker 3: else is going to be coming along. Maybe you already know.
• 42:48
  Speaker 3: I don't know if he's got some some some stuff
• 42:51
  Speaker 3: in the works now.
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: I think he's going to do more of that, for sure.
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: I think the I think he really enjoyed the creative side,
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: especially with lily Hammer, because he was so involved, like
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: he actually directed the final episode. He got a lot
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: of his own music in lily Hammer. So when you're
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: watching an episode of lily Hammer, you'll hear, actually you'll
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: hear a little bit of subside Johnny songs. You might
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: hear a springsty song, Garius Bonds. You hear all this
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: music that he brought with him as well as he
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: did an orchestral score for the show. So you're hearing
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: these big It's like he does this neat thing where
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: he adds his kind of stuff, which is like these
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: big sweeping guitar chords, but he has a lot of
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: like actual Norwegian musicians playing traditional Norwegian instruments and he
• 43:38
  Speaker 2: blends those into the score. So I think that was
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: something really he's something he enjoyed creatively, and I wouldn't
• 43:46
  Speaker 2: be surprised if either a fourth season of Lily Hammer
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: could maybe come back, or he might just do something
• 43:54
  Speaker 2: brand new again. But I think he likes working with TV.
• 43:56
  Speaker 3: Yeah, he's a talented guy. And in twenty seventeen he
• 43:59
  Speaker 3: restarted his long dormant solo career. And you get into
• 44:03
  Speaker 3: what sparked that return in the book What was the
• 44:05
  Speaker 3: reason for that?
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: Well, he had produced an album for Darlene Love and
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: that had a lot of his kind of early sound
• 44:15
  Speaker 2: on it. He brought back a lot of his own
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: musicians and he played a couple shows with her where
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: he would do like just three of his own songs.
• 44:23
  Speaker 2: So I think that started a little bit. And then
• 44:26
  Speaker 2: in twenty sixteen he was invited to play this blues
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: festival in the UK, so he that was more of
• 44:34
  Speaker 2: a formal thing. So he put together a new version
• 44:37
  Speaker 2: of the Disciples of Soul just for that one show,
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: and they did like a two hour show of all
• 44:44
  Speaker 2: his old stuff, a bunch of blues covers that he
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: had never done live before. And that was really the
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: beginning of him restarting, you know, the Disciples of Soul.
• 44:55
  Speaker 2: And then after that, you know, right away he starts
• 44:57
  Speaker 2: doing a new album, that band starts touring all over
• 45:00
  Speaker 2: the world, they do a live album, they do another album,
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: they do you know, at that point, he was, he was,
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: he was back.
• 45:07
  Speaker 3: You gotta be loving this as a fan.
• 45:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's I think I mentioned maybe I don't. Actually
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: one of the times I was, I think it was
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: when I was backstage with him when we were playing
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: the Little Stephen Game and he hadn't done any solo
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: stuff in quite a while, like in terms of playing
• 45:24
  Speaker 2: live or just really anything, and I asked him, are
• 45:27
  Speaker 2: you ever going to do your own music again? And
• 45:29
  Speaker 2: he said, well, nobody but you would care, and that Yeah.
• 45:35
  Speaker 2: So so all these years later, all of a sudden
• 45:37
  Speaker 2: he decided that somebody else other than me would care.
• 45:40
  Speaker 3: We'll give me, give you credit for it. Then he's, yeah,
• 45:43
  Speaker 3: he's he's being humble, but amazing skills as a musician, producer, songwriter,
• 45:50
  Speaker 3: the whole thing. I mean, just and we haven't even
• 45:53
  Speaker 3: mentioned great showman on stage. I mean, he's just got
• 45:55
  Speaker 3: that look. He's he embodies all that is rock and roll,
• 45:59
  Speaker 3: and he's he's steeped in the history of rock and roll.
• 46:02
  Speaker 3: He's got a radio show. I think it's still going. Yeah,
• 46:06
  Speaker 3: just has an appreciation for rock and roll going back
• 46:08
  Speaker 3: to the beginning, and just iss, he knows everything about
• 46:12
  Speaker 3: all these artists and bands.
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: It's just so cool.
• 46:15
  Speaker 2: Well, and he also has his own record label, Yes,
• 46:18
  Speaker 2: puts out music all the time. There's constantly new singles
• 46:21
  Speaker 2: and albums coming out by all kinds of like young
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: up and coming groups that he sometimes he'll co produce.
• 46:27
  Speaker 2: Sometimes he'll play a little guitar or sing a little
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: bit on their stuff. But he gets a lot of
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: new music out through through his record label, and they
• 46:36
  Speaker 2: play the stuff on the on the station and they
• 46:38
  Speaker 2: do these they'll do these festivals sometimes in the States.
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: I think they had one recently in Asbury Park where
• 46:46
  Speaker 2: it's just like five of his bands from his label
• 46:50
  Speaker 2: and they were all just playing in one night in
• 46:51
  Speaker 2: a club.
• 46:52
  Speaker 3: Well, he'll be seventy four next month, and he's as
• 46:55
  Speaker 3: active as ever. Obviously, What do you hope to see
• 46:57
  Speaker 3: next from him? As all of artists Eastreet Band acting,
• 47:03
  Speaker 3: what you're hoping to see next from him?
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: Well, we talked about there's some there's some stuff that
• 47:10
  Speaker 2: he was doing in the nineties when he says he
• 47:12
  Speaker 2: wasn't doing anything. There's a project called The Lost Boys,
• 47:17
  Speaker 2: and there's a couple of Lost Boys songs in sopranos.
• 47:21
  Speaker 2: So that's an album that when I interviewed him, we
• 47:24
  Speaker 2: talked about that coming out, and he definitely wants it
• 47:27
  Speaker 2: to come out. He thinks that's some of his best stuff.
• 47:29
  Speaker 2: I've heard some of it, and it's really great raw
• 47:33
  Speaker 2: rock and roll like it's his most his most rolling
• 47:36
  Speaker 2: stone sounding album, but it's never come out, so I
• 47:41
  Speaker 2: know he wants to work on that and try to
• 47:43
  Speaker 2: get that out eventually. That that would probably be one
• 47:47
  Speaker 2: of the priorities, you know. I don't know if he's
• 47:49
  Speaker 2: going to do too many more like Disciples of Soul,
• 47:53
  Speaker 2: like actual full albums and tours. He kind of indicated
• 47:56
  Speaker 2: to me that he probably won't, but I would say
• 47:59
  Speaker 2: getting the Lost Boys album finally out, that would be
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: a priority for sure. They have a song called Affection
• 48:06
  Speaker 2: and it's on the second Sopranos Soundtrack CD, and of
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: course you can hear on YouTube and it's it's in
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: the episode where Tony started. He meets this car dealership
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: woman and right away he falls for her and there's
• 48:19
  Speaker 2: an immediate attraction, and of course right away they end
• 48:22
  Speaker 2: up in a hotel room and this song is playing
• 48:25
  Speaker 2: on the radio and it's a group called the Lost Boys,
• 48:28
  Speaker 2: but it's Steven and yeah, it's just a great, raw
• 48:31
  Speaker 2: kind of rock and roll thing. So I really hope
• 48:33
  Speaker 2: that The Lost Boys comes out.
• 48:35
  Speaker 3: And he's touring with Bruce. In fact, they're coming to
• 48:37
  Speaker 3: Toronto soon, right, coming next month November three.
• 48:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he's gonna be here. They have two shows in
• 48:44
  Speaker 2: Toronto early November. So on November third, I'm gonna be
• 48:49
  Speaker 2: seeing him again and giving him, hopefully giving him his
• 48:52
  Speaker 2: copy of the book. We're gonna you know, we're gonna
• 48:55
  Speaker 2: meet either before the show or maybe the day after something.
• 48:58
  Speaker 2: I'm not sure what the details are, but we will
• 49:01
  Speaker 2: be meeting so that I can hand him a copy
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: of one of these.
• 49:06
  Speaker 3: Oh awesome would that? But yes, So let's get to
• 49:08
  Speaker 3: that is. It's out now as of October seventeen when
• 49:11
  Speaker 3: we're recording this, but if you go to Amazon, you
• 49:14
  Speaker 3: won't see it there. But where can people go to
• 49:17
  Speaker 3: find it? On the publisher's website?
• 49:19
  Speaker 2: Right so, as of today, which is great timing for
• 49:23
  Speaker 2: us to talk about this, As of today, it is
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: available on the Freezing Press their online bookstore. You can
• 49:30
  Speaker 2: either search my name or I think it's in the
• 49:32
  Speaker 2: new releases area, or get type solidarity forever it is there.
• 49:36
  Speaker 2: A bunch of people have ordered it today and then
• 49:39
  Speaker 2: usually the Amazon like Amazon Canada and Amazon US are
• 49:44
  Speaker 2: usually within about a week after the Freezing Press listing.
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: After that you'll start to see it on like Amazon UK,
• 49:54
  Speaker 2: Amazon Germany, France, then Japan will be a couple of
• 49:59
  Speaker 2: weeks after that they kind of roll it out, Okay,
• 50:02
  Speaker 2: you know they don't. They don't just splash it out
• 50:04
  Speaker 2: on every international Amazon site. But the US and Canada
• 50:11
  Speaker 2: I'm hoping will be like within the next five to
• 50:13
  Speaker 2: ten days, maybe even sooner when when it is, I'll
• 50:17
  Speaker 2: be posting it on all my social media for sure.
• 50:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah on Facebook. You've been keeping the followers up to
• 50:22
  Speaker 3: date on that freezinpress dot com I'm going to put
• 50:25
  Speaker 3: that link up in the show notes. It's we've got
• 50:29
  Speaker 3: to make sure we get the spelling out there because
• 50:31
  Speaker 3: it's f r i e s e n press dot com.
• 50:37
  Speaker 2: Right, So let's double check that.
• 50:40
  Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, like fries friese en press dot com, freezinpress
• 50:46
  Speaker 3: dot com. So you put a link to that.
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 50:50
  Speaker 3: Great job on the book. Great to have you on.
• 50:53
  Speaker 3: Look forward to having you back on again down the road.
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: Robert.
• 50:55
  Speaker 3: Any plans for future books.
• 50:58
  Speaker 2: Uh, hard to say right now. I don't think. So.
• 51:01
  Speaker 2: This is my fourth book, and I you know, this
• 51:04
  Speaker 2: one took me like over four years to put together,
• 51:07
  Speaker 2: although in some ways you could say I've been working
• 51:09
  Speaker 2: on it for forty years, when once you get the
• 51:13
  Speaker 2: filing cabinet involved. So I don't I don't know. My priority,
• 51:16
  Speaker 2: honestly for the next few months is just to promote
• 51:19
  Speaker 2: this one, to try to make sure as many fans
• 51:21
  Speaker 2: as possible of Stephen, of Bruce, of Southside, of all
• 51:26
  Speaker 2: those different things, that they all are at least aware
• 51:30
  Speaker 2: of it. You know. One of the things that really
• 51:32
  Speaker 2: hit me that Stephen said during one of our interviews
• 51:36
  Speaker 2: was he said, of all the things that I do
• 51:41
  Speaker 2: playing guitar with Bruce Radio show, record label. Acting. My
• 51:49
  Speaker 2: own music is what's most personal to me, and nobody
• 51:53
  Speaker 2: really talks about that. So that's why this book is important.
• 51:57
  Speaker 2: And so when he said that, I was like, Okay,
• 51:59
  Speaker 2: this is my prior. If this is important to him,
• 52:02
  Speaker 2: it's got to be important to me. So I'm really
• 52:04
  Speaker 2: going to spend as much time as I can just
• 52:07
  Speaker 2: trying to get the word out letting people know that
• 52:10
  Speaker 2: if you're interested in almost anything of this guy's life,
• 52:13
  Speaker 2: there's a lot of information in this book for you.
• 52:16
  Speaker 3: Well, I'd love it if you let me know. You
• 52:17
  Speaker 3: send me an email how it went down when you
• 52:20
  Speaker 3: give the book to Stevie, what his is.
• 52:23
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah, we'll be taking photos and yeah, we'll make
• 52:26
  Speaker 2: a whole circus out of it. And I promise you.
• 52:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Well you tell them the book that rock podcast says, Hello,
• 52:31
  Speaker 3: he's got a fan here.
• 52:32
  Speaker 2: Thanks a lot, good talking with you.
• 52:33
  Speaker 3: Eric.
• 52:41
  Speaker 2: That's it.
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: It's in the books.