Little Steven - Keep on rockin’ in the crazy world

"This is the greatest band I've ever played with, we've been on tour for over a year and we're having a blast." Steven Van Zandt, known to friends as Little Steven, flashes his enthusiastic, eternally boyish grin as we meet him ahead of his show in Rome, at Villa Ada, with the Disciples of Soul. He turns up for our appointment at a well-known hotel on Via Veneto wearing his customary bandana, flip-flops and a colourful billowing shirt, from which a riot of necklaces, rings and bracelets spills out. And he's a volcano in constant eruption, tackling every subject we throw at him with equal gusto, from his latest solo album to his friendship with Springsteen, from his role in the TV series "The Sopranos" to Donald Trump's mad America.

What kind of tour are you putting together with the Disciples of Soul?

A return to my roots, with that mix of rock and soul we were already playing in New Jersey back in the '70s, when I worked with Southside Johnny & The Asbury Jukes — it's always been my trademark sound. It was also the sound of my first solo album, before I changed direction. But on this tour we're offering a lot more too: blues, hard rock, folk-rock, salsa, Ennio Morricone-style film music, blaxploitation... I alternate my own songs with various covers, some of them unusual for me, like tracks by James Brown, Etta James and many others. It's a great challenge for me to take on other people's songs and give them a completely new look.

A fire that was reignited with "Soulfire," the album that marked your return to the scene in 2017...

Yes, "Soulfire" got me moving again. I was a bit intimidated, after so many years without writing anything. But I found a huge burst of energy and told myself that if this sound worked on record, it could also translate brilliantly live. But to pull it off I really had to find the best musicians around: there were string parts, horn parts, vocal parts... every detail needed care. We also have the advantage of having played together for over a year now: a result that's hard to achieve these days, and it lets you build ever greater chemistry.

You've fought plenty of political battles, like Artists United Against Apartheid, which also produced the famous "Sun City" and brought together figures like Miles Davis, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, Pat Benatar, Lou Reed, Peter Gabriel, Bobby Womack, Jackson Browne, U2, Keith Richards, Hall & Oates, Gil Scott-Heron and many others. For politics you even left the E Street Band for a while. Is it still central to your life?

Absolutely. I've always wanted to politicize everything and everyone. Today, though, things have changed a lot. In the United States art is now considered a luxury — it's perhaps the only place in the world where that's the case. So these days I see music more as a refuge from the madness of politics, something that manages to bring order amid the chaos.

Before, though, what was its role?

In the '80s, for instance, there was Ronald Reagan, this sort of cowboy grandpa figure: everyone loved him, but meanwhile his administration was doing terrible things, working in the shadows. And there was a need to dig out all the rot, bring it into the light and tell the public about it through songs.

And today there are no more secrets...

They do everything out in the open, and they're happy about it. They think it's normal to take two thousand children and separate them from their parents. And they couldn't care less — they're just looking for a deterrent to stop immigration. And it works, believe me. Tragically, that's how it is. But what kind of bizarre, insane and immoral tool for turning away immigrants is it to steal their children?

How was it possible for Donald Trump to rise to the White House?

To me, he's not even the problem. He's a symbol, a distraction. The problem is the Republican Party. It was my father's party, an ex-marine, a Barry Goldwater conservative. And he wouldn't recognize today's Republican Party. Not even Reagan would recognize it. They're completely insane: they don't care about the Constitution, about being American, about equal rights, for women, for gay people. Unfortunately, this system we have, based on competition between two parties, turns everything into a championship, where there are only fans of the two teams and nobody looking at what policies they're actually pushing forward.

Yet at the start the Republicans opposed Trump in every way possible…

True, but now they're 100% with him.

How do you fight the fear that fuels this intolerance?

You'd want to say that first of all you need to register and vote: that's all you can do. But, in general, we need to discuss, to dig deeper into the issues. You can't manage a million immigrants at this point, it's too late. You have to prevent the problem, stopping in time the conflicts that are at the root of the exodus. And then you have to work actively on integrating these people into our society. But politics keeps thinking about everything except this.

So Barack Obama failed too?

He and Bill Clinton are two very intelligent people, two of the best speakers we've had since the days of John Fitzgerald Kennedy. And yet they weren't able to make Americans understand that closing ourselves within our borders is pointless, that globalization can only do good for everyone. And when the good guys don't do their job well, the bad guys step onto the field. It's always the same story.

The temptation to rebuild walls and borders is very strong in Europe too…

Right, and Brexit is another disaster, sheer madness. The progress we've achieved has come through the European Union, through international treaties like NAFTA and the TPP, through the fall of the Berlin Wall. At this rate, we'll leave the world to be run by out-of-control nations like China, or Russia, which in the twenty-first century goes and invades another country (Ukraine, ed.). What the fuck!

Unfortunately nationalist positions are very much in vogue in Italy too. On that note, what's your relationship with your grandparents' homeland?

Always great — it was magnificent, for instance, to play in front of a hundred thousand people at the Circo Massimo with the E Street Band, it felt like time had stopped. But my roots are pretty distant. And besides, the Italian-American community, to be honest, is very different from actual Italians. They think, for example, that you should always put garlic in your pasta (we laugh). Joking aside, the Italian community is a very important part of American society.

Back to music: 50 years alongside Bruce Springsteen…

Shhhh… let's say it quietly, please!

Better than a marriage: what's your secret?

We like each other. Bruce is the only person I've ever met who shares my exact same way of thinking about rock'n'roll. We're alike in how we work, in our ethics, in our tastes. For us it wasn't show business, it wasn't a job to make money, it wasn't a hobby. It was everything, it was a dream.

What was the music scene like in the '60s and '70s, when you two met?

It was the wild west: full of freaks, renegade lunatics, unscrupulous record executives ready to make a quick buck. For instance, cashing in on Beatlemania by knocking out a film in two months like "A Hard Day's Night". There was no thought of longevity, no long-term vision. The mentality was: grab the money and run. Even the musicians of the '50s, those great rock'n'roll geniuses, were at first just a bunch of nice kids who had no real idea of the context they were moving in - everything was new, everything was evolving, and it was only in the following decade that people understood how important they were. In the '70s, on the other hand, things were much more structured, the music industry had sturdier foundations. But the lucky thing for me and Bruce is that we've always put our friendship above everything else. We shared this dream, and we made it happen together. All he has to do is call me, and I'm always ready to jump into some new project with him.

Does Springsteen have any flaws?

He writes too many great songs. I can't stand how prolific he is, I'm jealous of him! And on top of that, he's a guy who's always had the good fortune of only ever having to be a musician. Joking with him, I once told him: "Now that you have to do shows on Broadway five days a week, you'll finally understand what it means to work!"

As a big fan of Lone Justice - a band that's sadly pretty much forgotten today - I have the chance to ask you what it was like working with them and with Maria McKee. To me she remains an extraordinary singer, and I hope people in the States still remember her...

Yes, I remember that experience back in the '80s. My friend Jimmy Iovine was producing this new group, Lone Justice, and he was struggling with their second album ("Shelter", 1986, ed.) - he needed more songs, so I came in to lend a hand and wrote two or three tracks. They were good, and Maria in particular had this tone somewhat reminiscent of Stevie Nicks, another singer Jimmy worked with. But I think she made a mistake leaving the band, it was a big error. It's a principle that always holds true for me: if you have a great band, you can't take it for granted, you always have to remember that on your own you'll hardly ever manage to achieve what you can with them.

A lot of people obviously also remember you as Silvio Dante in the TV series "The Sopranos". How did your acting career come about?

It wasn't my idea at all - honestly, I never even imagined I could become an actor. David Chase, the show's creator, called me up. I'd never acted before, but he was convinced I had what it took. "David, I'm not an actor," I tried to explain to him. "Yes you are, you'll see," he replied. At the time I didn't have much else going on, so I decided to take the gamble. And I was lucky enough to have the best possible acting school right beside me. On set I'd just follow James Gandolfini and the rest of the extraordinary cast around: you didn't even need to talk, you just had to watch them.

A memory of Gandolfini, the immense actor we miss so much...

He was the boss on set too, the head of the family for all of us, almost like an extra director. A man of great warmth. On set he always treated me with respect, as if I were a fellow actor who'd been at it his whole life. When really I was just a guitarist turned aspiring actor.

Then you got a taste for it and took on another gangster role in the series "Lilyhammer".

Yes, a series I wrote and produced, as well as acting in and composing the music for. Three seasons, 24 episodes in total: not bad, although I was hoping it would go on longer. It's a funny gangster story, but set in Norway, a country where nobody even thinks about crime, to the point that people leave their front doors unlocked. That's another fun aspect that drew me to it, on top of the chance to work on producing the project.

Is the idea of a Sopranos movie still alive, though?

I believe so, but I was never involved in the project, because it's a prequel, set 20-30 years earlier. They needed someone younger: even with plastic surgery, I wouldn't have been able to get the part!

(September 9, 2018)

(Extended version of an interview published in the newspaper Leggo)

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