Bericht vom 19.06.2001 / USA Today
Bruce Springsteen is still "Born to Run"

Springsteen is still 'Born to Run'
By Edna Gundersen, USA TODAY

LOS ANGELES — 
Two years after embarking on a globe-trotting reunion tour with the E Street Band, Bruce Springsteen still has fans wondering where this storied rock ensemble stands. At the starting gate or the finish line? He's fuzzy on details, except to say the race isn't over. "I'd like to make a studio record with the guys, but I don't want to make any concrete predictions about when that will happen," he allows with typical circumspection. "If we go out on another extensive tour, I'd want a record of new music. I hope it's not too far in the future, but I know better than to set a time limit. That's always been disastrous."

The wait should be considerably shorter than the decade-long separation from the band that yielded 1992 twins Human Touch and Lucky Town and 1995's solo acoustic The Ghost of Tom Joad.

"The big job was reconstituting and rediscovering the band," he says. "Now we get to enjoy it. The creative energies are fired up again."

That's amply evident in the 20-track Live in New York City, out this week. With revamped favorites, obscurities and a pair of new songs (including encore Land of Hope and Dreams), the two-disc tour memento is no lazy flashback but a reaffirmation of the band's resources and relevance. A companion HBO special, the band's first full-length televised concert, premieres at 9 p.m. ET Saturday with 14 songs culled from the final two shows of last summer's sold-out 10-night run in Madison Square Garden.

Both encapsulate the vision and vitality that still binds The Boss and E Streeters Roy Bittan, Clarence Clemons, Danny Federici, Nils Lofgren, Patti Scialfa, Garry Tallent, Steven Van Zandt and Max Weinberg, all of whom set aside solo interests to reconnect. Though Van Zandt serves another Jersey boss on mob drama The Sopranos (a Springsteen addiction), E Street remains his home address. Scialfa, Springsteen's wife, is poised again to postpone tinkering on a follow-up to 1993's Rumble Doll. And while Springsteen hopes eventually to complete the acoustic and loop-laden projects he shelved for the reunion, right now he's jazzed about recent studio sessions with E Street.

Arriving at the hotel suite in work boots, black jeans, a plaid shirt and hoop earrings, he's still the Everyman of rock, whose stories of struggle, redemption and brotherhood continue to inspire rabid fans of all ages. Well, most ages. His children, ages 10, 9 and 7, fail to recognize Dad's hip quotient.

"Basically, they think I'm a showoff," he says, sheepishly noting that his kids prefer "exactly what you'd expect. Let's just say I know the Britney Spears record inside out."

Springsteen, 51, plops sunglasses and wallet on a desk and sinks into a chair before expounding on career choices. Forget glory days. He's looking at better days.

Question: You agreed to this HBO special after shying away from TV for so long and even writing the biting 57 Channels (And Nothin' On). Is the medium unfriendly to music?

Answer: TV wasn't essential to what we did, and it was always an awkward fit for rock musicians. The Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show were tremendously exciting but were also very formal and had a certain coolness that worked on television. What we did was fundamentally hot and hard to shrink down to that little box. We were sweating and wanted you to sweat.

Q: What changed your mind?

A: In the early '90s, I said I wanted to film everything I did from then on, just to have it on record and because I regret not having complete films of the band in the '70s. We finally started filming this tour on the last few nights. A week later, I started to look at it and thought this communicates basic information about who we are and what we do on stage. It captured the excitement, the narrative. The director had been at 100 other shows. We did it rather inexpensively with digital technology and no big cranes. I don't think the audience knew it was going on. Then HBO came along.

Q: Born to Run was added too late to be listed on the CD credits. Why the 11th-hour change?

A: The closer you get to actually presenting it to the public, the more you to see it through outside eyes. We screened it a couple weeks ago and realized something was missing. It was that summational song. Born to Run somehow includes everything I did and everything I'm still thinking about. It's a spiritual connector through all the material I've written.

Q: Why did you reconvene E Street after such a long hiatus?

A: Creatively, I never make long-term plans. I want to be able to do whatever feels right at the moment. At some point, I didn't have any ideas of what to do with the E Street Band. I enjoyed working with other musicians in the early '90s. I know I'd like to make another acoustic record. Over the years, I've moved in and out between loud and soft. After Tom Joad, I realized it had been a while since I'd made rock music. That physical side, the show we do, was a real essential part of me, and I didn't feel ready to leave that behind. That kind of show is an enormous commitment, physically and mentally. It's a very personal statement in a very public arena. I always wrestle with it and then go, well, OK. I spent part of a winter in my home studio making demos with the band in mind. I thought, if I'm going to do this again, it feels right to do it now. I was going to turn 50, the century was turning over, and I asked myself who I'd want to be with on these meaningful dates. These were some of the most important people in my life. So I wanted to reinvestigate the band, but I had a lot of concerns.

Q: Were you worried that it would be regarded as a nostalgic gravy train?

A: No. I didn't want a reiteration of what came before or a static, phony celebration. Everyone, including the audience, had to find their present self. In early rehearsals, we did stuff we'd never played before, left-field songs and rearrangements of things like Youngstown. It was important to find that new energy. I wanted people to feel at home, but I didn't want to speak to them in the exact same language. We had to recast our ideas to feel current. The band had to be what it was and what it is now, and that had to be palpable.

Q: Were your bandmates immediately receptive?

A: When I floated the idea, people got a little cautious because they thought, "Gee, maybe it's not real." The relationships are so deep that you get very protective of your feelings. It all fell together the minute we got to rehearsals. It was better than ever, in fact. Max was always a great drummer, but he kicked the band to another level. Having three guitarists got my playing to a hotter place. We felt the same, if not more, intense dedication, because it had become more precious to everybody. For people who hadn't seen us previously, I can guarantee they saw us at our best.

Q: You whipped up the excitement, especially in the gospel fervor of 10th Avenue Freeze-Out, but did you undergo that baptism yourself every night?

A: Oh, yeah. If you're not doing it for yourself, you can't do it for them. It's funny. I'm quite anxious on a day we're going to play, because I know I'm going to have to transform myself into a hysterical, raving lunatic later that evening. I simply have to go there or it doesn't work. While it's always a lot of work, it's happy work in that it's fun to play in a rock 'n' roll band and scream your head off. I've got a large body of songs that I put a lot of thought in and worked hard on over the years. They live in me, and I enjoy giving them life on stage.

Q: With your wealth, success and celebrity, how do you stay connected to the real world you explore in your songs?

A: How could I not? You have to believe your own life force is tied into that world. To me, creating music or film or paintings or poetry helps you make sense of who you are in the world, who you can be, how you can facilitate understanding. I did feel for a long time like an outsider, which is where most musicians and artists come from. You struggle so hard to learn a language to speak to people and to yourself. To be fortune's fool and throw that away means throwing yourself away. That was always very frightening to me, because I knew, from people around me and before me, that it was a distinct possibility. It happens to people with the best intentions and the greatest talents. I brushed up against it enough times when I was first successful in the '70s and could feel people pulling me this way and that. Given the job I do, that fear was a healthy one.

Q: Are all your songs autobiographical to a degree?

A: Writing songs involves a particular alchemy of craft you've built up over the years, a moment of inspiration and the willingness to delve into your emotional life and bring it forward in the guise of a character. You're always writing about yourself somewhere in that song. You have to. That's what makes it feel real. That's what turns the character into flesh and blood. Pursuing that commonality never changes. It's a lifetime journey.

Q: You turned 50 on the road. Was it a traumatic milestone?

A: For about 20 minutes. I was feeling great until my cousin made some gratuitous remarks in an attempt to make me feel good about my age. I said, "Man, let's get a drink." We went to a bar, had a few, and the feeling of dread passed.