The rock era is dead, Steve Van Zandt says.
"In my opinion, it lasted from Like a Rolling Stone through Kurt Cobain's
death," he says. "That was the era when the art form of rock was first
formed, when it flourished and when it was a significant part of our
culture. It informed the culture. It reflected the culture. It led the
culture. It was a very important part of our lives. And that's over. It's
just no longer a part of our everyday routine."
That's arguably true. Even if you're still hardcore about rock music, look
at your friends — they've moved on. They're either listening to classic rock
or they're using country to fill the void. The only time they go to a
concert is to drop off their kids.
But for Van Zandt, that's no reason to give up. He recorded his new album
with U2's Adam Clayton on bass and Jason Bonham on drums. Born Again Savage
tries to take a stand in an era of lying down, tries to say something
meaningful in the world of disposable music.
What many fans may not realize is that it's the end of a five-album set,
plotted out in 1982 and finally finished late last year.
And there's a reason why they don't know it; Van Zandt followed a path of
commercial suicide to get these albums done. With the money and fame he'd
built up — he calls it "celebrity capital" — Van Zandt decided he was going
to make the records, sales be damned.
"You could look back on it and go 'That's really stupid' and I'm not going
to disagree with you. But I had to do it for me," he says.
For fans, it was hard to understand why Van Zandt left Bruce Springsteen's E
Street Band after the recording of Born in the USA — at the moment when all
the hard work was about to pay off in international fame and riches.
But he laid it out in the song Save Me off his first solo album, 1984's Men
Without Women: "I lived with things when I was younger that I can't swallow
now."
When he could have cashed in, he instead went rogue, plotting out five
albums that would deal with the individual, the family, the state, economics
and religion.
Hardly the way records are conceived these days. But like George Harrison,
he'd achieved success beyond his wildest dreams — and realized there was
more out there. Harrison started spiritual exploration in the late '60s and
'70s; Van Zandt tried to understand the world around him.
"The intention is to learn about yourself," he says. "In the process of
learning what's going on in the world, you hope to learn about yourself. And
it worked. It worked as well as I could have hoped."
In the course of those five albums he criss-crossed the globe. While some
rock stars read an article and suddenly become instant political experts,
Van Zandt visited Central America, Africa and other locales to see with his
own eyes why things happened.
"You start to look at what the United States is doing in your name, and
you're shocked that we're not the great leaders and supporters of democracy
around the world," he says.
He discovered the things that Rage Against the Machine would discover 10
years later. There is no black and white, good guys or bad guys. In the
world of politics, everyone's at least a little dirty. He found himself
fighting for causes that were backed by people he couldn't embrace.
"It's not disillusionment, because I didn't go into it with too much
illusion to begin with," he says. "I knew from working with liberation
groups that they were flawed."
The highest profile project to come out of his travels was Sun City, the
anti-apartheid single and album that pointed fingers at the South African
government. Forget the politics — with U2, Lou Reed and others on it, it was
simply a rockin' song. Yet radio still refused to play it.
"The white radio stations said it was too black, the black radio stations
said it was too white," Van Zandt said. "We ran into our own apartheid,
right here. It was MTV and BET that really made that thing happen."
Yet there's a backlash for speaking out. That's what inspired him to write I
Am a Patriot — a declaration of love for his country, yet confusion over why
it does what it does.
"I'm criticizing my government as a patriot — as a person who loves what
this country stands for," he says. "I'm a normal, working-class guy, trying
to get by. I love my family and my country. Don't start accusing me of being
something I'm not."
And now 16 years after he started, he's at the end of that process with Born
Again Savage, the final examination of religion. Sounds boring? Crank up the
roaring Saint Francis or the Dylanesque, disintegrating chords of Face of
God and you'll find some of the most meaningful rock music recorded in the
past few years.
It explores "the political consequences of spiritual bankruptcy. (Religious
beliefs) are profound ideas, yet we end up whispering about them in churches
and dark places. Wars are fought around these ideas. Let's get it out in the
light."
You could argue it has a happy ending. After doing exactly what he wanted to
do, Van Zandt got great critical acclaim and changed a few minds, exposed a
few wrongs.
And with the E Street Band reunion and his role on the hit series The
Sopranos, he's having the greatest success of his career.
He's often asked "Here you are, you have two of the best jobs in the world.
Are you happy?" Van Zandt says. "I don't wanna be one of those people who
are successful and whining all the time. That's not how I feel about it. I'm
very, very satisfied with my work and my two jobs.
"But am I happy? Well, you know, the other things don't go away. You're
still stepping over homeless people on the way to the studio. If you travel
at all, the amount of poverty out there is incomprehensible. I can't all of
a sudden shut that off."
