The album he self-released last year, "Born Again Savage," was the final in
a five-record, 18-year project that was supposed to enlighten Steven Van
Zandt, politically and spiritually.
"Overall," he said recently, "I think I succeeded in what I set out to do:
write about who I am and figure out what's going on in the world."
Van Zandt's road to self-enlightenment has been paved thick with irony
lately: He spent much of the last two decades preaching about peace, justice
and revolution; he admittedly abhors most of what flows through mainstream
culture; and he still dresses as flamboyant retro-rocker Little Steven --
"like an urban swashbuckler whose frigate just got towed away for
double-parking," one critic wrote.
But in 2000 Van Zandt is more popular than ever, primarily because he plays
an endearing mobster on HBO's "The Sopranos," one of the hottest shows on
television.
"It's the height of irony, a ridiculous Hollywood story," he said. "An
isolated, alienated individual who doesn't even relate to his own so-called
industry, never mind the broader entertainment industry, suddenly comes out
of nowhere and gets involved in something new and exciting and extremely
eccentric that takes off.
"I loved the show from the start, which I figured was the kiss of death. I
don't like anything. It's the second time in my life it's happened -- I've
liked something a lot and it's embraced by a large part of the culture."
The first time was in 1975, when he became a guitarist for longtime friend
Bruce Springsteen in the E Street Band, a gig he suspended in 1984 but
revived last year when Springsteen and the band reunited for what has been a
wildly successful worldwide tour.
Two days after that tour stopped at Kemper Arena (and after HBO aired the
season finale of "The Sopranos"), Van Zandt called The Star from New York to
talk about politics, music and his latest love, acting.
Q. When you create records as personal and political as yours have been, you
obviously want your messages to be heard. Yet, especially these days, radio
hasn't been friendly to the kind of music you make. How do you reconcile
that?
A. There are two big questions there, one of which I never thought we'd be
asking: First, is politics relevant in rock music? And, even more important,
will rock music itself survive and flourish again?
By the time the '70s hit, politics had become very unfashionable in music.
In the '80s, when I started doing it, journalists were asking me what on
earth politics had to do with rock music. Also by that time, radio did not
want to play my music, and not just because it was political. All those
major artists performed on (the anti-apartheid anthem) "Sun City," but radio
wouldn't play it. The song was considered too black for white radio and too
white for black, which, of course, was part of the point.
In 2000 my basic message is: We are all politically engaged, whether we want
to admit it or not. If you're active, your engagement is obvious. If you're
passive, that's also engagement: You're endorsing the status quo. So you
can't pretend you're not political.
Do you think there's any way rock can deliver the kind of political punch it
did 30 years ago?
It's gonna be tough, at least for now. The issue-oriented types of events
will happen less often. Now that rock music is not an integral part of
culture, we're gonna have less of that -- less of the educational component,
which was once part of the natural makeup of rock music, whether it was from
artists educating their audiences or disc jockeys educating their listeners.
That has been a big loss: the power of DJs to educate and to exercise their
political personalities.
You have been honored by various organizations, including the United
Nations, for your work on behalf of human rights. What are you proudest of?
Certainly the apartheid issue was the most obvious win. You don't get one
like that in politics -- maybe once in a lifetime. People spend six years in
liberation struggles and don't get anything close to that. It was very
satisfying, a complete win. Usually it's more of a gray area, an inch here
and there, then you lose an inch. I have great respect for those who work on
issues year after year and inch forward. This was a complete, amazing
transformation.
If you could change anything in politics, what would it be?
By the end of the '80s and into the early '90s, I figured out that all
political issues can be reduced to one issue: campaign finance reform.
I'm a little more radical about it than (Senator John) McCain, although I
give him credit for bringing it up. But all issues flow from that, and until
we find a way to eliminate money from the electoral process, we will never
have a democracy. The Supreme Court has ruled that money is covered by the
First Amendment, which is the height of insanity. Why is money free speech?
If money is freedom of speech, lack of money is no speech -- suppression.
What has the success of "The Sopranos" done for you personally?
What they say about TV is true. I'm telling you, within two weeks of that
show going on the air, 90 percent of the people who stopped me wanted to
talk about the show. As you know, I look quite different in the show than I
do normally, and HBO only goes into about one in four homes, but still the
overwhelming majority of the people who stop me now want to talk about the
show.
How did you get the part of Silvio Dante?
David Chase, the show's creator, happened to be watching the first televised
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony, when I inducted the Rascals,
and thought he might want me in the show in some role. He got in touch with
me, and I went down and we talked, and I decided it was something I wanted
to do.
I had some immediate second thoughts, though, because I wasn't comfortable
about taking another actor's job. There are a finite number of characters,
and some actors work all their lives trying to get a part like this, and
here I am, a guitar player coming in. I wasn't comfortable with that.
So he said "I'll write you in. I'll create a part for you." I proposed a guy
who ran a big-band, Copacabana-type club. We settled on a guy named Silvio
Dante who runs a strip joint instead.
I then endowed him with appropriate characteristics, creating an entire
biography of him: He's a loyal, devoted guy whose ambitions had evolved
beyond the "family business" and into more legitimate areas, into
entertainment.
He doesn't relate to the modern culture, and he longs for the good old days.
So he and I have that in common. Silvio is a throwback to the '40s and '50s.
He lives in the past, so I wanted him to look like that.
After creating all that, I took it to David and the writers and said, "This
is how I see the guy. Do you agree?" They pretty much agreed with what I
presented. Then I handed it over to them. He's been their baby ever since,
and each week they broaden the guy.
Silvio is a cold-blooded killer, but he has lots of appealing tics and
traits. Where did you draw his character him from?
I've been a big fan of the genre, the gangster thing, for a long time:
Cagney, Edward G. Robinson, George Raft, Bogie. I'm a big film noir fan,
too, so I went back and revisited all those gangster movies and read some
books.
A lot of the same processes I've used in the past -- political research or
digging deep for personal truths -- I used in learning about this other guy,
Silvio. Ultimately you become somebody else. That's how I look at it. You
dig deep and discover the characteristics that are that person, and you wake
it up.
I think we all have every personality inside of us, from Hitler to Ghandi.
Acting is a matter of finding and awakening that thing, a small part of you
that may be dormant. Obviously some things maybe are best left dormant.
Lastly, what has the reunion with Springsteen and the band meant to you, a
die-hard rock 'n' roll guy?
For one thing, it's great to belong somewhere. At this point it's very
difficult to find a place in music where I fit. Even though my new record
got more airplay than any other, and it's alive and well, I still don't
quite fit in anymore. I play pure, traditional rock music, which has never
been less fashionable than it is now.
The tour also has been a great chance to reconnect with one of the best
bands in history, a band I'm proud to be a part of, and to play again with
guys I've known for a long time.
Maybe best of all, we've reconnected with our audience, which was something
extraordinary that I sort of remembered, but not really. You can't really
remember that kind of experience until you do it again. I don't think there
has ever been an audience in history that has developed the intimate
relationship with an artist that our audience has.
What we and the audience do is quite unique these days. The mass, shared
experience will be harder to find. You're already seeing it. In the 1980s,
bands lined up to play the arenas and stadiums. Now very, very few bands can
do arenas, never mind stadiums.
Our concerts transcend a few contemporary afflictions. Our society is
suffering from short attention spans and a time-deficit disorder: We're
always late, we don't know how much time to dedicate to work or families,
but it's never enough.
At our show, for three hours, time stops. That room becomes a community
because that's the theme of the show. That's what Bruce's work is about:
community. And that gets into the whole paradox of America -- how to remain
an individual and be a part of a community at the same time.
