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00:00Songwriting's hard.
00:02No way.
00:04I find songs...
00:05Me too.
00:06Yeah.
00:07I don't think I felt really comfortable,
00:09was the idea that I was writing good songs
00:11till I was about 22 or 23,
00:14when I was coming up with the songs
00:16for my first record,
00:17a record called Greetings from Asbury Park.
00:19Do you ever think Asbury Park is a small town?
00:21Do you ever feel like no matter where you go,
00:23like you were saying earlier,
00:24you're always gonna have that in your heart?
00:26Period. Period.
00:27Boom.
00:42I feel like everything is trying to be
00:44on top of other music, competition-wise,
00:46when it comes to awards and things like that.
00:48But when I listen to your music,
00:50it seems timeless,
00:51and I wonder when you were 23 or 24
00:53if you knew that was gonna happen, you know?
00:55Because that record, Greetings from Asbury Park,
00:57we still listen to it to this day as like 20, 25, 30-year-olds,
01:01and we're like, ah, I still feel like this.
01:04I was acting like I thought it was gonna happen, you know,
01:07because I didn't have a plan B.
01:09I only had plan A, which is I'm gonna be a musician.
01:13Our courses were opposite.
01:15Because I didn't even want to get out of the Navy.
01:17They were making me get out of the Navy,
01:19and I was like, I can't do this.
01:21That's what I've been really curious about,
01:23how I didn't have another life.
01:27I had no other real experiences as a musician
01:30since I was 14 years old,
01:32and playing, performing live since I was 15, you know?
01:37So I was kind of like, I was invested
01:41in writing the best music I could
01:43and okay with whatever that outcome might be.
01:46That's how I still feel to this day.
01:48And it's mind-blowing to think, like,
01:50the more you think you're okay with whatever's happening
01:53and you're content with where you're at,
01:55it seems the bigger it gets.
01:57And I'm not saying that arrogantly, it's weird.
01:59Columbia Records came to me while I was in the Navy,
02:01and they're like, hey, you want to go to a steak dinner?
02:03And at that point I was in the Navy,
02:05and I couldn't afford a steak dinner, and I was like,
02:07hey, at least I can get a steak dinner out of this.
02:09And that sounds like you're Stone Pony,
02:11you're like, ah, whatever happens.
02:13It was like, hey, I'm gonna do this,
02:15and whatever the outcome is, is what the outcome is gonna be.
02:18I had to play, I had to write,
02:21and whether it was like, you know,
02:24we were doing three nights a week in a club in Asbury Park
02:27and, you know, bringing home $150 a week
02:30or $250 a week and living on that.
02:33Quite a bit back then.
02:35Yeah, I remember, like, I was happy.
02:37You know, I was happy.
02:39I was like, gee, I was making music for a living,
02:41which I didn't know of many other people who were.
02:44Now, let me get this straight.
02:47This is funny, because when I was in the Navy one time,
02:50there's a Potbelly Subs, it's like a franchise sub place.
02:53They call me and they're like, hey, we do live music,
02:55you should come.
02:56Oh, I got it.
02:57You should come play all day for like 9 hours.
02:59So I remember playing that 9 hours.
03:01I was just playing covers, and they gave me a $60 check.
03:04I got it, and I was like, oh, I'm a professional musician now.
03:07Oh, I made it.
03:08Cool, and that was it for me.
03:10That was the only time I performed.
03:12Outside of the 2017, maybe?
03:15And you never publicly performed except for that?
03:17No, they threw us into the fire.
03:19We played at the pageant, and it was like 2,000, 2,500 people,
03:22and I was like, I can't.
03:23There's no way I can do this.
03:25And then I did, and I was like, oh, wait, maybe I
03:27can further myself a little bit more.
03:29And we went a little bigger and bigger and bigger,
03:31and now we're here.
03:32So it's interesting to hear your mindset on it,
03:34because it feels.
03:35Well, what I found mind boggling is,
03:37if your first public performance was like 2017,
03:41and you are selling out two nights at Barclays
03:44and in Newark, and you have some stadium gigs coming,
03:48don't you?
03:49Yeah.
03:50This is crazy.
03:51Yeah.
03:52Wow.
03:53It's like a dream come true.
03:54So us too, because the guys in my band
03:56are the same dudes I went to high school with.
03:59So when we see the tour, and we're like, what happened?
04:03How long you been touring?
04:05Touring, well, I was signed in 1973, so that's 50 years ago.
04:12That was when I got my record deal.
04:15It's insane.
04:17To think about that, we've been doing it for like four years
04:20now, and I'm 28, and I'm like, there's
04:23no way I can continue on, man.
04:25I'm dying here.
04:26I know I can carry on.
04:27There's no way, yeah.
04:29There was a quote, I think, in your book.
04:32I know with Nebraska, I was interested in making myself
04:34as invisible as possible.
04:35I just wanted to be another ghost.
04:37On that record, it spoke to some need in me.
04:39As a result of the success that I had,
04:41I needed to know if I could go back and be nobody.
04:43Right.
04:44My idea was, I'm going to slow this down a little bit.
04:47I'm in the exact place right now.
04:49In my writing and career, I'm like, oh, wow,
04:52I've really came out of the gate fast.
04:54You did.
04:55I've really risen fast.
04:56Unbelievable.
04:57But now, at this point, I can't even catch my own back wind.
04:59Yeah.
05:00Not in a bad way, either.
05:01Not like, it just feels like I put so much music out,
05:04people have read into it so much, but in reality,
05:06I was just writing music and these characters,
05:08and now I've got to slow down and hone in.
05:11You've got to listen to your inner voice.
05:13That's really important.
05:15So when Nebraska came along, initially, it was just like,
05:19I just want to put some songs down.
05:22So I ended up with these, my demos.
05:26Then I kept trying to make them better.
05:28Every time I tried to make them better, they got worse.
05:31Every time I tried to make it sound better, it was worse.
05:34I have the cut, Born in the USA.
05:37I know this thing is lightning in a bottle, because I can tell.
05:42Oh, we know.
05:43Oh, we know.
05:44Then I have my demos from Nebraska.
05:48I have an audience.
05:50My main thing is I want to do right by them.
05:58The more I kept listening to my, quote, demos,
06:02the more I said, this is my next record.
06:06But it also gave me a sense of control over where I was going.
06:11So you wanted to put out a record that you knew
06:13wouldn't be a hit to the masses, right?
06:15That's right.
06:16I felt like that with my last album.
06:18That's right.
06:19If I produced this, pretty kind of weird,
06:21people are going to really hate it.
06:23And they didn't.
06:25No arrogance either.
06:26I wanted to slow down.
06:27That's good.
06:28I know it is.
06:29I know it is.
06:30But I wanted to slow things down enough.
06:32And I was inspired by Nebraska and all those things.
06:34And I was like, oh, if I just do something weird,
06:36all of my country fans, all of my indie fans,
06:39will just be pissed and be like, who's this guy?
06:41And I could control my own life for a second.
06:45Did it work with Nebraska?
06:46Did it slow things down?
06:47Or did it just build that cult?
06:49Well, it did a little bit of both of what you're talking about.
06:53It did kind of slow things down in the sense,
06:55we just put the record out.
06:57And I let the record.
06:58I said, no, I just want this to be what it is,
07:00have its own voice.
07:02I didn't want to put whatever my public persona was
07:07at that moment in front of the music.
07:09That's right.
07:10And so in a way, I always think your records are premonitions.
07:15This is crazy that you're saying that.
07:17Yeah, they're premonitions of what's going to be coming up
07:21in your consciousness and you're coming up out
07:23of your subconsciousness in the immediate aftermath
07:27of what you created.
07:29So I did struggle a lot during that period of time.
07:32And it probably wasn't normalized
07:33because the American bravado attached to your music.
07:35Yeah.
07:36That manliness attached to all your music,
07:38you probably didn't feel like you could be comfortable
07:40on your own mental.
07:41No.
07:42I was feeling that conflict myself
07:45of being two different people, you know?
07:48Wow.
07:49But that makes you good at it is what's hilarious.
07:52Well, it gives your work a breath that is unusual.
07:59I mean, it was unusual to go from a record like Nebraska
08:02and then born in the USA, which I knew
08:07was going to be a popular record,
08:09but I had no idea it was going to be what it was.
08:12The one thing I got to say is the band is really good.
08:16So I was curious where your band came from.
08:19So we have the same story essentially
08:21like the hometown thing.
08:22My music wasn't really that big yet.
08:24I hadn't played one live show.
08:25So I was like, I was in such a transient moment of my life
08:29and I'm like...
08:30This blows my mind, man.
08:32Looking back, I was like, to be here right now
08:35is even more mind numbing, but I get home
08:39and I call all my best friends from high school
08:41who had put all their instruments down,
08:43their drums, their guitars, their...
08:45And I'm like, hey guys, I need a band
08:47and I don't trust anybody.
08:49I don't trust anybody.
08:50It's good.
08:51I trust you guys.
08:52You guys can barely play a few instruments.
08:55And one of my best friends quit his job as a teacher.
08:59One of my best friends quit his job as a metal technician.
09:02Everyone just quit their jobs.
09:04And we got in my Super Duty truck
09:07and drove to the Iowa State Fair
09:09and played our first show.
09:11Oh my God.
09:12And it was...
09:13To this day, I still have PTSD from it.
09:15It was the most terrifying experience of my life
09:16because we didn't even rehearse.
09:17We're just like, let's do this.
09:19And there was 1,500, 2,000 people there
09:21and I'm like, I'm going to make a fool of myself.
09:24And it only got better and better.
09:26And my fiddle player, I tweeted out one day,
09:28in all caps, I go...
09:30I put an ad in the newspaper.
09:32Really? Same thing?
09:33Yeah.
09:34I tweeted out, I need a fiddle player.
09:35This guy's wife sends me DMs.
09:37This guy plays a fiddle.
09:38I'm like, sure, come along.
09:39He's good.
09:40Best.
09:41Yeah.
09:42The interesting thing that you said
09:43is that you needed people you could trust.
09:46Oh, we've talked about this a few times.
09:48Yeah, more than you needed somebody
09:50who was a professional this, professional that.
09:53That was the same thing.
09:54Hey, my guys, they were people who I felt comfortable around.
09:58There were people who I knew I could be myself around.
10:01And there were people who I knew would keep me being myself.
10:05I bet you have this with the E Street Band too,
10:07but every single one of those guys know
10:09that I put their friendship and their trust
10:11before I put what we're doing on the stage.
10:13Yeah.
10:14Every night.
10:15I find this interesting.
10:16When I went and came and saw you at the Wells Fargo Center
10:18and your band was performing,
10:19and I have all this history with my band,
10:21all these deep stories that are so important to us
10:24and matter so much.
10:25Of course, yeah.
10:26I wonder if you had the same stories
10:28outlining all of y'all's relationships.
10:30And then to see you guys 30, 40 years later,
10:32I'm like, this is just how it works.
10:35It's how it works.
10:36And I'll tell you, the first thing that happens,
10:38the first thing we do when we get together,
10:40if we haven't been together in a while,
10:41you tell stories.
10:42Oh, yeah.
10:43That's a point of life.
10:44On a bus, this guy, that guy.
10:47What happened to, you know?
10:48And that's been going on for the entire 50 years
10:52we've been together.
10:53Because those are the things you have in common.
10:56That's our dream.
10:57And at this point, we're like at this quitting tour time.
11:00I wish you as much joy and adventure and success
11:07as we've had.
11:10How have you come to sort through
11:12what you want your record to sound like now?
11:15Me and the guys, we're still experimenting.
11:18We're like, how do we make something
11:20that resonates with us but also will be enjoyed
11:23by other people?
11:24Right.
11:25When I first started making music,
11:26it was me and my best friend.
11:27My best friend's in the Navy.
11:28And I'd been putting videos online,
11:29which is probably different from back in the day.
11:31But I was putting them on Twitter.
11:33And I woke up one morning and had all these shares.
11:35And I'm like, oh, no.
11:36What do I do?
11:37And my buddy Alba, we were on a plane one day.
11:39And he goes, hey, you have to record these songs.
11:41And I'm like, says who?
11:43Why?
11:44And these guys were like, what are we even doing?
11:46And we get into this Airbnb.
11:48We obviously were like seven beers in, all of us.
11:51We think we're geniuses.
11:52We're like, we're going to be the next Springsteen.
11:54Let's do this.
11:55At the time, it was a joke.
11:57And that's not how we feel now.
11:59But it was like, we were listening to your stuff.
12:02So we get into this Airbnb.
12:03And there's all these beds and couches.
12:05And we're taking an Airbnb's cushions
12:08and nailing them to the walls.
12:10And we're like taping these.
12:12And we're taping all these mattresses to the walls.
12:15And I had nothing to do with it.
12:16These are all my friends.
12:17They didn't know that I went viral on Twitter.
12:19And they're like, no, we have to do this.
12:21And I'm like, you guys are fucking crazy.
12:23And I end up sitting on this stool in between a cushion
12:27here, a mattress here, a mattress here.
12:29And we record 12 songs straight across for 48 hours.
12:33We were just drinking beer, smoking cigarettes,
12:36and recording music.
12:38And the next day, we had all these recordings.
12:41And I had them on my phone.
12:43I'm like, OK, so what do I do with these?
12:45And so I put all this music on the internet,
12:48not knowing what was about to happen.
12:51And the next week of my life was just absolute chaos.
12:55That's mind boggling.
12:56And it was above all these number one hits
12:59on the Apple music charts and things.
13:02I had all these people following me on social media.
13:04I had all these people calling me.
13:06I had Columbia Records calling me a week after.
13:08Really?
13:09And this happened within a month, two months?
13:11Yeah, this is like something I've never heard of.
13:15And I went, so we had all these cushions and mattresses
13:19nailed up on this wall of this Airbnb.
13:21We had caused permanent damage to this place.
13:23And I'm recording like Godspeed or something.
13:27And the owner of the Airbnb walks in.
13:30He's like, what are you guys doing?
13:32And we're like, nothing.
13:34Don't worry about it.
13:35And to this day, you can go online
13:37and look at the Airbnb review.
13:38Really?
13:39It says, yeah, ZB's a kind guy, messed up cushions.
13:44How deep into your new record are you?
13:47There's 14 songs, but I'm not sure
13:49how I want to record a lot of them.
13:51And I just don't know right now.
13:52But this is the first time in my life
13:54where I've given myself time not to know.
13:57I'm really thinking about it.
13:58Where have you been recording the new stuff?
14:02That's what's funny.
14:03Some of them are on my phone.
14:04And some of them are at Electric Lady.
14:06And some of them are full productions here.
14:08And some of them are in fields.
14:09And some of them are, I don't have the,
14:12I want to have the stay power to be like,
14:15I'm going to make this a studio album
14:17and go record it like Born to Run or like.
14:19Uh-huh.
14:20Well, you're doing, everything you're doing so far is right.
14:22So.
14:23I know.
14:24Hopefully, it stays that way.
14:26But.
14:27Oklahoma Sun.
14:28I love that song.
14:30And you know what?
14:31You can't hide where you're from with Nightcrawler blood
14:34on your cast and thumb.
14:36That's good.
14:37I appreciate it.
14:39You can fight and fiend and sell your guns,
14:41but you'll always be an Oklahoma Sun.
14:43But that kind of detail, that Nightcrawler,
14:45where did that come from?
14:46Where did those lines come from?
14:48Do you ever think Asbury Park is a small town?
14:50Yeah, I do.
14:51Do you ever feel like no matter where you go,
14:53like you were saying earlier,
14:54you're always going to have that in your heart and your soul?
14:56Period.
14:57Period.
14:58I felt like that.
14:59I felt like that last year at a point.
15:00The level of detail and the maturity in your writing is just,
15:04it's just amazing, you know?
15:06And you as Carr as this guy, you were talking about your mom.
15:10Yeah.
15:11She's fingering her wedding band.
15:13Well, that's, you know.
15:15That's where I get stuff like that is lines from men like yourself,
15:18you know?
15:19Is that real?
15:20Did that really happen?
15:21Do you remember being a kid and looking at your mom,
15:23like kind of messing with her finger?
15:24Well, I mean, some of the detail just came out of being a writer.
15:27I think the touching of the ring, that's just writing, you know?
15:33It's hard to explain that to people sometimes.
15:35That's where you came up with something like the.
15:37Hey, you're a songwriter, you're a writer.
15:39That's how it happens, you know?
15:41That's how you process information.
15:43When I listen to your music, they're pretty much,
15:46I'm not insulting your genre, but when I listen to your music,
15:49I'm like, if you put different production to this,
15:51it's a country song, all of it.
15:53Right, right.
15:54There's a lot of country songs.
15:55You know why?
15:56I don't want to be a country musician.
15:57That's fascinating.
15:58I don't want to be a country musician.
15:59Everyone calls me it.
16:00I want to be a songwriter.
16:01Yeah.
16:02And you're quintessential a songwriter.
16:05Like no one calls Bruce Springsteen,
16:07hate to use your name in front of you,
16:09but like no one calls Bruce Springsteen a freaking rock musician.
16:12Yeah.
16:13Which you are one, but you're also an indie musician.
16:16You're also a country musician.
16:17Like you're all these things encapsulated in one man,
16:20and that's what songwriting is.
16:21Yeah.
16:22So it's, sorry for.
16:23No, it's interesting,
16:24because I know that you've been connected to the country genre,
16:28which I can hear, but if you go and see the show,
16:32there's so much, and I don't want to call it rock,
16:37just energy in your performance that you really bust,
16:41you bust all those boundaries,
16:44those different genre boundaries down, you know.
16:50How much was born in the USA, my hometown,
16:53and things derived from your dad,
16:54and how much was it derived from like paying attention
16:57to the people around you?
16:58Well.
16:59Did you ever combine the two?
17:00Just kind of.
17:01All the time.
17:02I mean, you use everything,
17:03everything you know and have,
17:05everything you've seen and have seen.
17:07My dad was, you know, he was troubled
17:09and lived a really sort of hardscrabble blue collar.
17:13You know, there was something about his pain.
17:16Whoa.
17:17That I felt I needed to communicate.
17:21Wow.
17:22You know?
17:23The body of my work really comes out of a feeling I had
17:26for my father's life and my mother's life.
17:28That's why I released The End, it's for my mom.
17:30Yeah, it's a beautiful song, gorgeous song for your mom.
17:32But the whole record, she had passed away,
17:35and I was like, how do I keep her name alive?
17:38Right.
17:39That's why I thought songs would keep her name alive forever.
17:42That's lovely.
17:43Which was cool, and it's not like a sympathetic thing either.
17:45It's like, how do I keep her name around my own life forever?
17:49Yeah, that's nice.
17:50It was cool.
17:51So when you said that, I was...
17:52Really lovely.
17:53That's beautiful.
17:54Yeah.
17:55The way you just put that is something I've always searched for.
17:57I love, I love singing songs about my mom,
17:59because I'm like...
18:00That's great.
18:01If it wasn't who she was, I wouldn't be who I was.
18:03Beautiful.
18:04Same with your father probably,
18:05writing all those songs about him.
18:07You're like, oh, if I sing this about him,
18:09it feels like he might be around forever.
18:11He will be now.
18:12Yeah, he is, you know?
18:13And it's, it was a way that centered our relationship,
18:17and she heard things that we couldn't talk about,
18:21but I could write about in a song.
18:23And then amazingly enough, you know, I remember,
18:26I said, hey, Pops, what's your favorite songs?
18:28Hmm, the ones about me.
18:31That was what he told me.
18:33What were your dad's favorite songs?
18:34That's what he said.
18:35No, he said the ones about me.
18:37That was my dad.
18:38Apart from you.
18:39Did he ever, when you got, when you became a...
18:41Oh, yeah, yeah.
18:42A musician, did your dad ever listen to music?
18:45What was your taste like?
18:46They didn't listen to rock.
18:47They listened to Sinatra and, you know,
18:50and my music was, as Martin was just saying,
18:55really when I was right about at your age,
18:59I started to listen to country music,
19:03Hank Williams, a lot of Johnny Cash.
19:06Because it was huge, right?
19:07Yeah.
19:08Dylan too?
19:09Of course, yeah.
19:10Wow.
19:11That was an enormous influence, you know?
19:13But all these guys were, and really,
19:15Darkness on the Edge of Town, The River,
19:18the song, Wreck on the Highway from that record,
19:21and then Nebraska were really a result of me
19:25finally processing my country influences
19:28in a way that I felt comfortable with.
19:30Wow.
19:31You know?
19:32That's where I'm at in my own career right now.
19:34Yeah.
19:35I love country music and I want to like...
19:36You can do whatever you want, man.
19:37You're in the right place.
19:39That's insane to hear from you.
19:41We're great, man.
19:42We can do this.
19:43Fucking awesome.
19:44I can talk to you all day, man.
19:45Easy day.