Bruce Springsteen, joined by The E Street Band, sat down for a special live interview on SiriusXM’s The Howard Stern Show to promote his upcoming Hulu documentary, “Road Diary: Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band.” The interview with Howard Stern, spanning over two hours, featured Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band performing various songs.
Before the band — which includes his wife and longtime E Street band member Patti Scialfa — joined Bruce live in-studio to chat and perform a mini concert, the Boss discussed some of the fun he’s had as their boss over the years. “Torturing the band is the bandleader’s prerogative,” he laughed. “I used to keep them playing for hours during a soundcheck while I walked around the entire arena making sure every seat had the optimum sound.”
While Bruce is the Boss in concert, that all changes when the band is off the clock. Scialfa made that clear as she explained their dynamics to Howard. “I always tried not to be a wife onstage,” she noted. “But as soon as I get my foot off the stage …”
“It’s over, baby,” her husband added. “I’m only Boss [for] three hours and then I surrender the title, happily.”
Collectively, the couple made a point of not bringing their work home with them. “You walk into our home, especially when the kids were growing up, you wouldn’t know what anybody did for a living — there was nothing [that] indicated there’s somebody famous in the house,” Scialfa revealed.
Their oldest of their three children, Evan, didn’t know what his parents did for a living until he was in the second or third grade. “’Hey Dad, “What’s ‘Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out?’” Bruce remembered him asking.
“I think what we do that the kids would sometimes complain about is, instead of talking, we’d sing everything back and forth to each other,” Patti said before demonstrating in song, ‘I’m making the pancakes!’”
Bruce Springsteen Has Gone 2 Years Without a Song Idea:
“It’s really hard… 90 percent of the time you’re writing stuff that’s either mediocre or worse… The only good thing is I’ve learned to recognize what’s mediocre and worse sooner,” Bruce Springsteen admitted. “I’ve gone for two years without writing a song and then written an entire album in three weeks.”
Springsteen said songwriting has always been a grind. “You’re soul mining, is what I call it,” he explained. “You’re down in the soul mines, and just like any mine, you’re chippin’ away looking for a vein. I’ve been lucky. I’ve hit a lot of veins in my lifetime, but you do not know if you’re going to hit another one.”
“Road Diary: Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band” debuts on Hulu Friday, October 25.
The Howard Stern Show, which airs on SiriusXM channel Howard 100, is broadcast live Mondays through Wednesdays starting at 7:00 am ET. The full show is also available on the SiriusXM app.
How Bruce Springsteen and Patti Scialfa Balance Marriage and Performing
Howard Stern: "I think the most difficult part of being married to Bruce Springsteen, and also being in a band with him, is that you could go home and he could still think he's in charge, right? How does one manage that? Was there an actual discussion where you had to map out, especially for your children, how Bruce should behave at home?"
Patti Scialfa: "Not really. I always tried not to be a wife on stage. I really did. I didn't wanna bring that on stage and Bruce always has this great saying, and he says “It's like on stage it's, you know, but as soon as I get my foot off the stage.”
Bruce Springsteen: "It's over baby. "
Patti Scialfa: “It's over.”
Bruce Springsteen: "I'm only boss for three hours. Then I surrender the title, happily."
Howard Stern: "No, because I mean, everything I read about your family and your kids, they seem like very well adjusted."
Patti Scialfa: "You walk into our home, especially when the kids were growing up, you wouldn't know what anybody did for a living there. There was nothing in the house that indicated there's somebody famous in the house or this is an overwhelming situation."
Bruce Springsteen: "Yeah. Yeah."
Patti Scialfa: "There are no pictures that related to the work or anything."
Bruce Springsteen: "Our kids didn't know what we did until one day, I think Evan came home from first grade, no, much later, even second or third, “Hey dad, what's ‘Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out?’”
Howard Stern: "I hope you told him you don't even know. I love a good love story Patti. And when you're falling in love with the boss, and he's literally like the boss, you know what I mean? Like, he's your boss."
Patti Scialfa: "I have to tell you I never think about it."
Bruce Springsteen: "I don't think so."
Howard Stern: "Here's a romantic moment because I know both of you are songwriters. I picture at home it being fantastic. It could also be horrible because there's a competition between songwriters sometimes."
Patti Scialfa: "No, no."
Howard Stern: "You don't find that at all."
Patti Scialfa: "No."
Bruce Springsteen: "No, I don't think so."
Patti Scialfa: "I'm not gonna compete with him."
Howard Stern: "But is there a moment where Bruce has written, I don't know something, “Honey, wait till you hear what I just wrote.” Are you the first?"
Patti Scialfa: "I'll tell you a good story."
Howard Stern: "Okay."
Patti Scialfa: "I was making my “Rumble Doll” record. We were living in LA. We had just woken up and were talking about, you know, working, and he goes, “You know what you need on your record? You need one song where you really brag about yourself. Like, really just throw it out there and be really sexy and brag.” It's not quite my thing, right? So I said, “No, no, no, no. I'm so not doing that, Bruce.” And he goes, “Yeah, yeah, you gotta do it.” And he started singing “Red Headed Woman.” You literally got out of bed, picked up the guitar, and while I'm sitting in bed, you started, you wrote “Red Headed Woman” at that moment."
Bruce Springsteen singing excerpt of “Red Headed Woman”
Bruce Springsteen: "Dedicated to my fabulous wife."
Patti Scialfa: "I've forgotten about that."
Howard Stern: "Just picture a house filled with music and you guys, there's some romantic notion of like the two of you writing. I don't know."
Patti Scialfa: "I think what we do do that the kids would sometimes complain about is instead of talking, we'd sing everything back and forth to each other and just make up, you know?"
Howard Stern: "How does that work?"
Patti Scialfa: "“I’m making the pancakes. It's so good. Oh yeah.” You know."
Bruce Springsteen: "Ridiculous things occur."
Patti Scialfa: "Completely silly."
Bruce Springsteen Has Gone 2 Years Without a Song Idea:
Howard Stern: "You do it all so well. You do the live performing, but the songwriting, being able to write all these songs, this endless catalog of songs. If you had your druthers, do you think just sitting in a room, writing songs, never having to go out and perform 'em, would you have preferred that?"
Bruce Springsteen: "That's pure torture."
Howard Stern: "Oh, it is? Why is that torture?"
Bruce Springsteen: "Writing is really hard."
Howard Stern: "It's difficult."
Bruce Springsteen: "And you're failing 90% of the time. You're writing either stuff that's mediocre or worse, and so as I've gotten older, the only good things I've learned to recognize what's mediocre and worse sooner but otherwise, you know, I mean, I've gone for two years without writing a song and then written an entire album in three weeks."
Howard Stern: "Explain that to me. So, you don't wake up on any given day and hear some sort of tune in your head. Today, you didn't wake up and say, "Man, I kind of got this thing going around." There's nothing there."
Bruce Springsteen: "No, nothing."
Howard Stern: "I can't believe it."
Bruce Springsteen: "I don't know if I've ever done that. You know, I think the only time I ever did that was I woke up in the middle of the night and wrote a song called "Surprise, Surprise." It was on a record called "Working on a Dream" and it was the only song I've actually dreamt, and then got up and written, you know, but I'm not sure it counts, you know? But no. You know, songwriting, I've gone two years without writing a new song, and then it's like this. You're soul mining is what I call it, so you're down in the soul mines and just like any mine, you're chipping away looking for a vein, right? Now, I've been lucky. I hit a lot of veins in my lifetime, but you do not know if you're gonna hit another one."
Bruce Springsteen Played With Chuck Berry:
Howard Stern: "The reason I played "Nadine," the Chuck Berry song when you walked in, is because I thought that you guys, early on before you became, you know, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, that you guys backed up Chuck Berry on some gig."
Bruce Springsteen: "We did. It was at the Maryland Field House or something and this is 1973 and you see, if you see the bill, which I just recently saw, it has big, big letters. "Chuck Berry," and then "Jerry Lee Lewis," and then real tiny, "And Bruce Springsteen." It's one of the bills I'm proudest of. I'm 23 years old and I'm on the same bill on the same night as Chuck Berry and Jerry Lee Lewis. It was a classic night, and Chuck was very funny because it was like 10 minutes before he's supposed to go on. He's not there and I'm standing there and the promoter's trying to tell me to go back on, but people don't even know who I am at all. I'm going, "I don't think I'm going on for people waiting for Chuck Berry right now," and about five minutes before he is supposed to go on, door slams, you see him walking up the ramp, him and his guitar, nobody with him, walks into the management office. Supposedly, he got $11,000 and a thousand he gives back to the promoter if the band was any good and if the equipment worked, you know."
Howard Stern: "Can you imagine? Think about you before a concert. You are obsessive. You'll go to the soundboard. You'll go sit in every seat in the house. This guy shows up five minutes before his gig."
Bruce Springsteen: "He did walk into our room and said, "Hey fellas, how we doing?" We said, "Great," and then we said, you know, "Chuck, what songs are we gonna play? You know?" and he says, "Oh, we're gonna play some Chuck Berry songs," and walks out."
Howard Stern: "That was it."
Bruce Springsteen: "And that was it."
Howard Stern: "Had you guys rehearsed these Chuck Berry songs?"
Bruce Springsteen: "No. No. All he did was go, you'd hear the stomp and then, and you were left to find out the key and you know? But we were so young. All I remember was we started playing and Chuck ran back to me. He said, "Play for that money, boy. Play for that money," and I say, "Chuck, we're not making any money. We're backing you up for free because we love you." It was fun. It was something to remember, you know, play on the bill with, I mean, those were the fathers and geniuses who we forever will owe a debt to, you know. Any kind of contact with him was always eventful and a lot of fun."
Bruce Springsteen Shares Stories from His Hulu Documentary “Road Diary”:
Howard Stern: "Bruce has a wonderful documentary that's gonna be out on Hulu on Friday called "Road Diary.""
Bruce Springsteen: "You're making my manager happy now. Yeah."
Howard Stern: "Yeah, but I bring it up because I get from this documentary that you do occasionally torture your band. I mean, you..."
Bruce Springsteen: "Of course."
Howard Stern: "Yeah. I mean, you'll do a Chuck Berry on them. You'll just call an audible and say, "All right, we're playing this song right now," and these guys have to kind of pick it up real quick."
Bruce Springsteen: "Yeah. It was just something we used to do for fun during the course of the night. We didn't do it so much on this tour, but torching the band is the band leader's prerogative and in the documentary, they complain about it somewhat and that I used to keep them playing for hours during a soundcheck while I walked around the entire arena making sure every seat had the optimum sound."
Howard Stern: "When I was watching this documentary, I was kind of taken with the, the band was talking and you were talking about the early days of touring and you had some shitty bus, and you said you guys slept on bunk beds, but the bunk beds weren't chained down, so I guess when the tour bus would, if you even want to call it a tour bus, would move."
Bruce Springsteen: "Yeah. The beds would just tilt completely over in the aisle and Steve, I'd come face to face with Steve Van Zandt and his bunk, and I'd have to push my bunk back and crash crashing back in shape, but you know, it was all part of it and it's something, you know, you're young, you're on the road, you're probably staying in these little $6 hotels and Holiday Inns that are still better than your apartment. I always considered myself fortunate. Simple as that."
Howard Stern: "When people watch this on Friday on Hulu, you gotta wait through the credits. There is this really insane moment. Your mom was in late stage of Alzheimer's I believe, and you went to visit her and the two of you are dancing together on this porch. It looked like an outside porch."
Bruce Springsteen: "Yeah. We were at my house and my brother-in-law was just, we were just all sitting on the porch, and I knew my mother loved forties big band music. You know, that was her times, so I'd put on "In The Mood," and she just gets up and starts going to it, you know, and she was pretty good then, you know, she could still get around and she could still dance and I think only her short term memory was affected around that time, and she had it for 10 years. It got much worse later, you know, but he just happened to film it and when my mother passed away, I found it on my phone, and so we just tucked it at the end of the film."
Bruce Springsteen Talks Drumming With Max Weinberg:
Howard Stern: "What does Bruce mean when you're in concert and you say, "No one goes home until Max Weinberg goes home." What does that even mean?"
Bruce Springsteen: "Max Weinberg is the hardest working drummer in show business."
Howard Stern: "He's a phenomenal drummer."
Bruce Springsteen: "I mean, Max, how old are you man?"
Howard Stern: "You're the young kid in the band, aren't you, Max?"
Max Weinberg: "I think Nils is a month younger than me. 73."
Bruce Springsteen: "I mean, he's doing something, first of all, it could kill him."
Howard Stern: "Well, literally you're not joking, right?"
Bruce Springsteen: "No. You gotta give him a gold star for pure balls and bravery every night. Second of all, the guys stop a little bit in between songs. Max Weinberg does not. Max Weinberg plays from the minute we get on stage for three solid hours, pedal to the metal until we get off, and he's doing things that are simply incredible."
Howard Stern: "And he puts his hands in ice after the show because they hurt so much after drumming for three hours. Is that true, Max?"
Max Weinberg: "Yes."
Howard Stern: "It is. Sounds awful. Bruce, that's dedication."
Bruce Springsteen: "There is no more dedicated man. Max Weinberg, man, covers your ass 24/7, 365 days."
Howard Stern: "Max. Who is the great, besides yourself, take yourself out of the running. Who is the greatest drummer that ever lived?"
Max Weinberg: "Buddy Rich overall, and then there's any drummer you can name by name."
Howard Stern: "John Bonham."
Max Weinberg: "Yes. Always at the top of everybody's list."
Howard Stern: "And who is the better guitar player? Bruce Springsteen or Conan O'Brien?"
(All photos by Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for SiriusXM’s The Howard Stern Show)
