I didn't know if it would be a success-ful one, or what the stages would be, but I always saw myself as a lifetime musician and songwriter.
— Bruce Springsteen
My only general rule was to steer away from things I played with the band over the past couple of tours. I was interested in re-shaping the Rising material for live shows, so people could hear the bare bones of that.
I tend to be a subscriber to the idea that you have everything you need by the time you're 12 years old to do interesting writing for most of the rest of your life - certainly by the time you're 18.
You can go from doing something quite silly to something dead serious in the blink of an eye, and if you're making those connections with your audience then they're going to go right along with it.
I have my ideas, I have my music and I also just enjoy showing off, so that's a big part of it. Also, I like to get up onstage and behave insanely or express myself physically, and the band can get pretty silly.
I hadn't performed by myself in a while. It feels very natural to me, and I assume people come for the very same reasons as they do when I'm with the band: to be moved, for something to happen to them.
When it comes to luck, you make your own.
You can't be afraid of getting old. Old is good, if you're gathering in life. Our band is good at understanding that equation.
Work creates an enormous sense of self and I saw that in my mother. She was an enormous, towering figure to me in the best possible way. I picked up a lot of things from her in the way that I work... I also picked up a lot of the failings of when your father doesn't have those things and that results in a house that turns into a minefield.
From the beginning, I imagined I would have a long work life.
I like narrative storytelling as being part of a tradition, a folk tradition.
But then I go through long periods where I don't listen to things, usually when I'm working. In between the records and in between the writing I suck up books and music and movies and anything I can find.
Plus, you know, when I was young, there was a lot of respect for clowning in rock music - look at Little Richard. It was a part of the whole thing, and I always also believed that it released the audience.
The audiences are there as a result of my history with the band but also as a result of my being able to reach people with a tune.
This music is forever for me. It's the stage thing, that rush moment that you live for. It never lasts, but that's what you live for.
A good song takes on more meaning as the years pass by.
I think you can get to a point where nihilism, if that's the right word, is overwhelming, and the basic laws that society has set up - either religious or social laws - become meaningless.
I have spent my life judging the distance between American reality and the American dream.
I can sing very comfortably from my vantage point because a lot of the music was about a loss of innocence, there's innocence contained in you but there's also innocence in the process of being lost.
Yeah, my son likes a lot of guitar bands. He gave me something the other day which was really good. He'll burn a CD for me full of things that he has, so he's a pretty good call if I want to check some of that stuff out... The other two aren't quite into that yet.
I do a lot of curiosity buying; I buy it if I like the album cover, I buy it if I like the name of the band, anything that sparks my imagination.
Your spoken voice is a part of it - not a big part of it, but it's something. It puts people at ease, and once again kind of reaches out and makes a bridge for what's otherwise difficult music.
It's always felt natural, because I'm generally very comfortable with people.
The best music is essentially there to provide you something to face the world with.
The best music, you can seek some shelter in it momentarily, but it's essentially there to provide you something to face the world with.
The wonderful thing about rock music is even if you hate the other person, sometimes you need him more, you know. In other words if he's the guy that made that sound, he's the guy that made that sound, and without that guy making that sound, you don't have a band, you know.
Adult life is dealing with an enormous amount of questions that don't have answers. So I let the mystery settle into my music. I don't deny anything, I don't advocate anything, I just live with it.
