Bruce Springsteen’s right-hand man Steve Van Zandt has recalled the “crazy decision” to leave the E Street Band at the height of their success in 1984 — but he says the move freed him up to help topple apartheid in South Africa.

‘Little Steven’ Van Zandt also says he found new allies in fellow activists U2, supporting the Dubliners on the Joshua Tree tour that made them the biggest band in the world.

Recalling the decision to get out of E Street, Van Zandt – who eventually rejoined Bruce in 1999 – tells the Irish Daily Star: “You tell yourself, ‘Hey I walked out on probably 100 million dollars, But I saved a few lives maybe – so what the fuck, it was worth it.”

Van Zandt is talking about his 1985 song Sun City, when he gathered the greatest ever gang to appear on a protest single, as Artists United Against Apartheid – a staggering line-up featuring Springsteen, U2, Run DMC, Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, Bob Dylan, Pat

Benatar, Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood among the 49 featured acts.


Speaking over the phone before his solo show in Dublin with his band the Disciples of Soul, Van Zandt says the success of Born In the USA came at a time of “all kinds of horrors in Latin America with our government supporting these military dictatorships”.

He adds: “It was such a terrible time and I felt like I was a German citizen in the 30s or something, watching them round up Jews and saying, ‘Well it's not my business’.

“In a way, [leaving the E Street Band] was the stupidest possible thing I could've done – after working for something for 15 years you finally get your first pay cheque and then you quit... talk about fucking crazy. But I was compelled to do it, to educate myself and get politically engaged.

“The South Africa issue was pretty obvious, because you know, nobody's into slavery. that was literally slavery we were fighting against.”

The chorus of “I ain’t gonna play Sun City” was a call to arms against the controversial Sun City casino resort that was offering huge sums for artists to ignore the UN cultural boycott and play gigs there, with Queen, Rod Stewart and Status Quo among those who took the bait. It was also a huge crossover moment, with Van Zandt uniting hip-hop artists with rock’n’roll and pop and soul legends.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlMdYpnVOGQ

“What we accomplished with South Africa, nobody can ever deny,” says Van Zandt. “We all did it together. But believe me, rock’n’roll brought down that government, I'm telling you right now. Would it have eventually collapsed under its own evil? Probably, but we took years off that.


“And we helped get Mandela out in time. They were feeding him drugs in prison, trying to scramble his brains before they released him. Nobody knows that, but that's a fact. Two years later he probably wouldn't have had the brains to come out and be the authoritative, wonderful, miraculous figure that he was. We got him out in time, when he was still coherent and able to make that transition. Would I have done that had I stayed in the band? Probably not.”

Steve says working with U2 on Sun City and sharing a similar mindset on human rights led to the support slot on their career-changing Joshua Tree tour.

“It was a wild time, and it was very nice of U2 to have me on that tour,” he says. “They obviously didn’t need it, it wasn’t gonna help sell tickets. But we certainly shared a lot of common philosophies. We really bonded, I like them a lot, they’re great guys to hang out with, I wish I saw them more often.”

Van Zandt bonded further when he borrowed Adam Clayton to play all the bass on his 1999 record Born Again Savage – the album he recorded before finally joining the E Street Band again.

“We all sort of become insular in our little band bubbles,” he says. “But what I said to Adam was it would be nice to show people a different side of yourself, and stretch out a bit, and I think that’s what happened. And it blows minds when people hear that record and they hear him. It's like, ‘Wow, he's not just a great bass player in U2, he’s just a great bass player... and so I was really happy about that, it was really great of him to do that.”

Van Zandt is one of the most popular side men in pop culture. After years knocking around New Jersey with the young Bruce as “two freaks and misfits”, jamming in various bands, Steve was drafted into the E Street Band in 1975 to arrange the horn section on Tent Avenue Freeze-Out.


He also gave Bruce the nickname the Boss and helped write Born To Run’s main guitar part – one of the most iconic motifs in all of rock’n’roll.

And beside his spot next to Bruce he played Tony Soprano’s much-loved chief advisor Silvio in the iconic HBO series.

But he’s getting used to becoming his own Boss these days, and last year released Soulfire, his sixth solo album and his first in 18 years, with his 15-piece band The Disciples of Soul.

He says the band is “practically a history of rock’n’roll… everything from doo-wop and blues to soul to jazz to Morricone bits”.

Speaking to The Star last year, Van Zandt said: “I’m not nostalgic, I just haven’t left the 60s.”

He elaborates this time, adding: “I just feel like we were the lucky generation, we grew up in a fucking renaissance. It was just amazing. I just feel like we really have an obligation to at least make this renaissance music accessible to people, for future generations.”

He also spreads the word on his long-running radio show Little Steven’s Underground Garage, and a new US school curriculum on music history called the Rock and Roll Forever Foundation.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJ2bf3-sG7A

He says of the Foundation: “You wanna completely keep kids focused on the greatness of it. Compare yourself to the greatest ever in whatever field you're in, that's what counts. But nobody’s born great, it takes years of focus and development.

That’s the problem these days, everybody is in such a hurry, so greatness will continue to elude future generations, until they can find a way to shut the phone off for a few hours, We gotta turn the computer off for a few hours a day… until we stop being distracted we're never gonna get there.”

Steve says that even though he’s fully immersed in the Disciples of Soul for now, “I got five scripts i've written and I'm looking at a couple of other TV shows”. As always, when Bruce decides to go on the road or hit the studio it’s like E Street Avengers Assemble, and Van Zandt says the last time he rang the band they were on stage gigging within a few weeks.

“Bruce remains a priority,” he says. “He's on Broadway through December then we'll talk. It's very possible we might do something in 19 but it's equally possible we might wait till 2020, so we'll see what he decides. If Bruce calls Bruce calls and I'll figure out a way to work around it, you know. There’s no sense waiting around, I have so many projects in my head I'm never gonna get to as it is.”