Unrequited Infatuations

by Stevie Van Zandt

  Number ten.

  And so, Bada Bing! A TV career was born.

  The first meeting with the entire cast was at Silvercup Studios in Long Island City. It was a table read, where the cast goes through the entire script the day before shooting begins. It’s a nice tradition because it’s the only time the whole cast is together before splitting up into separate scenes.

  I flashed on the first time I saw my brother Billy act. He was like, I don’t know, twelve? A quiet, unassuming kid. You picture kid actors as the loud extroverted obnoxious type. He barely spoke. Out he comes, Alfred P. Doolittle in My Fair Lady singing “Get Me to the Church on Time” in a totally believable cockney accent! Completely blew my mind. I’m thinking, Man, I’ve got to act tomorrow. I hope I’m half as good as he was. So I’m half daydreaming, half following along, making sure I don’t miss my lines, and midway through one of the early scenes, I looked up and directly across the table from me was Johnny Fucking Ola!

  The guy who brought the orange from Hyman Roth to Michael Corleone as good luck in The Godfather: Part II.

  Dominic Chianese. Now our Uncle Junior.

  An electric current ran through my whole body.

  The Godfather and The Godfather: Part II have a special, even sacred place for most of my generation. And for Italian Americans it was the paisano Tao Te Ching.

  I was gonna be in a show with Johnny Ola! Suddenly the entire experience became real.

  The strangest thing was that while I knew almost none of the other actors, they all knew me. I thought they might resent me invading their turf, but they were very respectful. Jimmy Gandolfini, who did get the lead role—luckily for all of us—was great with me right away, and everyone took their cues from him.

  It took me a while to get used to the way TV worked.

  For starters, you have to learn to accept that if the Director is happy, you’re happy. And you have to take their word for it. You don’t even see what you’re doing. It was quite a shock artistically.

  In the music business, you go in the studio, sing or play, go into the control room to listen to it, and do it again. You improve upon it or you don’t. Each take has to be compared to the take before it, or the one after it, before you know if it’s working. But you judge yourself.

  Not in the acting world. Nobody wants actors looking at dailies. So I wouldn’t see what I was doing for six months or so. I had to learn to live with that.

  The other thing was that no one said anything to me. I was looking for a pat on the back, at least. I brought it up to Michael Imperioli.

  “Nobody’s saying anything to me. That’s bad, right?”

  “No. That’s good,” he said. “That means you’re not a problem.”

  HBO waited until the last possible moment to commit.

  I had met Robert Wuhl, who had a comedy, called Arli$$, on HBO about a sports agent. He invited me to an event for his season premiere the night before HBO’s deadline for picking us up.

  I’m not much of a socializer, but I thought I would go and talk to the executives, see what I could find out.

  The brass were all there: Jeff Bewkes, Chris Albrecht, Richard Plepler. All E Street Band fans. I asked them what was happening with Sopranos.

  “We’ve been looking for a partner this entire year,” said Jeff. He explained again that the show was a big expense, two or three times what they’d spent on any other show up to that time. “We’ve had no luck.”

  “Geez,” I said. “We all really love this thing. It’s a little eccentric, but it’s great.”

  Eccentric was an understatement. Of course I wouldn’t have said it out loud, but I didn’t know how commercial it was. A Mob guy sees ducks in his pool, and when they fly away he has a nervous breakdown that lands him in a psychiatrist’s office? That’s the premise of a hit show?

  I went on. “But wouldn’t that be good for a network like yours? No offense, give it a little identity?” At the time, HBO had been around forever but remained an unrealized potential. A few original shows, some sports programming, and movies that were mostly R-rated to give people a reason to subscribe. They got no respect whatsoever.

  Jeff nodded.

  It was hard to read successful executives. That’s how they got where they are.

  “I’m not saying turn into an Art channel,” I said, “but why don’t you turn into an Art channel?”

  A raised eyebrow.

  “You know, Art and porno!”

  I got a half grin out of him, and then moved on to Chris Albrecht. Same noncommittal answers. They really hadn’t made up their minds.

  The next day they pulled the trigger. Pun intended.

  We were on HBO!

  The network was still fighting David on the title. They thought the audience would assume the show was about the opera. David didn’t know what to do, so we strategized in constant multihour conversations, which we’ve never stopped having.

  “That’s ridiculous!” I told him. “Tell those fools names become the content. What’s the stupidest name of a band you’ve ever heard? The Beatles! What’s the second dumbest? The E Street Band! But nobody thinks they’re so dumb anymore now, do they?”

  “Yeah, I’ll use that,” he laughed.

  I was still playing golf at the time.

  Frank Barsalona had gotten into it and bugged me like crazy to join the torture. My father was a golfer, and one Father’s Day I decided to learn so we could spend some quality time together, which we’d never done. We managed to play for a year or two before Alzheimer’s got him in 1998. The world’s most evil, despicable disease.

  I had fifty “The Sopranos Are Coming” shirts printed up, and I gave them out to everybody at a televised MTV charity golf tournament. I was politicking every way and everywhere I could.

  HBO wisely gave up and accepted the name.

  In some ways, doing a big TV show was the same as doing Darkness on the Edge of Town. Lots of downtime. I don’t mind working. Waiting, I can’t do. Whether I was in the scene or not, I spent my time learning and observing.

  Everyone got along OK, but we were a little distant from each other at first. That was the acting world. It wasn’t arrogance on anyone’s part. There was a tone of humility set from the top down. Jimmy was a character actor, no diva. But I was used to working in a more congenial atmosphere. A cast wasn’t a band.

  I had written an entire backstory for Silvio, mostly for myself, but I shared it with the writers. Sil was the only character David Chase hadn’t created from scratch, and even though I knew he would adjust as we went, I wanted them to have a place to start.

  In the fictional bio, I wrote that Sil had grown up with Tony, that they had been best friends since they were kids. In my story, Tony was a year or two older and was always the big-picture guy, big ideas and big ambitions. Sil was a soldier, more street-smart, perfectly happy being underboss as well as consigliere and watching Tony’s back. Chase would make Sil older of course, since I was, but keep the consigliere idea intact.

  So after seven years in the wilderness, eighteen years after my last semisteady job in the E Street Band, thanks to the caprices of Destiny and only ten twists of Fate, I had finally, miraculously, found a new career. Something I could do for the rest of my life. I was determined to give it my undivided attention and effort.

  Rrrrrrrrrring.

  “Stevie?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Bruce.”

  “Hey, man.”

  “It’s time to put the band back together.”

  twenty-five

  Cross Road Blues

  (1999–2001)

  I went to the crossroads, fell down on my knees.

  I went to the crossroads, fell down on my knees

  Asked the Lord above, “Have mercy now, save Poor Bob if you please.”

  —ROBERT JOHNSON, “CROSS ROAD BLUES”

  The reasons not to go back to E Street were obvious.

  I had a chance at a whole new career as an actor.

&n
bsp; That could lead to writing, which I was already doing on the side.

  And that could lead to directing, which had always interested me.

  And finally, to producing. The big picture. Overseeing all the details of a project. The ultimate goal.

  Never mind that in my life plan, I kept getting to first base but couldn’t make it to second. And never mind asking an audience to redefine me a third or fourth time. If I wasn’t a performer, if what I did was behind the scenes—writing, directing, producing—I would only have to worry about how much an audience liked my work, not how much they liked me.

  Another reason not to go back was that the dynamics of the organization had changed.

  I’d given up my position as underboss and consigliere when I left. Bruce was now, more than ever, treated by the organization as a solo act. I would have no control or input whatsoever.

  How would it feel being a real sideman for the first time? When I left back in the early ’80s, Bruce hired Nils Lofgren to play my guitar parts and Patti Scialfa to sing my vocal parts.

  So what would my role be in the reformed band, exactly?

  The more I thought about it, the more I realized it would be the same as it always was. The role that couldn’t be replaced. I would be the lifelong best friend. I was fine with that. In fact, I’d just been cast in the same role in The Sopranos.

  The bio of Sil I had given the writers had helped them a little bit, but the character was still coming into focus as the show got started. Halfway through the first season, I realized I could use my relationship with Bruce as the emotional basis of Silvio’s relationship with Tony, because I knew exactly what the job entailed.

  Dreaming together, planning and strategizing, sharing the good times and the bad, suffering the undeserved wrath when bringing bad news that only you could bring because you were the only one who wasn’t afraid of the Boss. They were all part of the job. Of both jobs.

  Back in the late ’80s, years after I had left the band, Bruce had me over to hear his follow-up to Born in the USA, Tunnel of Love, at his house in Rumson. I listened. Tunnel felt like a solo record, for starters. There were still great songs, but they were smaller in scope, with more personal lyrics. “And what’s up with that first song, ‘Ain’t Got You’?” I asked. “I got this, I got that, and I got Rembrandts on the wall?!?”

  “What?” he said. “That’s how it is.”

  “I know you’re trying to be funny,” I said. “But it’s only funny if it’s not true! If it was a line from a Dave Van Ronk song, we’d all have a good laugh about it, right? Look, I’m sure it’s more than a little weird to be rich and famous after almost forty years of being poor and struggling, and I know you’re trying to come to grips with how that new reality fits with your working-class persona, but damn!”

  “Well,” he says, “in a certain way—an exaggerated way—I’m just being honest about my life.”

  “Honest?” I was getting kind of worked up. “About your life? I hate to tell you this, but nobody gives a fuck about your life! Your gift, your job, your genius is telling people about their lives! Helping them understand their mostly fucked-up existence! Letting them know that you understand what they’re going through and that they are not alone.”

  “Oh, man,” he said. “You’re totally nuts! It’s just a little humor!”

  “People depend on your empathy!” I said. “It’s what you do best. They don’t want advice from Liberace or empathy from Nelson Fucking Rockefeller! You shouldn’t be writing shit like this!”

  He said I was crazy, overreacting like I did with everything, that no one else had complained about it. We yelled and screamed for a while and then he threw me out.

  It was the second of our three fights.

  We got over it.

  I was right, of course. Like I always am when it came to giving advice to my friends. Because I care about them. A little too much, to be honest. Friendship is a sacred thing to me, and I can’t be casual about it. I don’t know where that comes from. But I realized early in life that if I’m going to have friends, the friendship has to be defined on their terms. Because nobody is as extreme as me. It’s a flaw I can’t fix.

  So where was I? Oh, yeah. The cons and pros of going back to E Street.

  There was the money.

  Well, not really, because even though it was more than I made my first year of acting, they would soon even out.

  Bruce has always kept us the cheapest concert ticket in the business while doing the most work. It’s a Jersey work ethic thing. It was a typically unprecedented moral gesture from Bruce for the benefit of the working class.

  But lately it was getting harder and harder to keep the tickets away from the scalpers.

  It didn’t matter anyway, because my allergy to money would never allow me to make a decision based on it.

  No, it was all about the closure.

  I shouldn’t have left in the first place.

  It didn’t matter how justified it might have felt at the time, or what I had learned and accomplished since. It felt like I had fucked with Destiny, interrupted what was supposed to be, and abandoned my best friend when he needed me most.

  I also felt the band’s place in history needed to be secured. We were slowly vanishing from the mass consciousness. When magazines did their annual polls of best bands, or even best American bands, we had always been top five. But recently we had started to slip off the charts.

  I wasn’t big on competition. But all due respect, shouldn’t we be ranked higher than the Spin Doctors?

  One day, too, the band should be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and it would be best to be active if that day was ever to come.

  There was a broader principle too. It had occurred to me somewhere along the way that we needed to preserve this endangered species called Rock. And not because it happened to be my main Artform of choice. Because there was something different about the Rock idiom’s ability to communicate substance.

  Folk music passes along stories and allegories. Blues talks about the conditions of life. Jazz operates through mostly wordless intellect. Soul is all about relationships. Rock has substance and the ability to communicate it worldwide. And that includes its greatest hybrid, Reggae. Bob Marley was the ultimate example. Got to be neck and neck with Muhammad Ali for most well-known human on the planet. Get Tim White’s book on Marley. Incredible. I mentioned it once earlier, but I want you to remember it.

  It’s why I was so interested in Hip-Hop when it started. The early Rappers were carrying on the Rock tradition. Emotional information. Sometimes literal information. Inspiration. Motivation. Education. Melle Mel, Grandmaster Flash, Duke Bootee, Run-DMC, Ice-T, N.W.A., KRS-One, all the way to Public Enemy, Wu-Tang Clan, and Rage Against the Machine.

  But Hip-Hop didn’t turn out to be as consistent as I hoped it would be. Got a little too comfortable with the hedonism aspect, like Rock before it.

  One more reason to go back to E Street?

  Bruce.

  I liked being with him. Always have. I still got a kick out of him as a performer. He still made me laugh. I still marveled at the fact that my shy best friend had become one of the world’s greatest entertainers. And if we could adapt to being back together, we’d not just get back what we had, but maybe even take it further.

  Tony and Sil ride again!

  David Chase made my decision a little easier by scheduling my scenes on days off the tour. It was an amazing thing to do and added to the infinite gratitude I already owed him for giving me a new craft.

  Of course, my role became smaller if I toured. And I’d never get to write and direct The Sopranos.

  But for the next seven years I found a way to be in a TV show and a touring Rock and Roll band at the same time.

  Flew home and back every day off. Never missed a day on the set, never missed a gig.

  Two Bosses, two worlds. One fictional, based on reality, and one real, reinforced by fiction.

  A circumstance as improbab
le as it was unpredictable.

  A reconciliation of brothers.

  There was work left to do.

  twenty-six

  Gangster Days / Garage Nights

  (2002–2004)

  Get really good at one thing, and the whole world will open up for you.

  —THE UNWRITTEN BOOK

  Lenny Kaye always had a good imagination.

  Which is a big help when one is trying to survive growing up in New Jersey. One of the few subjects I know everything about.

  He was in Rock bands like the Vandals by the mid-’60s and simultaneously creating sci-fi fanzines like Obelisk.

  He was also a successful journalist for Crawdaddy, Hit Parader, and Rolling Stone while working at Village Oldies on Bleecker Street. That’s where he met Patti Smith, which is why you know her name today.

  I’m going to briefly digress with a huge mea culpa.

  As a member of the nominating committee of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame I’ve done OK. But not in 2007.

  That was the year I was unable to convince the other committee members that the Patti Smith Group needed to go in, as opposed to Patti Smith solo, because, as history knows full well, there was no such thing as Patti Smith solo.

  The reason she made the transition from poet to Rock star was Lenny Kaye, 100 percent.

  Ask her!

  My comrades remained irrationally unconvinced.

  So him not being in the Rock Hall pisses me off every day. There’s a growing list of self-disappointments, but it’s high on that list.

  Before Lenny met Patti, he curated a crazy compilation album for Elektra Records called Nuggets. It didn’t make any commercial sense, so the label president, Jac Holzman, deserves credit for going along with it.

  The album, which originally came out in 1972, was full of ’60s artists of no consequence who immediately achieved immortality as ground zero influences on Garage Rock, Pub Rock, and Punk Rock.