We Were Lucky: Jon Landau and Steven Zan Zandt on “Road Diary: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band”

“Road Diary: Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band,” director Thom Zimny’s latest documentary film about The Boss, is a peek behind the curtain of the six-decades-long creative collaboration between the legendary singer, songwriter, and guitarist and the musicians that make up The E Street Band. Filmed during the first year of the band’s most recent global tour, Zimny explores the personal connections between the music makers and their fans alike by combining behind-the-scenes footage during the show’s pre-production, concert footage from the lengthy world tour and talking head interviews with the Boss, band member new and old, and super fans from around the globe. 

Like the songs at the center of their album Letter to You, the documentary looks back at the origins of the band’s musical collaboration in the 1970s, where they find themselves today and those they have lost along the way. But the film is not just a beautiful patchwork of memories; it also offers a unique glimpse into the process of building a live show, including the revelations that come from adding new members to the band, the work of fine-tuning the experience on the road, and the joy evoked–for both the band and the fans–when the alchemy of it all works just right.  

RogerEbert.com spoke to producer Jon Landau and E Street Band member Stevie Van Zandt about making the doc, Springsteen’s personal connection to the music and his fans, the band’s lasting appeal, and director Thom Zimny’s vision for the film.

This documentary celebrates 50+ years of creative collaboration. Why do you think the music of Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band can still speak cross-generationally as well as to fans around the globe? 

Jon Landau: Well, you know, quality has something to do with it. We can start there. It’s pretty good. What has allowed for the music, from Bruce’s first record in the early 70s, going all the way till today, to be a 55-year career is that Bruce himself has grown throughout, and the E Street Band has grown with him. So, there’s constantly something fresh and an affirmation of the past. On this particular tour, the core of the show, the anchors of the show, all being from his most recent album with the band, “Letter To You,” which is one of his greatest albums in all of our opinions, provided a framework for moving the show and everything that we do forward. 

There’s a dynamic to his creativity and his career, there’s a mix with the audience, of people understanding that there’s always going to be the acknowledgement of the past. On this tour, there are lots of things that have moved people from the past. However, there are always still new challenges moving forward, a sense of adventure that’s part of the tour that keeps everything fresh and keeps everything away from the dreaded “Greatest Hits” type of concept, which is something that we will never see from Bruce in The E Street Band because it’s just not what we do. There’s a relationship between the present and the past that I think is just right, that is very appealing to people. That’s what I think on this topic. Stevie?

Stevie Van Zandt: Yeah, exactly. I mean, the personal nature of it all comes from the very beginning. We were lucky. We’re the luckiest generation and the luckiest guys in the luckiest generation. We’re third-generation Rock and Roll. So, we inherited this art form. The first two generations had to invent it, and so by the time we inherited it, it was understood that you were going to have a personal relationship with this art form, which was not the case, really, until the end of the second generation and third generation. Up until then, it was strictly entertainment. But suddenly, Bob Dylan introduced this idea of being personal and involving social concerns, political concerns, and personal concerns. This was a new idea that we inherited as part of our craft. This was something that was understood, that we were obligated to involve ourselves in a personal way. 

Bruce, from the beginning of his writing, never compromised. He never thought to compromise with what was commercial, what was trendy, what was fashionable that day. I mean, listen to his early records; they don’t sound like anything. They’re completely unique and yet quite personal. He’s already being cinematic. “Lost in the Flood” is on his first album. That’s a movie on his very first album. He’s already absorbing all the other art forms and using them in this art form, and evolving the art form as our third generation was supposed to do. So, with that personal aspect of it, adding to what Jon said, it is suddenly between the audience and the bands. The Beatles and the British Invasion created this band culture. So we all evolve together. We all grow up together. The Beatles and the Rolling Stones were the biggest things in the ’60s, and they’re still the biggest things right now today. And that’s wonderful. There’s that kind of consistency for an audience to grow with the artists as they have. 

We’re just the lucky result of that, and the fact that Bruce took that very seriously never changed. Yes, we happen to have some commercial hits, which were lucky and wonderful, but that wasn’t the purpose. The main purpose was artistic. I think that artistic purpose translates to people in a timeless way, and adds to the longevity, because we were never trendy, we were never fashionable. When you’re when you’re never fashionable, you’re timeless. That’s the good part.

JL: And you were from New Jersey.

SVZ: Right? Which is a state out of time. 

JL: And it has never been trendy.

Stevie Van Zandt: No. That working-class thing that we have been known for is true in that sense. We took the craft very seriously. We actually got successful commercially quite late in life. We were in our late 20s and early 30s before we had a hit. We were already journeymen. We were already working-class people doing this thing very early on. And we never changed. Yes, we were lucky to have some commercial success. That was wonderful, but that was never really the point.

I like what you said about fans being personal with your generation of bands. I always think music finds you at the right time. “Letter To You” was announced literally the day my grandfather died, and it was a horrible day, but that music, the idea that my favorite band had a new album that I could look forward to, was very buoyant. And then I listened to the album when it came out, and obviously, it’s very much about loss. It really spoke, I don’t know how, but it spoke so perfectly to what I was feeling about the death of my grandfather.

Some of the songs are about Clarence Clemons. Stevie, as a member of The E Street Band, how was playing these songs? How are you looking back at the things you’ve lost as a creative group? How has that been for you through this tour?

SVZ: It’s been very emotional, and it colors some of the songs in the set, not just the “Letter To You” songs. We’ve loosened it up a little bit this year, but in the beginning, the first year of the tour, which the film is all about, we only had that one section in the middle, Where “Last Man Standing” turns to “Back Streets” and then to “See You In My Dreams” at the end. That was the only time that the hurricane of this show slowed down for a minute. When Bruce went into that rap for the first time, which he had just gone into on stage, we didn’t rehearse it or anything, that rap at the end of “Back Streets”. I was crying. I burst into tears on stage, you know. The whole show had an extra bit of emotion to begin with because of the theme, but when he came out with that rap, I was just unbelievably emotional. 

And I think the audience is feeling it, too, because we have the greatest audience in the world. We really do. This particular record and this particular tour are taking their enthusiasm one notch higher than I would have even thought possible, honestly. Because of that, that particular emotional theme is getting through to people, even if they’re not older; it’s giving people hope about being older. Like, geez, you really can continue to be productive and vital as you get older. We’re proving that every day. The Rolling Stones were out there proving it before we did. That is an inspirational thing, I think, for an audience that has grown up with us, and now some of them are experiencing the same age that we’re in. We’re closer to the end than the beginning, but that doesn’t mean it’s over, that you can’t still be productive. And I think that’s a very important thing to communicate right now. 

JL: One of the things the film shows on this point of of emotional connection and his ability to reach into people and speak to what they may be feeling at any moment in time, is that when he does the two songs from the album, “Last Man Standing” and “I’ll See You In My Dreams,” the film shows in those performance pieces, which were both taken from the European stadium shows in countries where English is not the first language, that you hear complete silence. The last song of the night is “I’ll See You In My Dreams,” and I watch it repeatedly. For most of the shows, it’s actually amazing that nobody leaves. At rock shows or sports events, when you get to the home stretch, a lot of times, people’s attention starts to turn to the parking lot and avoid the jam getting out and all of those kinds of practical things that start to intrude. But with our show, nobody leaves. I looked up and saw that the aisles were empty. In other words, there’s nobody in them. People are there till the end. 

One of the things I do think about our film, and talking about the personal nature Stevoe is talking about and how Bob Dylan epitomized it and set the standard for everything going forward, is that the music took this quantum leap into being a means of personal expression, as opposed to relying on genre and formula. And this has continued with us to this day. I think the film addresses the emotion that Bruce is able to create. My feeling is, generally, with a rock documentary, you’re not used to crying. Most of the people I’ve had a chance to show the film to personally have had such a deep response. 

Even though I participated in the creation of it, when I watch it now when you get to the prayer at the end that was written by Jim Morrison, that is such a profound statement of what I believe is at the core of the Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band experience. Which is fundamentally that I think it’s a spiritual show. There’s the entertainment, there’s the excitement, there’s the fun, there’s the seriousness and so forth. But the whole thing at the end is designed, if it all works the way it ideally should, is to lift you. Bruce himself addresses it directly in that closing monologue, which ends with him saying that his job is to share and to elevate. In this film this is when he’s standing in the chapel in Ireland, we used that sequence to emphasize the spiritual nature of what he sees is his mission. I think he does see it as a mission, by the way. 

As you said, this documentary was filmed over the first year of the tour. Once you have thousands of hours of footage, how do you figure out which cuts, which scenes, and which audiences most specifically showcase what you want to show about the spirituality of the show?

JL: Well, that’s why we have a director. Thom Zimny does that. Thom sets the table for Bruce, and he has gone through and reviewed everything, and he is zeroed in on what he thinks works best for what we’re trying to express overall. One of the things that you’ll notice, or I noticed, is that in a lot of the live footage, there is just as much coverage of the audience as there is of what’s happening on stage. And I know Thom, from discussing it with him, was especially looking for shots of the crowds where you could see people’s eyes, and you could get a read of the audience emotionally, even in the crowded shots. 

Of course, we had our little Greek chorus of fans. We had the woman from Barcelona, the Irish fella, and the man from Norway. All these people have great insights into the show. Though they’re reflections, they are you. They’re meant to be you talking about the show and to be the voice of the audience. What they say is complimentary. But that’s not the point. The point is that what they say has value is their emotional response and their ability to articulate it and explain what makes it special for them. That’s just terrific stuff, and I was very glad we included it in the film. But that is to say, our director, Thom, is not to be underestimated. We love him. Mission accomplished for him with this film.

SVZ: It helped that Thom had a vision for what this film should be right from the beginning, which is certainly a great help when you’re looking through thousands of images. And like Jon said, I think it was very much mission accomplished.