Steven Van Zandt on Norway, Netflix and the E Street Band

Steven Van Zandt, also known as Miami Steve and Little Steven, has many talents.  He first became famous as a member of the E Street Band, and later gained fame in an entirely new arena playing Silvio Dante on HBO’s The Sopranos.  Since 2002 he’s also been hosting an international  weekly radio show–  Little Steven’s Underground Garage.  He recently stopped by to talk with Ron Bennington about his new television series — the first original programming to be broadcast on Netflix— Lilyhammer. Excerpts from that interview appear below.

Ron Bennington: March 9th there’s going to be a live performance of Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band at the Apollo theater. Little Steven, how you doing man? How excited are you about doing a show at the Apollo?

Steven Van Zandt: You know what? It is exciting. I’ve never played there. I’ve been there, but….it’s just a shrine. A temple of rock and roll music. All the soul music that went through there– such a big influence on us.

Ron Bennington: There are certain rooms…that you want to get on your resume.

Steven Van Zandt: That’s it. Super Bowl. The Apollo. (Laughs)

Ron Bennington: There you are, you have it. First of all, congratulations. I saw the opening episode of Lilyhammer, which I think is so much fun. Now, I’m a big fan of the fish out of water type of comedy. It’s a New York guy and he’s over there in Norway trying to re-start his life.

Steven Van Zandt: Yeah. It’s really a fish out of water. I mean we use that term but this is the real thing. They’re such a straight country. They’re a mono-culture of five million people that nobody knows anything about really. People don’t know much about Norway so it’s kind of fun to reveal what that country’s all about. But the truth is, there is no crime whatsoever. Outside of Oslo they don’t even lock their doors. They’re very trusting, very tough people; very rugged individual people. And here comes this one man crime wave, you know, all he knows is crime. But he has to fit in to society…at least make the effort. And they make rules and they follow rules. That’s how they are over there.

Ron Bennington: Now when you went there to shoot this, you had to stay there a long time, right?

Steven Van Zandt: I was there six months off and on.

Ron Bennington: Was there a certain point where there’s only so much that you can take?

Steven Van Zandt: Well here’s the thing. They wanted me there for like three straight months for the filming and I said I can’t do that. I’ve got my whole thing going on. I got my radio stuff. I said if you can schedule it, I will come every other week. So that’s what I did. I flew home or I flew there every Saturday.

Ron Bennington: You don’t mind all of that air travel going back and forth?

Steven Van Zandt: You know what? I liked it. Because I got a chance to write. I got a chance to watch movies on the iPad. Nobody bugged me, it was like nine hours of solitude and sanctuary.

Ron Bennington: One of the things that I loved is, you’re speaking English, but they’re speaking their native tongue going back and forth.

Steven Van Zandt: This was the trickiest part. We spent a year writing it. I became one of the writers and that was the biggest question. How much English? and would this work? And it turned out it actually works quite well. Rather than a typically subtitled show, which some people just don’t like, all of sudden just because the lead is speaking English, you kind of become that guy and you’re in that circumstance.

Ron Bennington: And it helps you be in his character. Because he’s going to be an outsider no matter how long he’s there.

Steven Van Zandt: That’s exactly right. It turned out to be an experiment that I think worked quite well. This new idea of one person speaking English in a show.

Ron Bennington: The thing too– their language is not easy on our ear. It’s almost like they’re speaking backwards.

Steven Van Zandt: Well I joke around with them, and they have a terrific sense of humor about themselves. And when people over there would ask me about the language, I’d say listen, all due respect, this is where people come when they need an alien language. They come here for Vulcan.

Ron Bennington: But right over there now, it’s a monster hit in Norway. You said there’s five million people– and over a million watched the first episode.

Steven Van Zandt: Yea, it just started two weeks ago and biggest viewing audience in history. And we thought– well, that’s natural because there’s going to be a lot of curiosity that first week. The second show just aired a night or two ago, and the audience increased. So it’s really quite something. It’s nice. It’s different for Norway as well, because obviously a foreign guy starring in a show is weird enough. But also we’re pushing the envelope a little bit because it’s a little bit lighter than the Sopranos. It’s not an out-and-out a comedy– it’s more what they call a dramady. We couldn’t be as violent. There is some violence in it; for them it’s a lot. For us it’s not. You can have sex and be naked in prime time over there– but they’re not crazy about violence. It’s the opposite of us. We can slaughter anybody you want at 5:00 in the afternoon, nobody says a word but don’t show any naked women! God forbid! So they’re higher evolved than we are.

Ron Bennington: And you’re this person known all over the world for several things– for the E Street Band of course but also your radio show plays over there.

Steven Van Zandt: Yes, I’m on a national station over there– it’s a big big station. Radio Norge is one of their biggest stations nationwide. And most of Europe. My show’s been on over there for years.

Ron Bennington: American rock and roll has traveled the world, and even in some places, they keep it more precious than we do in the states.

Steven Van Zandt: You know what, you’re right about that. Especially Scandinavians I find, are complete Americana freaks. They know everything about our culture– much more than we do, and respect it more. All kinds of music, and film and the arts in general, they’re very hip about American art and culture. And really respect it. And the government brings them up that way because the government respects and supports the arts. There’s national theater in like five, six cities and the best actors in Norway all want to be in the show because it’s a wacky different show. So we have the Lawrence Olivier of Norway playing a taxi driver in Lilyhammer. It’s a crazy combination. But they support– they pay for the theater productions and keep the ticket prices low so the common person can see the best art in the world very cheaply and the actors are actually on the payroll of the government. It’s incredible.

Ron Bennington: And it’s something we’ve never done a lot of in this country.

Steven Van Zandt: We’re the only people in the world that see art as a luxury. Nobody else thinks that. Everyone else understands that it’s an essential part of the quality of life.

Ron Bennington: You’re right we just see it as a commodity, as something we don’t need. Jerry Lee Lewis is loved in places in the world– where here in his own home country young people aren’t even that aware of him.

Steven Van Zandt: He’s a God. We’ve been living among the Gods among us still. Up until recently, five of the eight guys who invented rock and roll are still touring.

Ron Bennington: Little Richard is still out there….

Steven Van Zandt: ….Chuck Berry…Jerry Lee Lewis….Fats Domino is still alive. We just lost Bo Diddly fairly recently. These are Gods. They will be thought of as historically important figures 100 years from now.

Ron Bennington: And that goes back to the kind of radio that you do. I think what’s cool about it is, you are willing to keep educating people. It’s almost a turn off to use that word but the Stones, I thought were always great. The Stones introduced me to so many performers either by covering them or talking about them on stage.

Steven Van Zandt: Me too. And we do the same thing but like you say, we don’t do it in an academic way. We’re just playing all these records and you can connect the dots yourself. But the British Invasion is the center of our format, and then we play everything that the British Invasion influenced and everything that influenced the British Invasion. So everything connects. And it’s nice to hear the Rolling Stones version of Time Is On Our Side but then we’ll play the Irma Thomas original so you can get a sense of how they changed the arrangement and changed the production. You know, that stuff’s interesting. People like it.

Ron Bennington: I’ve heard you talk about this too– how great bands will cover music for a long time before they decide to start something new.

Steven Van Zandt: That’s so important, honestly Ron, you see a lot of groups these days skipping that phase of their career which is the most important phase. You start to learn the basics on your instrument, and then you form a band. And the next thing you should be doing is playing clubs and bars depending on how old you are, playing covers of your favorite songs. That’s who your identity is going to be made up of. And what happens when you start playing those songs, is you are not only raising your standards in terms of when you do start writing, but you’re also learning how to perform– two things that will affect the rest of your life. Everything we’re doing today as the E Street Band, we learned in those days when we were performing covers. And we were learning how to perform and interact with an audience. In those days we were all dance bands. People danced to rock and roll, which I know is a shocking thought. But there was no disco, none of that yet, people actually danced to pure rock and roll. And so we had to make them dance or else we wouldn’t work. So that extra energy– to get people out of their seats and dance, we never lost.

Ron Bennington: And that was always the win– when people jumped up– oh we’ve turned the crowd now. Where it seems now, like we’re like “oh you should be a star, you should be part of the machine.” But they’re not in the tradition of any kind of music any more.

Steven Van Zandt: There’s a reason for the expression “pay your dues.” That is a true statement. You need to pay your dues. That means you have to learn your craft. And by the way, it is a craft. It’s not just looking at American Idol and copying somebody singing that style, and now you sing that style. You’ve got to know where it came from. You’ve got to surround yourself with the craft.

Ron Bennington: Somehow craft has become a bad word but the reality is, a classical musician works on craft.

Steven Van Zandt: And so is a carpenter, and so is an iron worker. Craft is craft, and we have lost that in many ways and the music suffers because of it. That’s why we’re all drowning in mediocrity right now.

Ron Bennington: I think the E Street Band never sounded so much like a 70s band as they sounded like a 50s and 60s band. You sounded like you were with the guys that you loved when you were kids.

Steven Van Zandt: I call that period the Renaissance and I mean it. That period– ‘51 to ‘71 about, is our twenty year Renaissance that we lived through, and we were lucky to live through it. And our standards because of that are very very high. And for us we’ll probably never reach them. We’ll probably never get to where the Rolling Stones were or where the Beatles were or the Kinks or the Who or The Yardbirds. These guys are an unattainable goal. But we’re going to keep trying to reach that level. And that’s what we grew up with. And I tell everybody you’ve got to go back to that period, because nothing’s changed. Everything is still coming from that period. And you’ve got to go back to the roots and the source if you want to have your own identity.

Ron Bennington: Do people grow off of each other? Is that the energy that happens?

Steven Van Zandt: Yes, yes. The Beatles set the pace. And everybody had to measure up to them, and they were just amazing. Why were they amazing? Because they were a bar band for five years. Not one year, not two years. Five years in Hamburg, playing six sets a night, seven nights a week. Guess what? You either die or become really great. So by the time we saw them, it was the middle of their career. ‘64 was the middle. They started in ‘58, they were gone by ‘69. So we caught them…it was new to us…but it was the middle of their career. They had seen it all. But anyway, they set the standards and everybody sort of said, well we have to be as good as that. And they had set the standards based on the early 60’s and 50’s music. They were trying to be Buddy Holly.

Ron Bennington: And they thought, “we will never do it.”

Steven Van Zandt: Exactly, in fact they were a little embarrassed when they came here. They were like, “Are you sure? America? They’re going to laugh at us. We’re copying Buddy Holly, we’re copying Sam Cooke, Motown.” They thought people would think this was just a compromised diluted version of the real thing. But they were so good it turned into a new hybrid and a whole new wonderful form itself. But you’re right. You could make an argument that the day the Beatles broke up– the Rolling Stones probably haven’t been quite as good ever since. Because you didn’t need to be.

Ron Bennington: You love playing with people right? Who are the people that you were like, I cannot believe that I’m on stage with this person.

Steven Van Zandt: (laughs) Well, the first time you’re standing next to Bob Dylan is thrilling because he was so important. He changed the world literally, by himself. He introduced serious lyrics to the entire popular music world. Sam Moore from Sam and Dave. We modeled South Side Johnny and the Asbury Jukes after we went and saw Sam and Dave. You’re always a little reluctant with your heros. I never wanted to meet my heros. Because if they turn out to be assholes, it was going to affect my life because their music was that important to me. So I always try to keep my distance.

Ron Bennington: Sometimes there are people who can be great stars, and their personalities are assholes, but it doesn’t change the fact that they’ve done great work.

Steven Van Zandt: Oh no. The art is always better than the artist. That’s for sure. That goes without saying. But you just have to keep your distance from the artist. Embrace the art, keep your distance from the artist.

Ron Bennington: I love that, man. He gets to do so much now, and there’s so many people out there now that get opportunities and don’t take advantage of them, but I don’t think you can ever say that about Steven Van Zandt. Acting, giving back as far as introducing great new artists and traditional artists on your radio station. The chance that the E Street Band is going to be playing the Apollo, which is already historic before it’s even happened. Now you guys have to measure up to it.

Steven Van Zandt: Thanks a lot (laughs)

Ron Bennington: Make sure you check out Lilyhammer. On Netflix. The whole thing is going to be introduced on Netflix right?

Steven Van Zandt: Monday. All eight episodes, which is how people watch things now. Two and three at a time. And it’s quite a compliment that they chose us to be their first original programming. They’re a very big company and they’re starting with this very quirky thing with subtitles. And that’s how they are– to just go with something that’s great and not worry about anything else.

Ron Bennington: Thanks so much, Steven Van Zandt.

Steven Van Zandt: Alright Ronnie, cool.

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You can hear this interview in its entirety exclusively on SiriusXM satellite radio.  Not yet a subscriber?  Click here for a free trial subscription.

You can watch Lilyhammer exclusively on Netflix.  Get information on Little Steven’s Underground Garage here.