Rockol meets Bruce Springsteen: a nice chat with the Boss

Rockol meets Bruce Springsteen: a nice chat with the Boss

Bruce Springsteen met the press in London, while promoting his new memoir and companion album. We were there and managed to hear from him stories, points of view, anecdotes and inspiring thoughts.

Here are some of the most interesting answers he has given. Enjoy and feel The Boss!

Bob Dylan, as you proclaimed it, the father of your country, has just received the Nobel Prize of Literature. Do you think this helps or hurts your chances for next year?
No, I'm done. I'm not going there. (Laughter)

More seriously many people were not happy with the decision and that's avsurprise because they said song writing was not poetry in the classic sense. Do you see Dylan and yourself as songwriters, poets, or for you is there no difference?
A big difference. Bob is certainly a poet. I am a hard working journeyman, is the way that I look at it. So we came from a lot of difference influences but in the book I call him the father of my country and that's how I feel about him. I think the first time I heard Bob's music, which was, I didn't hear him until he was on the radio, 1965. I didn't hear any of the acoustic music earlier, I went back later and listened to that, because I was a product of Top 40 radio. So really one of the first things I heard was like The Rolling Stones and I was 15 living in my small town. I think it was the first time, as I say in the book, that I heard a version of my country that felt very tangible and very real. So that started me off in my own little search for whatever I might have to say.

You have given 1000s of interviews over the years and there have been more books written about you than even One Direction, did you feel you needed to set the record straight with this autobiography?
No, no. The record is whatever it is. It is a combination of all the things that people have written about you, good and bad, you know. I didn't feel like I, I didn't have a bone to pick or anything. It was just setting down my experience. Initially I didn't even think I was writing a book, it was something that maybe my kids would enjoy referring to at some point. So it was just something that was enjoyable really. I didn't, you know, I just thought it would be something that would reveal a little bit more about where my music came from. So if you were a fan you might, it just might be informative for you. Then I want it to be entertaining of course, I wanted it to be, kind of, funny and something that was enjoyable to read. So those were my only goals.

Your mother Adele, she was the very first one to believe in your gifts as a writer. How does she look at the book?
Well, you know, she's excited about any fucking thing I do. (Laughter) She's your mother. I'm sure your mothers are proud of what you guys are doing, you know. So I can't really count her response.

You're normally a very private man. Did your mother or let's say any member, a close member of your family, feel that you exposed too much of yourself in the book?
Yeah. You had to, the hardest part of the book to write was the third section where you are writing about every one you know now, you know. So that part took a little more, you know, I read my kids the things that I wrote about them before it came out so, you know, they would feel comfortable with it. Patti and I of course discussed basically that section of the book, just I wanted to make sure she was comfortable with it and she didn't change anything. She was really, she was interested most in the kids' sections and outside of that really, you know, she's an artist and she understood. She wasn't necessarily comfortable with everything and some of the things I wasn't sure whether I was comfortable with myself, you know. But together she, sort of, gave me a lot of room to express myself and I appreciate it from her.

Some people made a count, and they said that you've played over 2,500 times since 1968... how do you keep the flame, that alive, after all these years?
That's easy to do, I mean... if you're standing out in front of 20,000, or 50,000 people, you have to find something to do, or else you're gonna feel naked in three seconds flat, my friend. You're gonna feel very awkward out there! So, sort of, moving into action is a very, you know, it's a natural...the only way you're comfortable up there is by knowing what you're doing. So, as far as that, it's just the commitment, you know, it's the one thing I can do, I really, I have no other skills. I don't do anything else particularly well, it's the one place where I get to validate my existence on earth for a short period of time. And so, I'm always committed, you know. And also, you go out and you look into the faces of the audience, people come with expectations. And what they're willing to do is, they're willing to take that time, you know, pay their hard earned cash, and then come, and open themselves up, in front of you. Which is, you know, you're saying something about yourself, just by your presence, you know, that you've invested yourself in this particular piece of work, you know, for a long period of time. Or a short period of time, because I see plenty of young kids out there. So they're waiting for you to do - as I say, in the book - your magic trick. So, pulling that trick off every night is something I take very personally. And if you're out there, and you don't do it, or if you feel like you missed, it's not a good feeling afterwards, you know. You feel like that promise that you made, when you were so deeply inspired, you failed to pass on. I don't like that feeling, you know. I like come off feeling like, okay, I did my, I played my - I was a little link in that great chain of performing, and song writing, and I got to pass on whatever it is that I know. On any given night, you get to have an enormous impact on someone's life. Music had an enormous impact on mine. So, what's at stake when you go out, I always feel is something that actually matters, you know, it really, it's something that, you know, is going to take place that actually matters to people. And that's what keeps you on the edge of your game.