BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN:
My Deal with the Devil
THE BOSS TALKS TO A NOVELIST (WHO'S ALSO A FRIEND AND A FAN) ABOUT TIME, LOVE AND MUSIC, CONFESSING HIS COMMITMENT TO ROCK THE HOUSE WHILE ON TOUR IN EUROPE
By Leonardo Colombati
With Working on a Dream, Bruce became the first foreign artist to reach the #1 position on the Italian album chart ten times.
"Wow, that’s incredible!" he says. "The Italian audience was always one of the most deepest and the most loyal and fanatic... It's an endless pleasure to come back to Italy, it's always magic. I always look forward to coming back."
It’s a love story that started 24 years ago when you played at S. Siro Stadium in Milan for the first time.
"I remember that show pretty well."
Last time that we met, we recalled your second concert at S. Siro, in 2003…
"Yeah. After a couple of songs it started to rain very heavily, and we thought that we had to stop because of the lightning. But none of you 60,000 crazy Italians moved, so we continued to play and the result was one of the five most amazing shows of my entire career."
Talking about Italy, Sergio Leone, a film director that exerted a big influence on your work, died exactly 20 years ago. The first track of Working on a Dream, "Outlaw Pete," reminds me of the atmosphere of the soundtrack of The Good, The Bad and the Ugly…
"It was a little homage," he laughs. "I had a cowboy song and I said I got to dress this up with a little bit of Ennio Morricone's style. They were fabulous movies, and of course Ennio is one of the greatest composers for film in the world. He made an incredible body of work. A lovely man, I had the honor of meeting him a couple of times."
* * *
Show time is near. But I want to know about Bruce’s future releases.
In the last couple of years you wrote some solo stuff…
"I’m always writing,” he laughs. "I write all the time."
Will it be your next project?
"I don't know. I think that the E Street Band will probably take a rest for a little while. But it all will happen again. We're lifers, we're gonna go on forever..."
What about the Darkness box set?
"Oh yeah, that's something we're working on. We take it slow and try to put something together that would be nice for fans."
Bruce, before we finish… We were talking about requests. Can I do mine?
"Sure."
I would love to hear "Once Upon a Time in the West" while you are entering on stage in Rome, like you have done a couple of times in the past.
"Okay, let me write it down and see what we can do! Take care, my friend."
VANITY FAIR ITALY 17.06.2009
©2009 LEONARDO COLOMBATI / EDIZIONI CONDé NAST S.P.A
www.backstreets.com
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