LITTLE STEVEN & THE DISCIPLES OF SOUL

Like most good disciples, Little Steven and the Disciples Of Soul have several important missions to accomplish on earth, and one of these is to update the rock ’n’ roll lifestyle for the 1980s. In their gypsy/outlaw gear (an assort-

ment of bandannas, headbands, earrings and long black raincoats with the band’s insignia on the back), the Disciples look more like a gang of New York street thugs than they do professional musicians, so it’s hilarious to see the bewildered glances they receive from the clientele at Dearborn’s Hyatt Regency Hotel, where I’m first introduced to this motley crew. Obviously the guests at this elite Michigan inn aren’t used to the odd sight of, among other things, a black man with a peroxided Mohawk haircut, and they certainly must associate these characters with all the dark things they’ve heard about rock ’n’ rolldrugs, violence and “God, imagine what must go on in their hotel rooms!”

The" Hyatt guests would probably be even more bewildered if they knew that the entire band and crew adhere to a policy of “no smoking/no drugs/no alcohol” on the road, bnd that they spend several hours a day going through a rigorous, mandatory excercise program on a portable gym that conveniently fife in one of the tour buses. All of which sounds fine and dandy, but as anyone familiar with the archetypal Keith Richards image might ask: is this rock ’n’ roll?

“Well, it’s the rock ’n’ roll of the ’80s,” explains Steve Van Zandt (alias Little Steven'; alias Miami Steve), the ‘mastermind behind this subversive plot. Van Zandt is sitting in the back of the band’s bus, slouched across a couch in a manner that an ex-girlfriend of mine once called “adolescent.” (He does sing “I will never grow up” on the title track on his debut LP.) His gypsy style and droopy, puppy dog eyes make him alternately look like a swashbuckler and a little kid—a perfect visual complement to his philosophies on life and work, which Combine stoicism with a naive idealism.

“Instead of a drug connection, we have our trainer and portable gym,” he continues. “I feel it’s essential. It’s not a fad or a temporary diversion from drinking too much or anything like that because it’s absolutely replaced those things. No one can give a hundred percent if they’re not in shape, and that’s what we’re interested in right now—giving a hundred percent all the tjme. It’s the difference between the old school and the new one, and I think audiences are going to start to discern the difference between people who are dissipated and those who aren’t. And it is a rebellious type of thing. I personally found it very easy to .stop doing drugs once the teachers, policemen and lawyers started doing them. Once they started getting high, it was very easy for me, being rebellious, to get straight! These days if kids are getting high, they’re just imitating their parents, aren’t they? So it’s definitely gonna change.

“The old stereotype of rock was very tied with all the excesses of show business—drugs, excessive drinking, having to screw everyone you laid your eyes on. That’s not it anymore—at least not for us, and I think there are a lot of other people around who are going to be surfacing. Rock ’n’ roll is more than entertainment. I think it should be integrated with life. What we are onstage is what we are offstage as well, and it shouldn’t be that old celebrity thing where you’re untouchable, doing something that the audience could never do. That’s just not healthy! I want the audience to take the show home, with them, and see that we do a job just like they do a job and maybe they can apply some of that to their lives. Maybe it can motivate them in some way to work a little harder, to do something to help themselves, or whatever form it might take. It’s an inspirational thing. It happened to me, -you know, and I hope it will now start to happen again for others.”

Once the police started getting hlghf It was very easy for me to get straight. 99

For those who lead a hermitie existence, it might be necessary to note that Van Zandt is probably best known as Miami Steve, the guitarist and right hand man in Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band since 1975. Prior to his E Street gig, Van Zandt was the founding member of the Asbury Jukes, a band he continued to produce and compose for until they went their own way in 1979. Anyone fortunate enough to hear Van Zandt’s work with the Jukes already knows that the man is a major musical talent. “I Don’t Want To Go Home” was one of the most' wonderful songs of the ’70s, while-Hearts Of Stone was one of the decade’s most beautiful “brokenheart” albums.

Van Zandt assembled the Disciples Of Soul last year after several EMI executives proposed he record a solo LP. The band is basically an extension of what he tried to accomplish with the Jukes, as well as on the two LPs he’s produced for Gary U.5. Bonds, and that is a synthesis of contemporary rock and pop with the classic R&B sounds of the 1960s. Robert Christgau recently wrote in the Village Voice • that black music is the relevant music of the ’80s, and that may well be true in the major ethnic melting pot that is New York City. But in the American heartlands where black music is still often viewed in the most grotesque racist terms by white rock fans and where something like “The Message” is still often equated with a “disco sucks” attitude, the Disciples’ debut LP, Men Without Women (the title’s from an Ernest Hemingway book), seems to be the most logical step in educating the ignorant: blacks and whites together playing a musical blend of black and white styles that display how it all fits together. It’s sort of an American equivalent of the British 2-tone movement.

“The single thing that angers me the most about radio today is that it’s not raceless.” Van Zandt is*clearly agitated. “We had a lot of trouble with Bonds because he’s too white for black radio and too black for white radio. I get tired of hearing this because that hybrid of black and white is the only type of music I really like. Everything’s gotten very categorized—you have to have a certain beat to be on black radio and you almost never hear blacks on rock stations. You’re hearing that one Michael Jackson song with Eddie Van Halen, but that’s a joke. That ain’t gonna last because it’s just a token situation. Unfortunately, I don’t really "see things changing unless someone does a KROQ (one of the first U.S. stations to program “new” music) sort of thing with black and white radio. If you look at a radio station’s record library, there’s so much to play—it’s amazing how many good things there are. And what they end up playing is extraordinary! It seems to me they really have to look hard to find the mediocre, emotionless pap they’ve been peddling for the last 10 years!

“AM radio is the only small democracy left—where you can hear a country song followed by a black song. Unfortunately, the output isn’t nearly as good right now as it was in the ’60s. The ’60s was the only time when the best music ever made was also the most popular, so we got spoiled growing up then. But. I, of course, keep hoping that it will come.back again.”

Hope appears to be one of the key words in Van Zandt’s vocabulary, and it’s a word that’s tied in with his idea of rock ’n’ roll being more than mere entertainment. To. borrow a phrasd coined by his pal Bruce, Van Zandt is another “prisoner of rock ’n’ roll” (who else do you know had their marriage performed by the Reverend Little Richard?), and like Springsteen, he uses the music as an expression of hope and personal salvation; On compositions like “Inside Of Me” and “Until The Good Is Gone,” Van Zandt seems to view the music in almost religious terms. In fact, the name “Disciples” has definite religious connotations.

“The passion of soul music came out of the church,” he explains, “apd that particular passion is still in a straight line. First; it was gospel in the church, and then it took on a romantic quality in the ’60s. The same passion that was once for God was transferred to women or relationships. The whole Motown thing was based on that emotional gospel thing, only in a romantic setting. And now we’re hopefully evolving it to the next step which is an emotional commitment to humanity in general.” . ’

But isn’t he a bit worried about being labeled naive in light of the “rock is dead” critical attitude that’s grown prevalent during the last several years? „ .

“That’s absurd! People have been telling me that my whole life. I think people are a little afraid of the power of rock ’n’ roll. It’s a powerful form of communication, and I especially noticed it when we recently took the band to Germany. We played to 8,000 people who didn’t understand a word I said, had never heard the songs before, and they still went crazy. That’s a real direct communication, something that even governments and religion can’t accomplish. Rock ’n’ roll’s not going away. It’s going to be bigger than ever, I think. It’s going to be important again. It’s been irrelevant for so many years that it’s time for it to change again. ”

Although his lyrics are subtler than those of someone like Joe Strummer, Van Zandt also views rock in political terms, since the very idea of hope and rock salvation in ’83 seems to be a bit of a political statement in itself.

‘“I think that rock ’n’ roll is inherently political because it suggests an individual freedom. I find that no matter what you’re saying ip the lyrics, it’s saying something political because a-basic sense of freedom is being expressed, and there’s something revolutionary in that. That’s why they’ve always been a bit nervous about rock in iron curtain countries. But ‘Lyin’ In A Bed Of Fire’ is specifically political. That and ‘Under The Gun’ were the two songs that I looked outside rather than inside to write. I actually wanted my first record to satisfy the inside things first— saying who I was and what I believed in. Having done that, I just decided to look around for the last few songs.

“I think we’re losing America. America is for the first time starting to lose its identity. I just see apathy all around, and the hope we had in the ’60s—that we were going to change the world—is gone. It just seems like all we learned was how to get high and go into a coma in the end. We’ve either given up or gotten too comfortable. People no longer feel they have control of their destinies, and there’s terrible frustration, so there’s no reason to hope or dream. But we’ve got to regain that control, and go out there and change something—starting with our own lives, of course. And that’s probably the main theme of the album.”

Although the LP deals with the themes of motivation, discipline and strength under pressure, there’s a lot of romantic vulnerability displayed as well, something that seems inevitable when a person exposes as much of their inner self as Van Zandt does in his lyrics. The vulnerability, while not a weakness (though some would interpret it as such), almost seems at odds with the Disciples’ tough street image and Van Zandt’s stoic beliefs, but he feels that the two actually go hand-in-hand.

‘ “I wrote the entire LP around ‘Save Me’ and ‘Inside Of Me.’ Those are the two it was built on. ‘Inside Of Me’ is about strength, and ‘Save Me’ js about vulnerability. The rest of the album falls into those two categories. Those two themes run throughout, and they’re actually the yirl and yang of what’s inside everyone. I think it’s important for everyone to recognize that, because you’d be a liar if you said you never feel vulnerable.”

While he claims that Springsteen is very supportive of outside projects by E Street members, one of the reasons he chose the name Little Steven (in addition to it sounding like the moniker of an old blues singer) was to disassociate himself from the Springsteen connection. “Miami Steve is associated with Bruce exclusively. I was doing something quite apart from that, and I wanted to avoid exploiting my friend. Also it helped Miami Steve as a producer because even though Miami and Little Steven are both me, it was nice to be able to separate and say, ‘OK, I can see Little Steven. This is his identity.’ And that’s the most important thing for a producer.”

It would seem that between the Disciples, the E Street Band, a new marriage and outside producing chores, Van Zandt might be spreading himself a little thin. “Unfortunately, I can’t spread myself too thin because I’m too committed to whatever I’m doing at the time. But what happens is I’m stacked up for a fqw years. That’s just fine, because you wait so many years just to be able to Work. I feel for everyone who’s out of work right now, because I was unemployed for 25 years and it’s a real drag. So when I finally get to the point where I can work, I don’t want to stop now.”

So if the Disciples took off really big, would he consider leaving the E Street Band?

“Well, it’s got nothing to do with how big it gets. At the moment I’m trying to figure these things out and schedule myself in every sense. I’m trying to work it out, but it is possible in the long run. From the time I began this record, I knew I was adding a new first priority in my life, inevitably meaning that the E Street Band would no longer come first. At the moment, it looks like things are going to work out this year. My tour will be over by summer, so I’ll be able to go on the road with Bruce then. But it’s going to get more and more difficult I know, so it’s something I have to work out.”

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The Disciples are performing tonight at Detroit’s St. Andrew’s Hall, an enviroment reminiscent of the legendary ’60s Grande Ballroom. Despite a faulty PA, the band’s sound is faithful to what they put on vinyl—which makes sense, as Men Without Women was recorded live in the studio, with the band in a circle using monitors instead of headphones.

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The band cuts a colorful ethnic hodgepodge onstage, highlighted by percussionist Monti Louis Ellison (who Van Zandt, recruited from the Alvin Ailey dance troup), cavorting around in an American Indian headdress; former Plasmatics bassist Jean Beauvior (who once played with Gary U.S. Bonds, and was highly recommended by the singer); drummer Dino Danelli, who’s as powerful today as he was with the Young Rascals, one of the ’60s’ best R&B-influenced white groups (Van Zandt mentions that a Rascals reunion still may become reality in the near future), and the Stax-oriented, five-piece (former) Asbury Jukes horn section led by Richard “La Bamba” Rosenberg, one of the most passionate dancers in rock ’n’ roll today.

Musically, the show is an ethnic hodgepodge as well. It has the same feel as an Apollo R&B show of the ’50s and early ’60s, yet is also has the hardcore rock ’n’ roll feel -of, say, classic (meaning early) Stones or Who. It’s especially interesting to hear the band play their own songs, old Asbury Jukes chestnuts like “I Don’t Want To Go Home” and “Take It Inside,” and covers of soul tunes by the likes of Marvin Gaye and Aretha Franklin, as Little Steven howls in a nasal whine that many people have compared to a hybrid of Bob Dylan and Keith Richards.

“Personally, I thought I was closer to Pavarotti” he jokes. “I don’t know, where they got that comparison. No, I’ll tell you the truth. My biggest influences were Sam Cooke, Davtd Ruffin, Levi Stubbs and guys like that. I’m sure there’s Dylan, the Stones, and the Beatles—all those groups I grew up with are certainly there, and 1 wouldn’t deny they’re influences because they’re all terrific. But when I try to sing, I think it’s Sam Cooke. If it comes out Keith, what can you do?”

It’s an .exciting show. The band works incredibly hard onstage—all that exercise pays off in the end—and the audience seems to leave incredibly happy. Whether the show will “motivate” or “inspire,” as Van Zandt hopes, is anyone’s guess. Sometime I think I’m getting a little too old and jaded to believe that rock ’n’ roll is really capable of “saving” anyone or anything (though I may change my mind tomorrow), but as the realistic-yet-romantic writer who coined the title Men Without Women once wrote: “Isn’t it pretty to think so?”

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One final thing about Van Zandt. The man never smiles. Even when he “laughs” or makes a joke, his lip curls in a sneer that would have made Elvis proud, but it really can’t be termed a “smile.” Isn’t that a bit odd for someone who combats cynicism and pessimism as strongly as he does?

“Well, what’s cynical about that? This isn’t a funny world, Bill, and I don’t see anything too funny to smile about. Just because I’m an optimist doesn’t mean that I don’t realize the world sucks. There’s fucking wars, find we’re all going to die of a horrible disease, and your friends die every day. But for some reason—it may be a paradox, 1 don’t know—I don’t like pessimistic people. I don’t like nihilists and I don’t like cynics. I don’t have any cynical friends because 1 figure as long as we’re here, we may as well make the best of it, and not whine about it. It’s hard enough without people telling you how bad it is all the time.”

So what does he hope to achieve in the future?

“There are so many things, ya know. One thing I’m most interested in is working with singers from the ’60s who are in limbo. There are so many of those people around—and no record companies are interested in them anymore. And it makes me mad. I think successful record producers should have to take off three months, every other year even, and do a record with these guys.Because they were so important. ,They gave so much to our culture, and they never made any money.

“I also want to make films. I like films. We made a full-length feature of Men Without Women that we’re going to try to get into a film festival or two, and then maybe take to art theatres, the midnight shows and cable TV. It’s fun, and there’s a lot you can do with films from an artistic standpoint. We’d like to get it back to the streets, and that’s what I think we did with Men Without Women.

“Other than that, I hope to end all wars and cure all diseases. Until that day, I’ll just keep rockin’.” ^