LITTLE STEVEN: THREAT OR MENACE?

LITTLE STEVEN: THREAT OR MENACE?

FEATURES

Laura Fissinger

Once upon a time the Federal Bureau of Investigation was more talked about than Michael Jackson is now. Seems that lots of folks got disrespectful during the ’60s, and tried to do disrespectful things like party-hearty, stop wars, you know the routine. The FBI started keeping files on these upstarts, and the upstarts started to talk about the FBI; why not, seeing that everybody from the neighborhood protest organizer to John Lennon got honored with their very own bigtime biography lurking somewhere in a locked file cabinet. Now that things like Central America and the MX missile are making everyone party like it’s 1999, the disrespectful rabble-rousers are getting going once again. So, like, how’s the file fun going at the FBI, we wondered? After we heard the very rabble-rousing new LP by Steve Van Zandt (Voice Of America) we went and demanded the goods. Sure enough, there it was, Mr. Van Zandt with insurrectionary quotes, incriminating facts, and a tape of his music marked “very dangerous—great rock ’n’ roll.” Steven, beware, they’re watching you! Then again, so are we. A pair of shades and a dime-store beard are on the way. NAME: Steven Van Zandt

ALIASES: “Miami Steve,” “Little Steven,” “Bruce’s guitar player,” “That gorgeous guy.”

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: 510"; medium build; black hair and eyes; perpetual scarf or hat on head; lot§ of jewelry and leather; a menacing look; rasta braids; what some refer to as “brooding good looks.”

FAMILY: Parents and siblings; wife Maureen; extended family of musicians, “fans” and associates connected to Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band. We could not question Van Zandt in his native Jersey shore area without risking severe physical disrepair to our agents.

EDUCATION: Minimal and reluctantly received. “I’ve always felt it was a terrible task to try to educate someone during their school years and during the teen years. When you’re 14 or 15, whatddya wanna do? You wanna fuck, that’s what you wanna do—you don’t wanna learn about Hemingway, you wanna fuck and rock ’n’ roll and that’s a chemical fact, that’s Physics 101. Plus, the school system is so fucked up, it doesn’t work. Kids should be encouraged to express themselves, because then they get out that little thing of ‘Hey, I am somebody,’ and then maybe when they’re 14 they don’t want to just fucking cut the teacher’s throat or do drugs. The system doesn’t teach them how to learn, either.” CURRENT PROFESSION: Guitarist, singer, songwriter, producer, performer. Produced, arranged and performed for and with John “Southside” Lyon, Jersey R&B/rock singer, in the middle and late 70s. Wrote and/or produced Lyon LPs considered classics (Hearts Of Stone). Joined Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band in mid’70s as a guitarist, singer and co-producer. Worked on the side with Lyon and soul singer Gary U.S. Bonds, among others. (Bonds is under FBI investigation for middle name.) Cut a first solo LP for EMI Records in 1982, Men Without Women (note suspect LP title). Was brought to this agency’s attention at this time due to barely concealed leftist politics on that record album. Covert leftist leanings confirmed by Van Zandt: “The first album was me finding out who I was, mostly, but there are politics all through it.” Released extremely overt and leftist LP in spring of 1984 called Voice Of America.

FINANCIAL STATUS: Unknown, but potentially shaky, depending on the sales of Voice Of America. “It’s always a long shot for people like me to sort of have any commercial success. It’s always luck.” Our agents have been looking into paying radio not to play it, but they get thrown out of radio station offices for looking too much like Pat Boone. CURRENT ACCESS TO PRINT AND BROADCAST MEDIA: Excellent in part due to the Springsteen connection, but could change due to his departure from same. Could go either way. “Radio is pretty wild, like usual. I have my fanatic fans for this record who went on it five cuts, two cuts, right away. There’s a wide range of response—in that camp they say it might be the record of the year. In the other camp there are people who have refused to play it—they don’t say so, but it’s obviously because Bruce has a new record coming out at the same time. The journalists have all been fair—a little bit scared about the record, maybe, because they like it, but they don’t know if its the time for this thing. It’s the old ‘politics and rock ’n’ roll thing,’ and the idea that they can’t mix. I’ve always felt that rock ’n’ roll is inherently political, myself. When the first few people in radio started giving me and the record company some resistance on Voice Of America, I went to the company and said, ‘Look here, you having any second thoughts?’ They said no. Some people who were not gonna play the record—they’d decided not to play it even before they heard it! And the company said they weren’t gonna let that happen. I give EMI a lot of credit for standing their ground.” It should be noted here that Van Zandt avoided the media during his tenure with Mr. Springsteen, but now seems willing to give multitudes of long, funny, eloquent, intelligent interviews to almost every rock writer in America and Western Europe. Agents with laryngitis are being sent to breathe on him at every tour stop.

FURTHER NOTES ON TWO MAIN WEAK POINTS: Our problem with using Van Zandt’s problems against him is that he knows what his problems are. On politics: “There may not be another record exactly like this in terms of it being 100 percent political. I don’t know exactly what the Irish bands like U2 are doing right now, but I think they’re doing something that’s very unique and new in the way that they’re just talking about real-life problems, and that’s enough for a start. I just hope it does beconrfe a trend or movement or whatever, because that’s the only way it’s gonna work. Obviously one or two bands isn’t enough. The more people the better.”

On Springsteen: “We didn’t think about the release of our new albums being so close together. I don’t think we even knew what each other’s LP titles were until all the cover art work was done. My record company felt that Bruce’s record coming out at the same time was immaterial. They just felt strongly enough about it that the reluctant radio people didn’t matter. What were these radio people thinking, that they only have room for one good record? I mean, Bruce is an old friend of mine. I’ll never look at him like some sort of presence that negates all around him. It is a space movie, sort of, when you gotta talk to some of these people and all they wanna know is what he had for lunch yesterday. After a while it starts to get to you, you have to sort of pull back and keep it in perspective or else you say things you don’t mean. It becomes two people, the person you know and the person they think they know. The Bruce stuff was pretty common during the interviews for Men Without Women, but it’s getting better with this record. Leaving Bruce was not an overnight thing—we talked about it all year. After Voice Of America it seemed obvious that it was time to leave, and Bruce has been nothing but encouraging about it. In the end it’s like two voices are stronger than one—and we need all the voices we can get this year.” We have now put agents on Springsteen. All of them have memorized “Rosalita” and are learning how to lift their fists in the air and yell “Broooooooce”.

"I think most kids consider suicide."

FURTHER ILLUSTRATION OF POLITICAL STANCE: Van Zandt must be considered dangerous, not only for his views but for his full intention to spread them. While we’ve been able to defuse some anti-war activism by helping to make it “uncool,” Van Zandt has been doubly motivated by the “coolness” of the rest of the country. “I’ve never felt more out of sync with my own country than I do right now. I just feel like I’ve witnessed some crime. I just feel like there should be an hysterical tone in the country. There’s this horror going on all around us and we’re in a cocoon, we’re just numb! Everyone’s walking in the street, you know, just walking through their lives. I don’t feel the horror out there that I feel inside me, the sense of imminent disaster. It feels like the ’50s to me, and that’s scary. Look, there’s never been more information available than there is right now—all the information is there if you want it. It looks to me like no one does. You just gotta do every little thing you can do, I guess. I just wanna take everybody in the street and shake them and say, ‘hey, do you know what we’re doing??? Guess what, you’re not going to believe this, but we’re fucking with all kinds of people—would you believe that this is being done in your name, and with your tax dollars?’ I would expect everyone to say ‘what??? Let’s put a stop to this right now!!’ I guess realities are a bit different. The hardest song on Voice Of America. no question, was “I Am A Patriot.” Maybe it’s the hardest one I’ll ever write in my life. Because it’s the hardest line to say—try going out on the street and saying that to one of your cynical friends. It was one of the things I felt I really had to say on the record because I was being so critical of America in other parts of the album. And I didn’t want the record to be about anarchy. I always felt that kind of thing was dated and counterproductive. ‘Let’s finally get something done' is what I wanted to say.”

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PERSONAL PHILOSOPHIES: Our agents feel that Van Zandt’s real threat to American status quo is here: not only does he have a great disdain for conformity, but he seems actively sympathetic and interested in young people who have difficulty fitting into the mainstream. Because he cares about kids and has that surly rock ’n' roll look they so admire, he may well have impact on their formative years. “I think most kids consider suicide. I thought about it somewhere in my teenage years. I know how I felt and I’m sure they felt the same way, too—just that nobody understands, or gives a fuck whether they live or die. They don’t know what they want, or where they fit in, or what’s their justification for existence.

I don’t feel like I really figured out my own ‘til this last year. Communication is so important—if I can get across to somebody who’s thinking about suicide that they are special—that they’re here for a reason. It may take a while before they find out, but if I can just communicate to hang on, to try ,to go in a straight line. Don’t get high anymore, it’s just gonna slow them down. If I could just communicate that before I’m through, it would be good. Another thing we gotta deal with is the paralysis of fear—just pick up the newspaper— there are 40 wars going on in the world right now! You gotta fight the paralysis, and it happens to all of us. And what about the people in the 9-to-5 gigs who feel like they don’t make any difference? I try to get across that everybody in their job has to express themselves somehow. I want to help motivate that person. I don’t care if you’re in a factory and you got them bumpers coming by you—you just gotta initial them, or whatever, or paint ’em a little different. I don’t know what their expression should be, but part of the essence of what I want to accomplish is to get across that the expression is important. For me, finding all this that I wanted to say was the tough part, the really tough part. I had to find myself. How often do you examine everything about yourself—put it out on the table, look at it, hate it. love it, decide to change it, decide you can’t change it, decide what you believe in, why you believe it, why are you on earth?”

CONCLUSION AND AGENCY POSITION: Obviously Van Zandt is on earth to make trouble for those Americans who believe that kids should wear uniforms not electric guitars, while they try to figure out what life means. The agency concludes that because Van Zandt may be one of the few who are capable of getting young people interested again in anti-war and pro-humanist activities, he should be watched carefully, listened to. and regarded as a potent subversive force. All agents assigned to him must wear earrings and leather. And anyone caught enjoying the music will be dismissed immediately.