Bruce Springsteen on documentary ‘Road Diary’, responds to Trump

The fact that “Road Diary: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band” even exists, goes against everything that the boss used to believe. Until a few years ago he admits that he was ‘very superstitious’ about filming the band.

“I did not believe that the magician should look too carefully at his magic trick that it could somehow change,” Springsteen tells the podcast of the Awards Circuit of Variety, in the episode of Emmy Season. “And we were doing well … It is really amazing that we have the films we have when we were a younger man, because I was almost against filming.”

Directed by the old employee Thom Zimny, “Road Diary” – who is currently streaming on Hulu and Disney+ – contains a lot of that archive film, including images from 1975 from Hammersmith Apollo in London. “What was imprisoned was almost accidentally taken prisoner,” he says. “At the Hammersmith Apollo, the BBC has filmed the net. I don’t know if I was even aware that they filmed it that night, and I didn’t look at it for 30 years.”

But in recent years, Springsteen has changed its number. “We are now at a point where we have to film everything we do,” he says. “Once a tour or once an album, I enjoy filming, including films with our records. Now it’s just a part of what we do.” With Zimny, that included “Letter To You”, “Western Stars” and “Springsteen on Broadway”.

“Road Diary” describes Springsteen’s World Tour 2023-2025, which (especially early) was seen as even more introspective than normal. Springsteen came in the tour with a very specific idea of ​​theme and flow, including a set list that was pretty rigid in the beginning.

“I had a very clear idea of ​​what I wanted to sing and write about, what the band and our philosophy were – and what it feels like to agree with your friends, and how it feels at this age to experience your mortality,” he says. “Nowadays you see your friends passing by quite often. Those were problems I thought of.”

That is why the “Nightshift” of the Commodores became an unlikely cover for Springsteen, but it is now a staple and show stopper in his concerts. “I have always loved that song,” he says. “I remember that I was in a bar in Red Bank and just had a drink, and it was on the playlist. And I was stifled. I was a few tequilas in, and that helped, I think, but I heard that song and I said,” God, I love that song. “It was a bit of a lost masterpiece. It wasn’t a number that people called a lot. It eventually became a nice duet between Curtis [King] And me, and it’s just the bottom line is that the emotion is simply in the song. It is a beautiful song about people who pass and work on the night shift. ”

The film tributes to Late original E -Straathemand Members Clarence Clemons (who died in 2011) and Danny Federici (who died in 2008), including old interviews.

“Both come from a film that I had worked on about” Darkness on the Edge of Town, “says Zimny. “And for years I saved those clips and I felt like ‘road diary’, I had this mission not only to bring the sonic qualities of those players and boys in the street in the foreground, but literally to see their expressions again, their smile, hear the musicality of their voices.

Of course not everything is in the film. Springsteen was forced to postpone different dates at the end of 2023 after the diagnosis of stomach ulcer disease, but that hiatus is not tackled here.

“I didn’t think my stomach ulcer was moved, so we left it away,” says Springsteen. “I really enjoyed the free time, but you hate to disappoint your fans. And it actually took a while before the whole thing calmed and returns to myself. So it was an unusual experience, because I am usually quite iron. But no, we never thought it was part of this story.”

The next in Springsteen in Springsteen, Jeremy Allen White will be shown in the biopian “Deliver Me From Nowhere”, playing the boss in a position about making his album “Nebraska” from 1982. The film is adapted by the book by Warren Zanes with the same name and comes from director/writer Scott Cooper.

“They threw the idea and I said,” It sounds like fun, “says Springsteen.” It is an interesting concept, because it is only a few years in my life. It is ’81, ’82, and concentrated on the establishment of that specific record while at the same time I included ‘born in the US’ and also experienced a number of personal problems that I have lived all my life. But it’s fantastic. “

Springsteen says he was impressed by what he saw by Jeremy Allen White, who plays the musician at the time. “I was on tour during much of it, so they filmed a good amount of it without me there,” says Springsteen. “But I was sometimes on the set. It was interesting to play it out, to see your grandmother’s house again, and to go inside and get a general feeling of what it was like when you were very young. So I enjoyed all those parts of it.”

The star recently also made waves on social media when he attended a Los Angeles Lakers game – and caught a flying basketball. “It was catching or bouncing my head,” he says. “So I decided I would catch it.”

As for what is next, Springsteen and the band went up again in May for dates in Europe, followed by Canada. Would he consider another live box set to describe his last decades? “What we are doing now is, we give every show loose,” he notes. “You can have a live show that you want, shortly after we did it. It would be possible to do another live album if we were looking forward to it. But I think there are less popular nowadays because people have the opportunity to buy one of the shows where they have been, or one of the hundred others.”

Asked about the state of the country – and the role of music in responding to what happens to our democracy – Springsteen says that it is something he thinks of. “One of the tasks of the artists to understand the existence of existence and to understand the current times in which you live, and to contextualize those times,” he says. “Every artist does it in a different way. So I have that in my mind, and I am sure it will be reflected in our next stage of the Tour.”