The new biopic “Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere” follows the rock star figuring out what kind of rock star he wants to be. High off major albums and concert tours, Springsteen retreated to New Jersey and made an introspective, and definitely not commercial, album called “Nebraska.”
The basis for the movie is a book by Warren Zanes, an author from Concord, New Hampshire, who interviewed Springsteen and other artists about the musician’s process. He spoke with NHPR’s Morning Edition host Rick Ganley about his experience writing the book and making the movie.
Transcript
Warren, you were part of a big band in the 1980s around the Boston area known as The Del Fuegos. You crossed paths with Springsteen. He literally walked backstage at a show, didn’t he?
Yeah. It was actually two years after ’Nebraska’ came out and we were playing at the Rhinoceros Club in Greensboro, North Carolina. And Bruce and The E Street Band were out touring in support of ”Born in the USA.” They had a night off and we were sitting in our dressing room, and Bruce came in and a few minutes later he was on stage with us. It couldn’t have been more thrilling. I’m not sure I got a coherent sentence out in his presence at that time.
But, you know, you listen to these artists and they’re almost like fantastic beings on the level of Superman. And then if you have the opportunity to meet them, you understand that they’re not. And they’re the same basic scale as you are, and they’ve done many of the things that you’ve done to try to make your way through the world. And it makes art come a little closer in moments like that.
So you transitioned in your career from performer to biographer of rock legends, including Springsteen and Tom Petty. Why is ”Nebraska” the Springsteen album that stuck out for you from your youth?
“Nebraska,” for me, is possibly the greatest left turn in the history of popular music. And when I say greatest left turn, you just don’t see artists who are following up their first number one record by making something on a cassette tape in their bedroom and releasing it. And I remember I bought ”Nebraska” at Pitchfork Records on Main Street in Concord, New Hampshire, and there was an excitement about a new Bruce Springsteen record. You know, he put out “Born to Run,” ”Darkness on the Edge of Town,” ”The River.” It felt like something was building, and then I got “Nebraska.” If I’m honest about it, I was confused by it.
I remember as a kid hearing that, and I remember hearing it for the first time as a kid, and the same thing. You know, he had just put out ”The River” a couple of years before, which was this, you know, there were some big anthems on that, like “Hungry Heart.” And I remember “Nebraska” being a very dark and almost weird record.
Yeah, it was confusing. On ”Nebraska” there was no band. It wasn’t a build. It got smaller and the songs had a kind of despair and hopelessness. So if you were looking for him to continue in the way you thought he was going to go, you were going to be disappointed. But because I believed in Bruce as an artist, I stuck with “Nebraska” until it became my favorite record.But 40 years later, I still didn’t fully understand why you would make a choice like that as an artist. There’s a phrase you deal with your past or your past is going to deal with you, and Bruce is a self-investigator. But he came to that point in his life where childhood trauma that was making it hard for him to live his adult life as he wanted to was coming to the surface. And that’s the moment in which he made “Nebraska.” And the hopelessness and the despair in the characters of the ”Nebraska” songs, that hopelessness and despair was Bruce’s. So the songs weren’t about him, but the songs were about him.
Now you’re a producer on the film ”Deliver Me From Nowhere.” When you were writing the book, could you see the film? Did you picture this as a film? Because I could see it as a documentary, of course, but as a biopic, I’m wondering if you had that vision while you were writing?
Absolutely not. You know, I’d done Tom Petty’s biography, and I knew I wanted to do another biography. And to get to do a littler book on ”Nebraska,” it was almost a smaller pet project for me. And then it had this life of its own. Being on set, it’s a bit overwhelming. You see some famous actors in the room. And behind the cameras, I saw a row of director’s chairs, and I saw one that said Bruce Springsteen, and I saw one that said Jon Landau, and I saw one that had my name misspelled on it. And the person in charge of that was kind of horrified and I said, “Please, you got to leave it.”
It was a once in a lifetime experience. And when it comes to the legacy of this film, I think it’s going to be remembered as a really brave project for Bruce to both allow and support. Generally, in biopics, we see these crescendo moments, the moments of greatest success. And Bruce didn’t choose that. He didn’t choose “Born in the USA.” He chose this time when he was facing this mental health crisis. And what Bruce has done as an artist who’s willing to talk about his own mental health issues, and if more people who are in the public eye started doing what Bruce did, I think we’d all be better for it.
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