Happy Sad Confused - Bruce Springsteen

Episode Date: October 29, 2019

Do we really need to tell you anything about Bruce Springsteen? Well, here's something you might not know: he's made a movie! "Western Stars" represents his feature co-directing debut. Josh details the unusual circumstances that led to him visiting the Boss at his home studio in New Jersey. This is a special one! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Prepare your ears, humans. Happy, sad, confused begins now. Today on Happy, Sad, Confused, Bruce Springsteen on music and the movies. Hey, guys, I'm Josh Horowitz. Welcome to another edition of Happy, Sad, Confused. Yes, I can't believe I said it either. Bruce Springsteen is the guest on today's edition of Happy, Say, Confused. and almost as historically

we have a returning champion Oh, baby. Okay, that's Sammy. If you haven't listened to the Boggest in a while, then nothing's changed, but if you haven't listened to him, Sammy's still alive despite all your conspiracy theories

that I murdered her. Yeah, so if you listen to Happy Second Feud's for a long time, you know Sammy, of course, from the intros, so thrilled that our schedules collided today and for a historic episode of Happy Second View, Sammy. This feels right. This feels, I feel honored, I'm excited, I'm nervous.

I wish I could dig up the, I couldn't dig up the text, I guess, like, when I sent you a photo of me in Springsteen. You seemed like, it wasn't happiness for me. It was, it was rage, I was, I was furious. I was like, because usually, like, you'll give me a heads up if it's someone, and it's like, we've talked about this before. I am a huge, like my whole childhood. I mean, like most people in America. Yeah, you're a human being. defined by Bruce Springsteen and his music.

So when I just, and first of all, just, you all know Josh's happy, sad, confused photos. The first one, the first photo Josh sent me was the confused one of him and Springsteen. So I was like, did you hurt him? Like, what? I mean, the jury's out. We don't know. We don't know. So there was no context, just this photo of Josh making the ugliest, worst face I've ever seen.

That's just my natural face. And Bruce looking upset, and I was furious. I thought you hurt him. I didn't hurt him, as far as I know. He didn't hurt me. There's actually a whole bunch of context of this that I need to give. What happened? Okay.

So here's the story. So about a week and a half ago, I got an email from some folks at Warner Brothers that are putting out Bruce Springsteen's new film called Western Stars, which is, of course, the name of also his new album. So this is a new concert film. It's kind of half-concert film, half Bruce, you know, extemporaneously, I guess not extemporaneously, it's scripted, but talking about life and the themes of the album. He co-directed the film. He wears a cowboy hat I saw in the trailer. He shot these kind of interstitial moments in Joshua Tree. And it's honestly a beautiful movie.

The music's amazing, of course. Anyway, Warner Brothers was like, so we know you don't normally do this kind of thing, but here's an opportunity for you. Take it or leave it. and I almost passed on it because I haven't done I know I know it's kind of crazy but I just haven't done this kind of thing

You shouldn't admit that Well no I want to be transparent about this So for those I don't know There are these things like that journalists do Often called roundtable interviews So this is often for print Where a bunch of journalists Sit literally at a table with the subject

And they toss questions at them And each outlet kind of makes a different article Out of the conversation I mean I did this way back when when I was doing print interviews, but I honestly haven't done this in a long time because of the nature of what I do now. Now, this is Bruce Springsteen. And he's not doing a lot of interviews, and they were like, look, here's what's happening. We're going to send five journalists. That's funny to even call myself that, but whatever I am. Five people, four journalists. And you.

To Bruce's house, home studio in Jersey. They knew I was a big Bruce fan because I told them They put out blinded by the light earlier this year, the big Springsteed-inspired film. And they invited me in four other journalists and said, look, you can have 30 minutes with Bruce. This is a rare opportunity to say the least. And, you know, do you want it? And I did Heminghammed Hall for a second.

And then I was like, I can't pass this up. Smacked yourself in the face in the mirror to Josh. Yes. You have to do this. So what you're going to hear today is an unusual format for the podcast because it's not my exclusive interview at all. You're going to hear other voices on it. Thankfully, there are four other people I definitely respect and like.

We're going to hear Kate Erblan from Indie Wire. You're going to hear Mike Ryan from Uprocks. You're going to hear Eric Davis from Fandango. And you're going to hear Sean O'Connell from Cinema Blend. So we all basically got in a van. Okay. This is what I would paint the picture. We get in a van.

In New York City. In New York City. It's just us and the driver. Like five freaked out. We're all movie people, but we're also crazy Springsteen people. You're also people. We're also people. And to varying degrees, big Springsteen fans.

And you don't listen to music. So the fact that you do listen to Bruce Springsteen says a lot. No, truly. Like growing up probably the only, like, I mean, I was like very much, it was like Springsteen. And my brother, my older brother really is like one of those like crazy Springsteen fans, like lives and dies by him. And I consider myself a big fan, but not in his league. Another reason why I couldn't say no to this, like just my brother.

would, like, kill me if I said no. Just to piss him off. Yeah, basically. So, but yeah, I've probably seen him in concert probably between five and ten times, which for me. Between five and ten. Yeah, which is a lot for me. All over the globe, too.

I did. I went, my 40th birthday, I was in Dublin, saw him perform there. I saw him open, before I worked at MTV, I saw him open up the VMAs at the planetarium. That was amazing. Anyway, we get in the van. It's about an hour and a half,

hour, an hour and a half to his place in Jersey, which is like he has a farm where he lives and records. And as you might imagine, it's a nice place. He's got a cute little place in Jersey. Cute little place. And we were all freaking out in the van right over. And we get there. We get a little tour, like a very impromptu tour by like one of his like, he didn't have a lot of people there, but like one of his people was like, do you want to see the studio? We're all like, yeah so they show us like they put like bags over your head so you can't see anything else in the house they just go directly into the studio it was pretty lax i have to say like we looked at

the studio and it was it was like you know dozens of his guitars and dozens of paddy's like tambourines that's what i wanted to know where were patty's tambourines it was amazing and um and then they're like they bring us into kind of like a room adjacent to it in this small house um and we're all freaking out like the group of us like okay who's going to sit where who sits next to bruce yeah i sat right next to him i was like fuck it i'm going no it wasn't that i wasn't competing with him i think i think the other folks were like i don't know no it wasn't competing because you just you just went and did it i wanted there wasn't an opportunity to compete i don't think anybody else wanted that um no one else wanted to sit next to bruce of course i'm telling everyone's

not like you some people want a little distance okay he was sat in his lap and just started stroking his hair I'm like, do you have any pets? So Bruce walks in and pretty much, but like quintessential Springsteen wardrobe, you can look on my Instagram by now. I'll put up the happy, set, confused photos. Oh, God. Looks amazing, 70 years old, and he could kick my ass every which way, which isn't saying much. Most 70-year-olds could, but he could do it quicker.

With style and grace. And the first thing he said, it was sort of like, hey, and then he looks over and he points to a table he goes, we've got free bagels. So we really so that's the real voice. He's like Begles. He doesn't go and be like free bagels. Nope. And we sat down and just

we all had a chat and the audio I wasn't intending to use this audio for the podcast but I've listened back to it. A, the conversation is really fun and interesting for any Springsteen fan. I think you're going to enjoy it. I didn't record on the usual equipment so it's not going to be quite as great audio as usual. but it's totally listenable, too.

And I, of course, wanted to run it by Springsteen's camp, and they were totally cool with running this as a podcast, so that's good. Did Bruce eat a bagel? No one ate a bagel. We were all petrified. You didn't get a bagel? Did you get one to go? Like, as you left, you stuffed up your jacket pockets?

No, but I will say it was weird. Like, we're sitting there. Literally on his couch was like a greetings from Asbury Park Pillow. It was like, yeah, we get it. We get it, Bruce. We got to eat Steve Van Zandke comes in at the end Exactly

No but the conversation itself is really fun Because because we all And you know I come from like a more of a movie's background than music Certainly that was our angle in talking about this film And why Bruce is the co-director of it The first time he's ever co-directed a movie And also just his movie influences We talk about John Ford westerns growing up

All the way up to his love and appreciation of the Irishman which he's seen and Quentin Tarantino's once upon a time in Hollywood which I asked him about primarily because

as you'll hear in the conversation it actually shares a lot of themes with this new album so yeah that's the big stuff it was crazy it was amazing

I loved I actually kind of appreciate it was weird you know of course would I love to have a one-on-one conversation with him yes but this was a different

sensation for me because I could kind of hang back and when I wasn't like when I was letting my colleagues ask questions, I could just stare at Bruce Springsteen. He's right there. And just enjoy the, like, poetry coming out of his house. I have a question.

Yeah. How do you ask Bruce Springsteen for a happy, sad, confused photo? Oh, this is a good question. We'll leave it at this, because I don't want to, like, more people too much. No, no, but this is important. So the end of the conversation, I'm very proud of this. I don't think I've told you this. The conversation ends, and Bruce says something to the effect of, like, should we,

you know, get a commemorative photo, you know? And, you know, he knows that that would be very meaningful for all of us. I, of course, being the wise ass, I joke. I'm like, oh, you mean for you? You want a photo with us? Sure, I guess we could do that. He laughed. He said, yeah, I want it for my bedroom wall.

Get the fucker out of my house. Each of us does a one-on-one, does like a solo photo with him, and I'm the last one. Oh, boy. And I'm like, do I do it? Do I ask? When am I going to have another opportunity? Just go for it. He's been so nice.

Just go for it, Josh. And I said, look, this is going to sound crazy. but he'd do this thing called Happy Say I Confused. You can totally say no, of course. And so I quickly just like boarded out. And he literally, his response was basically, get in here. Come on. It was kind of a begrudging like, oh, we've come this far.

It's like, if I do it, will he leave? Pretty much. That was the one way to get me out of his house. So an amazing experience. This was, I wouldn't even say a bucket list item because like I could never have imagined this opportunity coming. so very appreciative to Warner Brothers for saying I would be an idiot to pass it up

and I think Bruce and I are going to be friends now forever no I don't think so yeah but you had it it was nice while it lasted so Western Stars is out in theaters right now I do honestly wholeheartedly endorse it it's a beautiful movie the filmmaking's great and the music is fantastic and if you're a Springsteen fan there's no excuse go see it in a big theater with great sound that's it we've talked for a while sammy there's a lot more to cover with you but i feel like

we're going to get you back we'll get there we'll get there okay okay okay okay good remember to review rate and subscribe to happy say i confused uh and enjoyed this very rare opportunity this exclusive ish chat exclusive except for the four other people that were there um no but this is very special opportunity i hope you guys enjoyed as much as i did this is the one only the boss All right, guys, let's go. So let's talk about it. Maybe it looks up to the basics of sort of like how this turned into a film. I mean, at what point did you decide, like, this was the way to treat this album?

And had you ever considered for a previous album a treatment like this? Or usually we make a record and we tour because I'm not on the radio for 24 hours on my, on our station series, or I'm usually not on at all anymore. So, you know, it can't depend on a radio. or the usual outlets for promotion. And so I go, well, gee, if I just put the record, how it's going to come out, it's going to disappear. So how do I give the record a longer life, you know?

And so I said, well, I'm not going to tour. The only record I put out that I didn't tour on was Nebraska. It was a long time ago. Almost every record of new music I go out and I tour. But I know that it's not that kind of record. It's not a band record, and it's a record with a big orchestra, and so I'll make a film with me playing the record, start to finish, and that'll be my tour, you know. So we decided, we started looking for a place to do that, which I was ambivalent about doing initially, because, hey, it seems like a lot of work. And we have our barn over here, which is where we did the filming.

So we looked a few other places, a couple of the theaters, decided we'd shoot in the barn. It was just this beautiful space. And then we had to put together the entire orchestra in the band. Thank God there's a guy named Rob Mathis, who was a musical director, put together the entire orchestra. So I walked into a rental facility in New York, counted one, two, three, four, guys I'd never seen before

played the album from start to finish. And the next night we came down to the barn, rehearsed it once there, and then we shot it for two days, and that was the whole thing. So that's how the performance, parts of the picture were conceptualized and shot but the part that really

turned it into what I think was a film was when we started to shoot the little films that came, come between each song and that was because I realized that new songs how do I get people inside of them How do I give people access to them? I said, well, maybe I'll have some small introductions

as to what the inner life of the songs are about. And I wrote a script very quickly one night, and we started to do some voiceovers. And then Tom Zimmy, my director started to find some images for them and I started to score them a little bit and then we started to look okay we need to shoot a couple

of more days in out west so we went to the Joshua Tree National Park and we shot for a couple of days there and that became you know we came back edited here and we took about a week and a half for two weeks and

that became a film I think the car's out front we go All right. You know, you're directing this, a co-directed with Tom, but I do wonder, and I know this has been a while, but, you know, you've been directed by two of the best directors out there, Brian De Palma and John the Demi. Like, I think back to that all and go, you know, I remember De Palma said this when I was up on stage. Does any of that come back, or is that? There really wasn't anything.

Basically, you sort of ended up conceptualizing and collaborating completely on the whole. thing. So that's where my director's credit comes from. It's at the generosity of Tom Zimney. And really, once we started choosing images and editing, we worked right in this

little room, and it was just a real collaboration between the two of us. So that's my... I didn't get anywhere near a camera, so... We were able to speak to Garenda about Blinded by the Light earlier. year. Oh, that's nice. And she was talking about how

that film might have inspired, you know, the way that they used your music. Did that have any influence in the way you chose certain things and choices in this room? No, not really. This came up organically. And I loved her film and she did such a lovely job with it. But this

came up just sort of piece by piece, like okay, I have all this performance footage and I watch some of it. But to just play it cold top to bottom it's not that it was impersonal but when it's new music

it just it just didn't draw you in enough draw you into the internal life of the characters and the internal life of each song and I can't remember the first thing the first little piece that we shot but I'd been with Danny clinch and Danny clinch

brings a movie counter with it so we're out from Josh with tree, and he's just shooting bits and pieces of film as we're shooting for the album album package. And so we had a little bit of footage from Danny, and that's what we started to mess with. I said, gee, this is a pretty nice location. And it worked with the images of the record and of the songs. And we kind of just went step by step until we ended up with what we had. It wasn't something that was preconceived. It was something that was made up as we went, you know, so.

You know, they, the Warner Brothers logo of getting the film is from the searchers, which is your favorite pictures. And I know that it's, we can look back and see how your music has influenced film over the years. How do you, how would you say film has influenced you as a man that always is going to use? Really a lot. I'd say since, uh, since I was in my late 20. I sort of, I'd say up to my mid to late 20s, I was influenced all by pop radio of the 50s, 60s, 50s and 60s.

And then after that, I started to look for other outside sources as a template for how to do my job. And so I started to read, but I really went to films. I really started to watch a lot of films, I'd say. you know 27, 28, darkness on the edge of town and forward you know

I became a bit of a film buff and I looked for other artists who were sort of and the way that they were conceptualizing their work

and so of course I ran into John Ford and I thought it was interesting the way that he kept he kept discovering new ways to he was working on certain consistent themes as every picture went by

and every picture sort of related to another one in certain ways he had the cast of characters he had the ensemble that he worked with really steadily you know I had my band and I had and I was interested in this telling this sort of longer story that where each album would relate to one another in a certain way so I looked towards obviously the first film I think I thought grapes of wrath had a huge influence on me when I saw it just the imagery and the story that I was telling and of course the searchers all the westerns which I'd seen as a kid but hadn't really absorbed so the searchers and my garland

coming time and she wore a yellow ribbon and forward to batch of all the great forward Westerns, you know, Red River, Howard Hawks, and then also the noir stuff like out of the past, Robert Mitchum, and that was a huge film for me. And so I, and then there were more modern things like the Scorsese pictures, but also, I remember at the time I, I wrote Nebraska, guy to see Terence Malick for the first time. And Terrence Malick's films are, what are they? They're meditative, a lot of voice over, Days of Heaven, Tree of Life, you know. And that was always something that really drew me in.

But also the guys like Monty Helmut and the western he shot with Jack Nicholson, and the shooting, riding the whirlwind. Of course, Tulane Blacktop, you know. So all of these things started to resonate and find their way into themes and soundscapes that I was interested in. Nebraska, really came from the soundscape of Badlands, the Terrence Mount picture.

If you listen, there's the music behind it It's fairy tale. You know, so, I said, yeah, that's an interesting juxtaposition, you know, the little Glock and Spiel, with all this sort of real-world violence. It was an interesting combination of elements. So all of these things, and of course, we're the generation of moviegoers, you know. My generation were people who were used to going to the movies. I was telling someone the other day

we had a great movie theater in the center of Freehold and had one thing that advertised it. It's cool inside. That was it. Didn't have the matter of the movie that was planned. It's cool

inside. So when it got to be 95 degrees in 1957, when you were eight years old or nine years old, and no one in town had any air conditioning. People went to the movies and they saw whatever was on the screen. You know, every, and you didn't, you went to the movies every week, you know, it was just Saturday, movie day. You went down to the movie theater, you know? And, you know, initially

my mother would take us and, and, uh, it was 35 cents if you, if you were 12 and a dollar once you hit 13. So my mother would just say, tell me you 12. tell them you're 12 get down squirt, squotch spook down a little bit and just tell you and they guys say

how old are you son I go to 12 and feel really shitty 12 14 12

your voice changed 34 12 12 12 12 so but you saw films every single

week and you saw whatever was being played on Saturday and Sunday, you know, in a theater with hundreds and hundreds of other people. You know, those were this. I mean, in, in Asbury Park, theaters fit thousands of people, and that's what they expected to come to the movies, with thousands of people to see a film on a Friday night.

And they did. We showed the film in Toronto where it's about 2,000 people. Yeah, we were up there, yeah. Yeah, I haven't sat in a theater with 2,000. thousand people watching one thing yeah in you know since maybe the godfather or taxi driver or the exorcist imagine going to see the exorcist with two thousand other people right you know so princess of wales that place is huge like four balcony three balconies yeah yeah yeah it was just it was a lot of fun you know the screen was the size of the size of my side of my barn you know and

it was really fun to see it screen there so that's movie-going experience was very different, you know. When I went down to freehold, I guess it was probably about, I don't know, was there 300 people there, 250, that's the size of the theater, you know, all the theaters, you know. Everybody watches stuff at home. And, well, you know, you have to be, I mean, I'm, you know, I'm not a regular filmmaker, but I got to imagine, particularly if you're doing something that, you know, that, you know, where you're using a ratio that's really cinematic,

you've got to be prepared for people to be watching it on their computer, you know? And, you know, I think Marty Scorsese shoots the Irishman for years and years. You know, it's got three weeks in the theater, and then a lot of people are going to be watching it at home, you know? And you mentioned the sound of your movie on a phone? Yeah, you know, so it's kind of a shame, you know, in that way.

But I guess, you know, people are having, there's more people at home, entertainment setups with good sound and big screens. So it's transition. We're an enormously transitional period in the way that films are shown and viewed, you know, see where it goes. You and Tom did do something for Netflix,

even though it was the Broadway show, which we went the first night, not even opening night, we went the very first night. Like the preview, really? It was, unfortunately, it was right after Tom Petty passed doing you. There was one you dedicated to Tom Petty, right, when you came out. It was, like, already amazing.

It was like, man, you looked like you've been doing it for, like, years. Well. Yeah. It makes me think that, you know, I know you wanted to do this because you weren't in a tour with the album, and so here's something that the fans can go see, and your autobiography is something that any fan can go read. The Broadway show, not everyone can go to Broadway, but everyone can watch it on Netflix. Are you thinking more about the way that you're putting out your material?

You're always very conscious of your fans, but it's just an interesting past few years. A little bit, you know, when you include a film portion, it just extends the life of what you're doing, you know. And I have to find new ways to extend the life of the presentation of my, whether it's my music or whatever it is I'm working on, you know. So it was a, it's a huge asset, you know, I'm sure we'll be using it more in the future. I'm curious, we're kind of in an age where, like, music biopics are back in vogue. And I've always wanted to ask you this. I spoke to the filmmaker James Mangold a bunch of years ago, and he told me one of the dream projects he wanted to do was to tell your story post-born-to-run when you couldn't record. Is that something that, A, have you ever discussed with him, or B, is that intriguing to you at all?

as a portion of your life to portray on the big screen in some way somebody came up with recently wanted to wanted to shoot a picture that went up too born to run well it's a sequel you already have a franchise go get both guys doing it will have the whole story you know but uh i i haven't dove into that yet it's kind of something i've i've just just held off on and because so few of them are successful right a finding someone to play yourself really weird you age yourself exactly you know and um which was terrific by the way I saw the Irishman it's great we've all seen it yeah yeah yeah um but But, you know, it's just been something that I haven't really dove into.

I don't know if I will. Fair enough. You mentioned the only other album you didn't tour on was Nebraska. But then when you did the more than the USA tour, you incorporated a lot of those songs into the East Street tour. Will you be hearing next year? I think you're doing like Tucson training with the band. Because I could see that going over really well.

It's not impossible, you know. I don't plan to incorporate, because the sound is with the orchestra is such a different sound. You can cover that on stage these days. There's ways you can do it. So, that's it. Who knows? I don't know what I'm going to do yet. I got a lot of new, I got some new music for the band, and we'll see how that turns out and see what turns up.

When I watched this film, a lot of it resonated with me with things I was going on in my life, and I kind of walked away from the film and I kind of was trying to sum it up in two lines to somebody and I said it felt like a film about letting go of mistakes and embracing the love that's all around you. Would you say that's inaccurate?

No, that's a good explanation of it as any, you know? It's sort of about a... Like I say, it's about a trip or a journey that every one has to make. And when you're young, you want to do what you want to do, when you want to do it, individual freedom means an enormous amount to you, you know, in your early 20s and mid-20s and, you know, that's just something that's paramount for a while while you are finding your life, as it should be. It's a good time to be in that place. but as you get into your 30s and certainly your 40s, life begins to thin out if that's just how you're approaching it.

And so your pursuit of a fuller life becomes, in a very strange way, domestic constraints provide you with a freer life as you get older. You have a home, a place to gather yourself, and reasons for the work that you're performing. You know, it, the definition of what freedom is alters as you grow older. And so the film is sort of about that, about the way that that word changes as time passes by.

but it's also about the price you pay if you don't grow or uh change as that time passes by if you don't lay down your old baggage and and sort through it and see where you've made your mistakes and where uh you know so the film is about because in my business it's a business of retarded, you know, adolescence, you know, where you probably overstay your welcome in your, the part of your life where you're just free and running around, that it was, it might be a little bit of a rougher trip for some people who do the job that I do, you know, So the film is, but the film is fundamentally about a transition that everyone has to make. Everyone has to make it.

And it's about how you make that transition. The price you pay, if you don't make it, the rewards you get if and when you do. And that's what the film became about as we worked on it. Because it was in the, it was in the subtext of the music. And so when I went to write a script, I searched into the songs about what are they actually saying? What are the issues they're wrestling with? And we came out with this film. Years later, when I think about this movie, the image is always going to come to mind is the final shot.

One of the last few shots of the hand on the staring at the other hand that goes over it. It's such a beautiful image, I think, captures a lot of what you're trying to put together. Can you talk about conceptualizing that ending? Well, you know, that was a shot that I'd found a still. of it somewhere, just online, there was just a still of a guy's hand in a woman's hand on the week. So at some points, well, we should book in the film. Let's just get this single hand at top, and then at the end we'll get the two hands. And that's sort of, I mean, that's the film in a nutshell, you know, so. It's your hand, right? You didn't get a model.

it's actually my hand It's the Niro It's an incredible We got Brad Pitt An incredible performance by this name You've got a future You mentioned what the songs are saying And putting it in a cinematic

light in this movie Obviously those are all your songs But then at the end you punctuate it With Ryan Stone Cowboy Why? Why? It was amazing I like started cheering when it happened but I'm like, why that song? Because it was celebratory.

Yeah. You know. And I could have left the film with Moonlight Motel and then had the voice over. But, you know, the character in the film makes this journey. And it needed to be celebrated a little bit. And so that song was celebratory.

So when it comes up, it's a release for the audience. It may not know why, but that's why, you know. So that's how that song came about it. And it was slightly connected to, you know, the genre I was working in, Glenn Campbell, who was an inspiration for a lot of the song stylings. There's another great project. I've loved this past year that's out in part with a fading cowboy and a stuntman and a lot of looking back, and that's once upon a time in Hollywood.

Yeah. Did you see the Tarantino film and did it resonate in some of the things you were dealing with? I said, well, that's a funny little coincidence, you know, and I really loved, that was one of my favorite pictures of the past year. I really liked that picture a lot, you know. It was just quite touching and quite lovely, so. It could be the Irishman in that. It's the best picture.

I don't know. Yeah, I don't. Yeah, the Irishman was just beautiful. to see that cast working together again and to see, you know, Marty at the top of this game. That was, those guys in their history, you're never going to see that again, that group of actors. There's never going to be a group of actors quite like that again. And if you grew up with them as folks in my generation did, it was, you know, it's a powerful picture. is there anything when you look at those guys coming back together for one more time

is there anything that you would like to do like one more time it would be great to together i come we've got the band coming back together i hope it's not just for one i feel we all agree we don't have this to be one more time i got this farm here i'm counting on at least a couple of months how you're the project is going to be east street like how come they weren't featured in these songs well it just wasn't really east street band music and when people see the band. I think they're expecting a certain type of presentation and a certain type of music. So it's better when I kind of separate by genre a little bit.

Do you feel connected to like, I mean, we were talking about sort of like the shifting, sure, the shifting way we were seeing movies. And I'm just thinking like pop culture in general, do you feel connected to modern pop culture? I mean, for instance, in the music side, like, has Bruce Springsteen ever listened to K-pop? Are you curious as a musician to see what? The funny thing was I heard a lot of pop music through my kids who all had different musical tastes. I mean, I heard a lot of punk music and alternative music through my son, Evan, who works in the music business. And so while they were growing up, I heard a lot of music.

That way, my daughter was a creature of top 40. So I heard a lot of top 40 music through her. my son was my youngest son was the classic rock guy he was the guy that was interested in in older music and interested in hearing my records and assessing what they were about so so i heard a lot of music through through my kids not as much recently because they've all grown up now but my older son always when he comes down always brings music with him and is always playing this stuff so yeah well i think it's something everyone would want to know I read that when you were first coming up, you kind of got called in for a couple of potential meetings with directors to maybe act in something.

And you sort of very smartly said, well, I'm not at that level yet. Has that changed? Would you play a character? He's done a lot of bruce cameos. I don't think so, you know. It's like if the cameos are just favors to friends, you know. But I always want about, well, I haven't done any homework. I didn't do, you know, I'm a believer in preparation.

and I had years of preparation to be a musician and to be a writer. And so even when I was young, I understood that when I was 25, and a couple of people were looking around to see if I had any interest in it. I said, well, you know, I feel like I just haven't done the homework or the preparation to be an actor. And so I didn't have the confidence. Whereas in music, I was completely confident in at least what I was doing, and I liked that feeling, so I stuck with it, you know. We can go a little more if you guys won't.

I appreciate it. If anybody's got anything else. I love to ask you about the home videos in it. Do you still take in the home video? I know your honeymoon was in it. Well, you know, once the kids go, you don't take the videos as much. You know, we took the videos when we were very young and when the kids were young. But it's little like everybody else.

You shoot them, you throw them in a box. And you know, we got them for 35 years, you know. So Tom's in the catalog, though, my home video footage and gave it to me for Christmas when I'm here. So he knew what was in all of it. I didn't know what was in any of it, but he knew what was in all

of it. And one day I came in and he had pulled out some of this footage and I said, oh man, I remember that. You know, we were in Yosemite and Patty and I were playing with the camera all the time and it was just a little tiny video

camera that we brought. But it ended up actually being an important scene in the picture so but we we haven't shot any since the kids have been gone really so you know we watched the um the shots of each of the songs performed and it seems seamless like you got up and played it was it yeah but then over the credits we do see a lot of negotiation and do this or maybe i're going to try this talk about it in between generally the performances are all just live and straight through and they're all from the second day of shooting when the band might have been a little bit better you know uh i mean tom will choose a cheat shot here and there and he'll take some oh gee when this this section

looked better on the first day and he may move it in or do something like that so but it's all pretty pretty straight out that's impressive yeah i've had something i've always like my entire life I don't want to ask you this. Like in 84-85, my grandfather takes me to a St. Louis Cardinals baseball game, and the pitcher throws a strike, and I'm like, oh, yeah, that great speedball. And my grandfather's like, speedball, where are you coming up with that? I'm like, Bruce Springsteen. That's what he called him.

Why speedball over basketball? I don't know, man. Speedball is a term from the 50s. So it's just an old term that I heard my grandparents use at a different. at different times. So in the context of that glory days, I thought it was funny, I guess.

Oh, my life's going to be, thank you. But anyway. Thanks, man. Yeah, thanks, guys. You guys were great. And so ends another edition of happy, sad, confused. Remember to review, rate, and subscribe to this show on iTunes

or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm a big podcast person. I'm Daisy Ridley, and I definitely wasn't pressure. Do this by Josh. Goodbye, Summer movies, Hello Fall. I'm Anthony Devaney. And I'm his twin brother, James.

We host Raiders of the Lost Podcast, the Ultimate Movie Podcast, and we are ecstatic to break down late summer and early fall releases. We have Leonardo DiCaprio leading a revolution in one battle after another, Timothy Salome playing power ping pong in Marty Supreme. Let's not forget Emma Stone and Jorgos Lanthamos' Bagonia. Dwayne Johnson's coming for that Oscar in The Smashing Machine,

Spike Lee and Denzel teaming up again, plus Daniel DeLuis's return from retirement. There will be plenty of blockbusters to chat about two. Tron Aries looks exceptional, plus Mortal Kombat 2, and Edgar Wright's The Running Man starring Glenn Powell. Search for Raiders of the Lost podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube.