WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 1436 - Warren Zanes

Episode Date: May 18, 2023

For Warren Zanes, music has been a salvation. In his troubled teen years, his brother put him in the band The Del Fuegos. Then music was the conduit to his PhD. And now, after a lifetime of seeing himself as just another guy without a father, Warren’s music biographies have helped him feel at home with other lost people. Warren and Marc talk about explaining life through music, writing about Tom Petty, and Warren’s new book Deliver Me from Nowhere: The Making of Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska. Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Lock the gates! All right, let's do this. How are you, what the fuckers? What the fuck buddies? What the fuck nicks? What's happening? How's it going? Where we at?

It's been a weird few days. I gotta be honest. A weird few days. But I'm excited today. Gonna talk to Warren Zanes. Warren Zanes. I talked to his brother, Dan. Now, these two guys were in the Del Fuegos. That was a Boston band. Had a kind of a hit or two. Few good records, but they were around when I was in college in Boston. I remember the Del Fuegos.

I liked the Del Fuegos. And Warren was the little brother of Dan and the guitar player in the band. And he's gone on to do a lot of amazing stuff. I mean, we talked about the rock scene in Boston and stuff, but he's gone on to, uh, look, he he's, he's still making music. This dude, he's almost my age and still just putting this stuff out, but he got his PhD in visual and cultural studies and went on to write

several music biographies, including dusty Springfields, dusty in Memphis. That was for that 33 and a third series. Revolutions in Sound, Warner Brothers Records, the first 50 years. That's a history book almost. And Petty, the biography. Seriously, the book on Petty. Now, his new book is pretty specific.

It's called Deliver Me From Nowhere, The Making ofuce springsteen's nebraska now i got this thing and look i'm a i'm as much a bruce fan as any medium spectrum bruce fans for those people on the spectrum of bruce springsteen fandom you know i i'm not way over to the left but i enjoy many of the records but there's still a lot of stuff I don't listen to. I don't care about, but there's a handful of records I fucking love. So I'm in, I'm just not like crazy, but I was curious what the angle was on this book to really take on that particular record. And he does something kind of amazing with it. He contextualizes it not only in Bruce's career, but in the culture at the time, the technology of the time, the music at the time, the way music were sold at the time, expectations around Bruce and music in general, the shifting of the musical tides into perhaps artists having a little more control or at least entering some sort of lo-fi zone, the influence of No Wave on Springsteen, i.e. Suicide, that band, and just, you know, sort of the struggle

to figure out what to do with what was essentially, I think, initially a set of demos and how to make it a record, the set of demos and how to make it a record. The set of demos from a technology that didn't really interface with high-end audio gear. There was kind of a suspense to it all, you know, how are we going to do it? You know, can we do these songs with the band? I mean, this is after the river and before born in the USA and during Nebraska, he laid down like eight or nine tracks of born in the USA. And during Nebraska, he laid down like eight or nine tracks

of Born in the USA in the studio, but stayed with the Nebraska project. And just, you know, what it meant to people having never heard a record like that, especially at that level. But it's like, it's an exciting read. It's kind of a page turner. Now, also the other day, on May 16th, today's May 18th, if you're listening to this, the day it dropped.

May 16th was the third anniversary of Lynn Shelton's passing. And she's missed by everybody who loved her or knew her. and she's missed by everybody who loved her or knew her. Anybody who had ever come in touch with her, when you think about it, was profoundly moved by this person. And I didn't really realize the day before on the 15th. It wasn't until the 16th that I realized it, that it was the day.

But some things happened, man. Some things happened on the 16th that I realized it, that it was the day. But some things happen, man. Some things happened on the 16th that I don't know. I'm not, look, I'm not a mystical guy, but sometimes you got to read the signs, man. Sometimes you got to read the signs. I've got a black eye. My nose is scratched up and I've got a puncture wound on my right cheek, small puncture wound. So what happened on the 15th, May 15th, I feel like I've been having allergies. I'm a little congested. I feel a little scratchy in the throat. I feel like pressure in my head. It's been a long time since I took a COVID test. Not that long. But there's always the same weird suspense to it. I think, oh, maybe I got COVID.

I take the test. Then I cover the test because I want to do the quick reveal at 15 minutes. The ta-da! One or two lines. One line. No COVID. So I'm feeling a little, I think it's allergies. I don't know.

I don't feel like I have a cold. It doesn't matter. So I decide, look, man, go hit the mountain. Just get up there. You know, just, you know, get some exercise, push yourself over the, get outside, breathe a bit. Let's, let's, let's, let's get to it. Let's process. And then I decided like, well, what am I going to listen to music wise? Um, and I just talked to my buddy, Sam, and he was telling me about his daughter who had gone to the Taylor Swift concert. And they had dressed up as, I think, characters in Taylor Swift songs.

And just, she's like a Swifty. This is a thing. You know, there are profound and passionate and very committed, crazy Taylor Swift fans. I mean, I understand a lot of them are teenage girls and I, and I understand that that's where fandom happens, but look, I'm a open-minded guy and I like music and I want to try to figure out what it is about Taylor Swift that everyone never shuts up about. I mean, you can't like, you can't go a day without hearing about Taylor Swift, at least on my phone. I don't know why maybe some of the music feed. I mean, you can't like, you can't go a day without hearing about Taylor Swift,

at least on my phone. I don't know why. Maybe some of the music feed. I don't know, but people love Taylor Swift. Grownups too. Now I tried this once before to get hold of Taylor Swift, to understand the Taylor Swift thing. I, and I did it on a hike as well. I did it. I did, I was hiking. I think I listened to, is it one called Folklore? and I did it on a hike as well. I did it. I did, I was hiking. I think I listened to, is it one called Folklore? I tried that one on a hike once and I was like, all right, I get it. It's okay. Maybe I don't get it, but it's not for me. You know, it's a, I, whatever. Didn't do much. So because I talked to Sam, I'm like, well, fuck it. Let's give it another try. So I put in, and I'm seeing these on these reels of, you know,

these Taylor Swift events, these big concerts ticket, you know, overload, like it's like a international phenomenon. So I'm like, all right, give it another try, man. So I put in this, I guess it's the new record. Is it midnights? So I put that on and I start hiking and I'm like, all right, so I get it. She's not these it's, it's pop music, but it's not dance music. It's sort of like, it's emotional. There's a lot of longing and sadness and, you know, isolation and processing these sort of overwhelming, uh overwhelming feelings of melancholy. There's a lot of colors in her poetry.

I get it. I understand why the entire world of teenage emotions runs through this music. I get it because I think I'm emotionally probably 14 or 15,, um, stifled. I get it. But like, still, I'm sort of like, it's not really for me, but I understand it now. And it's good music. And then some, some, some, some song comes on a song called, you know, bigger than the whole sky. song called, you know, bigger than the whole sky. And, and I start, you know, getting emotional because it's a grief song and it's a very precise grief song. And it's not the, the language is vague enough for the, the heartbreak in the song to not be tethered to, you know, just a relationship breaking up, but it's about loss. And it got me, man. And I'm like, wow. You know, and it made me think about Lynn and it made me sort of,

you know, there are certain songs that can carry your grief and allow you to have it because they hold it. And it was one of those songs. There's other songs like that, that I have found throughout my process, you know, and then this is like the day before the anniversary of Lynn's death, which I hadn't really clocked yet, but I'm having these feels on the mountain. And then I get to the top of the mountain and I do what I always do. I do these, a couple of stretches. Usually I go into the old Chinese lady stretch, which is just sort of squatting down and, you know, just dropping into the bucket of your hips to stretch your back. And I'm all sweaty and it's kind of hot. And then I stand up like I usually do. And I get a head rush and I, this happens every time I do

this hike and I'm listening to Taylor Swift bigger than the whole sky. And I get this head rush. And every time I do this, I always think to myself, it's amazing. I haven't passed out. So when I stand up, I'm like woozy and I'm like, holy fuck. And then I go to crouch back down because I felt too woozy. And in the process of crouching back down into the old Chinese lady stretch, I must've, I must've blacked out. So I, the next thing I know I'm woken up by my face,

smashing onto the dirt, onto the gravel, onto the rock. And there's that moment where I'm like, I didn't feel myself go out and I have to, you know, you have to figure out, you have to recalibrate. I'm like, oh shit, I know what happened. I'm on the top of the mountain alone. And I just smashed my face into the ground. So like, I, I kind of get, push myself up. I'm

kneeling down cause I'm kind of fucking out of it. I just fucking smashed into the ground and then blood's just pouring out of my face because it's dripping onto my goddamn legs. And I'm like, oh, fuck. I break my nose. So I feel my nose. My nose isn't broke. It's not coming out of my nose. It's coming out of this puncture in my cheek. And I'm out of it, man. There's blood all over the place. And my face is all full of dirt. I have my water pack and all the time, you know, Taylor Swift's just pounding in my brain. I have these thoughts. I'm like, man, a couple of thoughts hit me. It's like, that's the way to die, man. It's just to go out. Cause

I had no recollection of going out. And if I hadn't woke up to my face smashing into the ground, I wouldn't have been the wiser. I would have just been, you know, I would have entered the great frequency would not knowing any different. It would have been perfect. And then that was sort of like, I started thinking about Lynn and I started thinking like, well, okay, this makes me a little less afraid of death. It, at least if it happens that way without too much processing. But oddly, the other thought was, guy, I think I kind of miss drugs a little bit. Don't worry. I'm not in a crisis, but I was sort of like, because that, you know, when you get a head rush, you know, the fact that every time I hike, I do this and I feel the head

rush and I know what's happening, that it's kind of a freebie. I don't have to crouch. I don't have to do those stretches. So I pushed a limit this time and I went down and wasn't in Taylor Swift. And I got to get back down the hill and I'm bloody. I'm dehydrated. I know I need electrolytes. I know I rationed my water. I had water. I'm talking about this like it's some sort of hero's journey. I just fell down on the top of a hike. And I texted Kit a picture of my face and she freaked out. She's like, do you have to go to the doctor? Don't go to sleep. I'm like, I don't have a concussion. It didn't go out like that. I didn't go out because I hit my head. I went out because I hyperventilated or whatever it is. It was like, you know, the oxygen thing. And then I woke up when I hit my head. She's like, well, I'll get off work and I'll come. And I'm like, don't, just relax.

But if you want to get off work, come on. Okay, fine. Okay. Yes. Care for me. Okay. So that happened. I'm walking down the hill and I use some water to wipe my

face off. And I drank some water and I get down and I see two guys who were there and I'm walking up to them and I'm bloodied and they're not saying nothing. I'm like, so I figured I had to explain myself. I fell down up there in my face. They're like, oh, I'm sorry, man. And they're all standing at the top of this incline that I do all the time, which is now a decline. They're like, what's the best way to go down? I'm like, I don't know. You just got to find a way, find an angle. And I usually run down. And for some reason I felt like I needed to prove myself. So I'm bloodied. I'm like woozy. And now I'm running down the mountain like a fucking idiot. So I go down the mountain. I see two other people. They say nothing. Hey, how's it going?

Well, I don't know. I've bled all over my face. Maybe are you all right? Would be nice. Not that I'm looking for that. I knew I was all right. So I get home and I clean up, I shower up. I drink a lot of electrolytes and I'm like, you know, I think I believe I'm okay, but Kit, you know, comes and I'm like, all right, why I belong to this urgent care, this solace thing. I, you know, I, I paid for it. Let's use it. So I call up, I said, maybe I should come get checked out. And Kit's like, you know, you can't go hiking by yourself. And I'm like, I'm not that fucking old yet. All right. I know I'm old. We both know I'm old or, but I'm not like, I'm not like I can't hike by myself old. I mean, come on, man. It's just like, it could have happened any day. It was bound to happen.

What, I got to hike with another guy in case of accident? Is that the age I'm at now? So I can't get into the urgent care until 8. We go out in need. I go in. I see the doctor. They do blood work. Everything's great.

Pulse is great. Fucking blood pressure's great. Everything's good. He asked me if I had, uh, you know, any heart pains or chest or arrhythmias or nauseousness or diarrhea. I'm like, I would have told you if I shit my pants on the mountain, I think. Why is every, why is there always a diarrhea question involved? No, I mean, I went down because, like, I didn't get enough oxygen in my brain. Your blood pressure goes down when you work out. I already have a little blood pressure. I went down. So they patched me up a little bit.

And then at the end of it, you know, as the doc is walking out and Kit's sitting there, my buddy Ned actually works over there as a nurse, the guy, my drummer, Ned Brower. And he was there. It was kind of fun. As the doctor's walking out, he's like, well, maybe, you know, the guy, my drummer, Ned Brower. And he was there. It's kind of fun as the doctor's walking out. He's like, well, maybe, you know, next time you go up, you don't go by yourself. And I'm like, Oh God damn it. And I look at kid. I'm like, don't say I, no, I get it. I'm not. And I'm walking out. I'm like, did you tell him to say that? Was this a setup? What's happening? I am not at the age where I can't hike alone. I will not accept it.

Anyways, I'm all right, but I have a black eye. So then this happens. The next day is the actual anniversary of Lynn's passing. So I got to go do Dynasty Typewriter. I did an hour of all new stuff, oddly, and I talked about a lot of, I just talked about what I just talked about with you just now. But when I'm leaving for Dynasty Typewriter, there's a fucking crow on my porch. A fucking crow.

And there's something wrong with it. And they're giant. They're like dinosaurs, man. He's just hanging out. Buster's a little curious about it in the window. I walk up to this crow and I'm like, what's up crow? Are you sick? And now I'm like, fuck, what am I going to do with a sick crow? There's nothing you can do with a sick crow. And I'm like, I'm like, all right, well do what you got to do. And I went and did the gig. All I'm thinking is like, I hope that thing's gone or

it's dead when I get back. I don't want in between. I don't know what to do with a dying crow. I don't want in between I don't know what to do with a dying crow with a dead crow you throw him away with a sick crow you just let him be sick until he disappears or dies but like a crow in crisis I wouldn't even know who to call and then I'm like what does it mean why is there a crow on my porch and I was on stage I'm like i gotta look symbolism crow dying crow and a crow symbolism is transformation change a dead crow's mourning so it's kind of an interesting mixture for just a fucking coincidence on the day marking the anniversary of Lynn's passing, given the hummingbird situation. Look, man, all I know, the crow was gone when I got home,

and there was a coyote in the yard, and we looked at each other, and I'm like, dude, just go. So the trickster went away, and the crow was gone. There just go. So the trickster went away and the crow was gone. There you go. The title of my new record. So listen, Warren Zanes, Deliver Me From Nowhere, The Making of Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska is available now wherever you get books. And it's a great book.

And this is a great conversation. Here we go. You can get anything you need with Uber Eats. Well, almost, almost anything. So no, you can't get snowballs on Uber Eats, but meatballs and mozzarella balls, yes, we can deliver that. Uber Eats, get almost, almost anything.

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When I die here, you'll never leave Japan alive. Just to risk your life. When I die here, you'll never leave Japan alive. FX's Shogun. A new original series streaming February 27th exclusively on Disney+. 18 plus subscription required. T's and C's apply. You know, I've never really been a professional musician, but I play... We share that.

No, you have. What was your nickname? Ork Boy? Weren't you Ork Boy? I was Ork Boy. Your research has already gone too deep. What are you talking about? I lived in Boston in the 80s.

Yeah, I knew that. I've got some Del Fuego single upstairs. I don't even in the 80s. Yeah, I knew that. I've got some Del Fuego single upstairs. I don't even think you're on. Yeah, that's the first single. What was it? I always call her that. I always call her... An incredible sounding

record. Good song, yeah. Who was in that band? Dan and Tom, who were always there, and then Steve Morrell, the original drummer, who took mushrooms like right around the time. It was Halloween. He took mushrooms at the Rat, freaked out, and quit the band the next day. What did he end up doing?

He's still playing. He ended up surviving. Right. He's still playing. He, you know, he ended up surviving. Right. Because, like, when I was, I guess I was around, but I didn't club a lot. But, like, at some point in the mid-'80s, I was working at Edibles up in Coolidge Corner.

Yeah. With, you know, the Salem 66 women. Yeah, yeah. And with Tanya Donnelly. Yeah. And I talked to Kristen Hershen here. But before that, you know, like maybe 82, 83, my girlfriend's roommate was dating Randall from Scruffy. Oh, my God. I didn't realize you went that deep. Sure, man. Yeah. You know, and I remember, that deep.

Sure, man. Yeah. You know, and I remember seeing Steve Albini at The Rat. I remember seeing, I think like, I remember your first album. I remember when that was big. I don't know when the first El Fuego's album come out. It would have been like 84. Right. So I was around.

And then I remember there's a big controversy. Do you remember the big controversy? The Miller commercial? Yeah. It's interesting. Let me start with those who came to our defense and those who didn't. Elvis Costello. Okay, I'll set it up.

This was a time, like you guys had sort of a hit with Backseat Nothing, right? Yeah, Backseat Nothing, then Don't Run Wild, and I Still Want You. But you couldn't call them hits, except you could still have regional hits at that time. And that was the first record. The second record was Boston Mass. That had I Still Want You and Don't Run Wild. Where's Nervous and Shaken? First record.

Yeah, that's good. But you guys were a big Boston band. You guys get a Miller commercial, and it was one of these image commercials where it's like Boston Mass, and you were the stars of the commercial, and you were playing on it. It was intended to have a documentary style. It was directed by Tim Newman, Randy Newman's cousin, who did the ZZ Top videos. Tim Newman, Randy Newman's cousin, who did the ZZ Top videos. But, you know, it was not a time in which you could safely do commercial work. Because then, it was back then, you could still sell out in that way.

Like now, if you hold on to your ass and you hold on to your brand, you can do whatever the fuck you want. Well, you can't sell records anymore. So you've got to do something to stay in the game. So suddenly these kind of opportunities became okay. Yeah, but also it was just sort of like if you could rise above, like if just your being on it was tongue-in-cheek to your fans, like if they just knew, like, just cash grab, you know, he doesn't give a fuck. You know, that happened as well.

Well, I'll tell you, at the end of the day, once we started to take heat for it, I like to remind people that I'm actually not in that commercial. Oh, yeah. Because... For the record. Yeah, because the Liquor Commission looked at the final cut of the commercial and said, the Liquor Commission looked at the final cut of the commercial and said, looks great, but who is the 12-year-old drinking Miller beer throughout the commercial?

Let's do a recut. And then I later claimed that I did it based on my personal integrity. Oh, nice. Now, finally, the truth is out. But you weren't 12. I looked 12, but I was underage. It's amazing. J. Walter Thompson made a beer commercial with an underage performer and didn't catch it. Yeah. Well, so what was the are you and your brother okay? Right now, we're in pretty good shape. Okay. So when did you guys start? The Del Fuegos came out of where?

You weren't Boston guys. The Del Fuegos started at Oberlin College. Oh, really? Yeah. In Ohio? In Ohio. Yeah. With Dan, Tom, and an original drummer.

It's a bit of a spinal tap. The drummer switched out quite a bit. Yeah, yeah. But as you know, Boston was such a robust and one of the greatest music scenes ever. It was crazy then. Yeah. The whole thing has been erased. It's like the history of it has been erased.

You had these pockets of regional activity that were so strong but so contained unto themselves. But being part of that scene in the Del Puegos, one thing we kept from view is the fact that three of the four of us went to Phillips Andover Academy, which was – Yeah. So that was where the Bushes went, right? Exactly. Kennedy's, Bush's, Humphrey Bogart. You went there? Yeah. We were scholarship students.

You and Dan. But that doesn't mean we didn't go there. Yeah. Wild. Wild. But it wasn't very rock and roll to say, I went to George Bush's school. Right. But you guys both went there on scholarships? Yeah.

Smart guys. It's interesting between the two of you, because I interviewed him years ago. Yep. And I think his daughter writes for something out here, a niece. Yeah, she gets in touch with me occasionally. It's interesting how you guys both evolved in terms of how sort of staying around music or in music sort of changed from the model that you set out to do, right? from the model that you set out to do. Right?

Absolutely. I mean, there's good fortune, but there's also desperation. But also intelligence. I mean, like you guys, okay, so you come out of Oberlin, or he comes back and says, you want to play in this thing? Is that what happens? I was at boarding school. Could you play already?

No. I hadn't filled out any college applications uh i was listening to nebraska when i was busted for pot and booze at andover at andover you know i was not i was not top of the class i was i was in the other direction yeah and dan called kind of in the nick of time and said do you want want to join the band? I said yes, then asked him what instrument I would play. And he said, guitar. And so he had to show you how? He got the Rolling Stones now on vinyl, and he gave me that. And he said, study this.

And we went to the guitar store, and I got this semi-hollow guild. Yeah. Like a John Lennon guild? This was like a guild. There must be only one of them. Oh, you don't see them around anymore? It was a single cutaway. No, nobody played these things.

I think he played an Epiphone anyways. Who the hell played those guild electrics? I can't remember. This was, I mean, it was cool, but it wasn't the sexiest guitar. Yeah, yeah. But then I played my first gig three months later. Get out of here. Yeah.

I guess with the Del Fuegos, you kind of just needed three chords. Yeah. I was not coming in on the ship called Virtuosity. Sure. But it was a ship called Rock and Roll. It was a ship called Punk Rock. Yeah.

But we, our kind of inspiration base was 50s Rock and Roll, which, you know, at its best doesn't look a lot different from punk rock to me. Well, I mean, sure. The Ramones are sort of some sort of jacked up Beach Boys in a way. Yeah. I mean, that 50s thing was still was there at the core at the beginning of certain punk rock. To me, the Liars were the best on the scene.

And they were there forever. Yeah. Still there. still there. Still there. But coming into the band in that way, with no background playing guitar, hadn't been in any bands, it was a hard place to start for two brothers.

It was never going to be easy for Dan to give me creative space, and he didn't. And that was the rift between us. So you lasted two records or three records? Three records. Well, those were the three, right? Yeah, those were the three. I like to think that the one after I left didn't have the magic. It didn't.

The magic was wearing out. Who the fuck? Like, I just, like, for some reason, I didn't know who the Neats were. And they'd been around. You know the Neats? Yeah, no, I just, like, for some reason, I didn't know who the Neats were. And they've been around. You know the Neats? Yeah, no, we shared a rehearsal space. I mean, it was such an insular community. And it's so funny.

You wrote this amazing books about Petty and now this Bruce Springsteen about Nebraska. And I didn't realize that you did the Dusty Springfield 33 and the third thing. But it's funny. There's, like, you stayed in music. I mean, you still record. I listen to the new record. It it's funny. There's, like, you stayed in music. I mean, you still record. I listen to the new record. It's great, you know? And I listen to all your solo records.

But, I mean, you released one last year. Yeah, you know, then this is going back to that idea that we, you know, my brother and I had different experiences of being just another couple guys without a father. Where was that guy? What happened to that guy? He, you know, I probably met him about 10 times in my life. Oh, really?

He died a few years back. My sons met him once. You know, Dan gave me an address. I brought my two sons and my sister's youngest. Yeah. He was meeting them for the first and only time. We gave him an address. I brought my two sons and my sister's youngest. And he was meeting them for the first and only time. We gave him our address, never heard from him again. And then he died a couple of years later. But when you come from those backgrounds, as we all know, and there's a lot of this in rock and roll, you've got that desire to be validated, that desire to be seen.

And it can become a career. Sure. If you've got talent behind it or enough charm or something. Or some combination of the two, ideally. Yeah, if you find a stage where you can give it a try. If you can find a stage, don't get off it. That's right. Well, I think I have some of that. If you can find a stage, don't get off it.

That's right. Well, I think I have some of that. My dad was around, but he was pretty vacant and a bit emotionally erratic. So, wait, where'd you grow up, though? Grew up in New Hampshire. Which town? Concord, New Hampshire. Your dad, like, just split?

Is that what happened? Yeah. I mean, Dan, being four years older, had an experience of him that I didn't. When I was born, he was in Texas, and my mother was giving birth in New Hampshire. So it tells you that all was not well. And then I think I came out into a bit of a shit storm. But my mother, she had a good record collection. Yeah. She encouraged us, you know, there were books of art photography. There were good novels. What did she do?

A photographer. Oh yeah. So it's a great metaphor that tells you something about her. She was often in the dark room. Yeah. So if you wanted to go see her, you knocked on this door and you waited for the moment. And then you stood in the dark with your So if you wanted to go see her, you knocked on this door and you waited for the moment, and then you stood in the dark with your mother. Wow. You know what? You stayed in the dark. Well, you didn't, did you get, because I know Dan and I talked recovery.

Did you get involved with that shit? I'm 29 years clean and sober. You too. Yeah. I think I'm 24 this year. Yeah. This is, yes. So when you talk about being able to stay with music and find different outlets, kind of diversify your portfolio, being clean and sober definitely facilitated that.

So what, were you like 20 when you got sober? No, 29. Oh. Yeah. Wow. 29. I was in graduate school getting my first master's. And, you know, it was the same old cycle that I was seeing.

But I remember going to one of my professors and saying, you know, I'd been at the top of the class. And I went to her and said, you know, I'm really sorry about that last exam, but I stopped drinking. And she's looking at me going, shouldn't it get better? And I was like, don't talk to anybody who doesn't understand. Exactly. Yeah. Not for a few years it doesn't get better. Yeah.

Yeah, the first five are kind of rough. So after the Fuego's, did you go to undergrad? Well, I went down to New Orleans where people go to bottom out. And you're like in your 20s? Yeah, early 20s. Are you playing music? No. I mean, I was really like I was a lost soul.

And I was working at, I had been a bicycle racer before the Del Fuegos. Really? Yeah, pretty serious. At Andover? Adel Fuegos. Really? Yeah, pretty serious. At Andover?

At Andover, but more, you know, in the summer, you know, like I qualified for the nationals. Yeah. You know, really into it. So I knew how to work on bikes. Yeah. So I left Adel Fuegos, kind of chased a girl down to New Orleans, and I was a bike mechanic. Right. And I remember, like, if I had an epiphany moment, it was I was working on a bike,

and I heard, don't back down from full moon fever. And, you know, it hadn't been that long before that we were playing at Madison Square Garden with Petty, and here is this totally new Tom Petty, and I got grease all over my hands. Oh, shit. And I'm thinking, my story can't end here. Was it the lyric or just the fact?

It was the sound. It was the sound. That was a Jeff Lynne record, right? Yeah. And you kind of knew that wasn't a Heartbreakers record, but talking to Jeff Lynne later, he said there was a lightness. He couldn't get the words. It was beautiful to me, though. But there was some sound on that record that people don't mean to achieve. But Petty was in the place, Jeff Lynn was in the place, and they worked fast. You know who's like the key to it? Like, I'm no huge Jeff Lynn fan,

because I don't, I don't, don't his production annoys me but but whatever you know obviously he's a genius and you know he made a lot of hits but uh and I just got that album by what became yellow what was the move where they yeah oh yeah yeah just got Birmingham band yeah that was Jeff Lynn though right yeah but like

I'm going I try I try but but the key even on that record, it's fucking Benmont, man, a lot of the time, isn't it? Jimmy Iovine would say about Heartbreakers records, if you're running into problems in a mix, turn Benmont up and the problems may go away. Yeah, man.

I think that was brilliant. But I feel like Jeff Lynn, yes, there's a kind of trademark production sound in that period. But what that allowed was, look at the lyrics for Free Falling. I know, that thing's killer. Nobody was writing lyrics like that. Yeah. And I think Jeff Lynn's, the rigidity of his musical framework gave Petty this different kind of freedom. Yeah, I can hear that. I think the one I listen to the most is still like the first record, oddly. Yeah. It's great.

Well, this is where, you know, I really see in Bruce Springsteen a lot that I saw in Petty, which is these guys go after their records and their songwriting with a kind of rigor that just keeps the quality up at this really high level. But I'd say they're obsessive creatives. And there are reasons behind it all, but it just makes their records, they were the ones that I kept going back to. Sure, man. for, you know, there are reasons behind it all, but it just makes their records. They were the ones that I kept going back to. Sure, man.

And like, and also, to get back to your story in a second, but like, as it all turns out, I think they were both the sons of, you know, either alcoholic fathers or abusive fathers, right? Look, one of the miracles in my life, because I didn't go after that, but that I've gotten to spend time with a Tom Petty and a Bruce Springsteen, guys who didn't have the same thing I didn't have. in art and in life that they found this away, but they also transmit something in the music that, for me, like these people can never be your father, but they can give you some kind of nourishment that you didn't get back then.

Right, because they're wrangling with the same emotional space. There's some kind of identification. This is where Nebraska has been such a long mystery for me. It's like he's not telling the story in an explicit way of where he came from, but it's all in there. It's so deeply encoded. And I swear, before I knew what was going on, I was hearing Nebraska and finding that I was among those lost people.

And I kept coming back and going, why do I feel at home with all these desperate people, with these losers? Like, what is it? You know, this is where writing books, let's just say long-form projects, something's going to happen in there. And I feel like Nebraska did some healing for me. And also, writing, when you write, there's a discovery as you do it. If it's not happening at two levels, like you say, there's some kind of self-discovery, and it's not happening at two levels, like you say, there's some kind of self-discovery, and it's not in the pages. Yeah, because the book, and we're going to come back around to it, it's compelling.

I mean, the way you put together the sort of history and the breakdown. down and that once you contextualize Nebraska on all levels, you know, as, as a record, as, as songs, as, you know, you get to have these very candid conversations with Bruce about the process and with Landau about the process and with other people who, you know, how they responded to the record. And then, you know, the time, putting it into the context of time where he was at, where we were at as a culture, you know, what people were expecting out of him,

out of the world. But it reads like it's a page turner because like you're like, well, how are they going to get it on the vinyl? Well, one of the nicest things that John Landau said,

it was, and I'm going to paraphrase here, he went to Bruce and said, Bruce, this guy made mastering seem exciting. I was like, that feels good to a writer. But you know what? It was exciting because they didn't know if this thing would work in the world. It was still a question. if this thing would work in the world. It was still a question.

All that stuff, like, it's a great piece of cultural criticism on top of music history, and I guess it would fall into the world of music criticism in a broader sense, in the cultural sense. I mean, you're not trying to... Well, I don't know what you would call it. What did you call it? You know, I mean, let me say this, that I feel like it's, and the Petty biography, I would say, are children of my experience writing the 33 and a third book.

The Dusty Springfield book? Yeah. And I had a doctoral dissertation floating around in my brain, and that series gave me the opportunity to remix it as this short book. I knew no limits there. Right. Was that your doctorate? If you read them back to back, it'd say they have nothing to do with one another. But a lot of the ideas I moved over. And I had this experience because Jerry Wexler was a key figure Jerry of course I played him in the respect movie oh yeah I know about Wexler okay yeah so I mean a legend yeah and I got to have this fan of jazz. So is this your doctorate?

This is post-doctoral work, and I'm just researching Dusty in Memphis. But I wrote this strange little book that I really worried. And then it was all done, and it came out, and I remember getting home, and on my voicemail, there was a message from Jerry. Hello, Warren? Warren, finally, someone got it right. And I went, I thought he was going to be pissed. Did he produce that record?

Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. I mean, he worked so closely with Dusty. But this is the long way of saying that told me, like, go after the freedom, like, right from every different angle. You don't have to sound like a historian. You don't have to sound like a critic. You can weave in first person. Well, I think that's what a good cultural critic does. I think they have a point of view, you know, that is personal. Yeah. It's hard to get in there, though, because a lot of people will

feel that the first person point of view is an intrusion. Fuck them. I used to get that. Like when I interrupt people, they're like, you know, you're interviewing them. Like I'm talking to them. Shut up. So, but going back, so you're, you're covered in grease listening to Free Falling or Don't Back Down in New Orleans at age, what, 20? 22, 23. And you had opened for Petty with the Fuegos? We did a three-month tour with them, a three-month tour with NXS. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, I met him when I was a teenager. Huh. Yeah. And, I met him when I was a teenager. Huh. Yeah. And so what happens? It's clearly not your white light experience because it sounds like you didn't get sober for another seven years. No, no, I did. I got sober pretty, well, no, I got sober. Yeah, you're right.

Your math's better than mine. Maybe like four years. But I went back to school. Not back to school. I'd never been to school. To college. You went to undergrad. Okay. But I went back to school. Not back to school. I'd never been to school. To college. You went to undergrad. Yeah.

So I'm living in New Orleans, and my girlfriend says she thinks this relationship is not really going anywhere, and I'm wondering why. Yeah. She said, you got all your eggs in one basket, meaning music. And so she encouraged me to look into college, and I found a map. I found the closest college. It was Loyola University. I went to the admissions office, and I said, I went to Phillips Andover Academy.

Can I somehow skip the application process? And they said yes. They just let me in. And what about money, paying for it? My mother's third husband. Yeah. So between my parents, you've got either eight or nine marriages. Husband number three put me through college.

And then in grad school, they start giving you a stipend. But he launched me there, and I was doing creative writing and art history, a double major. Wow. And pretty soon, I just started, you know, the— And he finished? I got a bachelor's, two masters, and a PhD. But, I mean, so you got a bachelor's in art history and English? Yeah. And creative writing and art history.

Because that's like—art history is a pretty good foundation, you know, for what, certainly how, you know, you write. It is and has always been a visual culture. Sure. So then, okay, so what's the first, Pete, what's the first Masters? First Masters is, it's in an art history program, but I was starting to get into critical theory. So it was Derrida and Foucault. You can wrap your brain around that shit?

I really went into the cave with this stuff. Like, I wasn't going out to eat. I wasn't going to movies, except at the Dollar Theater. And I just, it was immersive. What was that thesis about? The first Masters was about the artist Richard Prince. Uh-huh.

The second one merged with the PhD, and I was looking at the idea of region as a kind of symbolic quantity, and I'm somebody who's always been fascinated with the South. Uh-huh. This is where the music comes from, really. Right, okay. You know, when you think about the band up in Canada,

they're having dreams of the American South up there. Sure. That's how that music comes into being. Well, they also, they're having dreams, but they have the records. The records, and then Lee Von Helm is coming from Arkansas, and they put it together. But they know the heart's beating a little louder down there.

Regions as symbolic quantities? Is that what you said? Yeah. Yeah. So I feel like there's a fantasy of the American South that has a basis in reality, but it interested me. Yeah. So I was in a department where I could go. It was pretty free range intellectual work.

University of Rochester. Both of them? Which college was this? University of Rochester. Both of them? It went Loyola to University of Wisconsin-Madison to University of Rochester. Hmm. Yeah.

And then, so now you've got two masters, one PhD. You're a doctor of what? Something happened before I finished the dissertation, which was that I got a solo record deal with the Dust Brothers, who had produced Beck's A Little A, Beastie Boys' Paul's Perfume. It's interesting. I listened to that record. I listened to the record, and then I listened to the newer one. You know, it's weird what they and we can kind of do our thing. Yeah. Yeah. Because the new record is a little more raw.

Yeah. Oh, for sure. It's as much as I can pay for. Right. Sure. But the Dust Brothers label was a Disney subsidiary. Okay. And, um, they, one day Michael Eisner shut down half his labels and mine was one of them.

Fuck. So there I am, you know, I look at it as, um, either the gods or my mother, uh, at work. And it made me go and finish the dissertation. And I am so glad, you know, it felt like a bad moment, but man. Could have ended up back in New Orleans. The PhD mattered. It just mattered. You know, we forgot to finish out. Let's go back real quick and talk about the Miller beer controversy. Cause we didn't, we kind of described it, but we never, cause what happened in my memory was everyone in Boston thought you guys were some sort of sellouts.

Yeah, which is exactly right. And they kind of turned on the Del Fuegos. And you guys had to kind of take that hit. I would say we were already out the backyard. Yeah. So we didn't feel it. Oh, you're already making big records. Well, we were already out there.

We crossed some line. Like we were, right. We were going to go for it. And you're opening for Petty too. Yeah. You're doing shit. Yeah. Yeah.

You transcended the small pond. Yeah. But in retrospect, if you could do one thing differently, that would be it. Not do the commercial. Yeah. All right. Well, now we got closure on that story. disrespect if you could do one thing differently that would be it not do the commercial yeah all right well now we got closure on that story so here you are doctored up and do you have a plan are you going to teach yeah the plan was to teach uh that i was at a moment uh i was i was interviewing with the university of georgia to come into their art history program.

But someone at the New York Times did an article about me and Dan. And someone at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame saw that article, and I got tapped for a vice president position there, which is for someone who's doing adjunct teaching and living off his then wife's money on some level. Wow, a vice president. That sounds impressive, right? So why'd they pick you? Having been in a band, some experience on the ground, PhD, still doing, I was starting to write more about music. That Dusty in Memphis book came, and I looked like a kind of perfect fit from some perspectives. Who was the president?

Terry Stewart was the CEO at that time. Now, what was your job? I was the vice president of education and programs. So I did a lot of, for instance, it gave me a kind of visiting professor position at Case Western Reserve. So I could be at the museum and also go up there and teach. Where's that? It was ideal. That's Cleveland. Case is in, well, I knew the museum and also go up there and teach. Where's that? It was ideal. That's Cleveland.

Case is in, well, I knew the Rock Hall of Fame is there, but Case is in Cleveland. Yep. So you're teaching what? I was teaching a class. It was really an interdisciplinary cultural studies kind of thing where I could bring in literature. I could bring in the visual arts. I could bring in music and steer my own ship. So you could teach the courses on what Warren thinks.

Yeah. Look, I don't need to convince you. More people should be looking at popular music in the classroom. Of course. If you walk the streets today, what are young people using? What cultural product are they using to kind of build a sense for themselves? Typically music, more than anything else. Yet, it doesn't get into the classroom. They've got a better shot studying Hemingway than Taylor Swift. And I think

that's a problem. Well, yeah, especially because when you really think about it, and when I was coming up or growing up, when you really think about the sort of ground zero of rock and roll, I mean, it's not that far back. Yeah. And from there and from, well, obviously, from jazz and from blues and from country, like all that stuff, what is America kind of moves through the music. Absolutely. I mean, if you want to talk about the great migration, for instance, make it a musical story. Why not? If you want to talk about the role of

the black church and how it matters beyond the black community, do it through music. It's just, there's a density to it. Interesting. But I think it's the people looking and it's the Taylor Swifts that make it hard. Like, really? We should look at that? It's like, if you take the other stuff seriously, take the current stuff seriously too. Well, yeah, you got to go back, you know, but the weird thing about going back is the one problem with that idea is that I have found that generations younger than you and

maybe us as well, but it was a little different because I think we're closer to the source point. But I think younger generations, even if you show them, you know, a Dolly Parton, or even if you trace, you know, Taylor Swift back through her roots, is that they want to feel like they discovered something new. So you're sort of up against that until they hit an age where their curiosity enables them to contextualize. Yeah, I agree with that. One of the good things is whoever's out there and, you know, in the top 20 with longer careers, they're going to be pretty quick to share what their roots are. And so once, like, a young fan hears that Dolly Parton mattered

from their favorite artist, they'll start to naturally go back. Yeah, a little bit. But, like, to really kind of run the train back to sort of look at America, you know, that's a big ask of a 17-year-old. Yeah. Trust me, I try with my sons, and I'm being a little bit overly optimistic. Well, then, yeah, coming from dad, then it's, like, going to be a bigger problem. Because they've got to learn this shit on their own.

Either they're going to be curious or they aren't. Yeah. You know? It's funny. I stopped. You know, it's funny. I stopped, you know, I say that I do that with my sons. I actually stopped. I started listening to their music much more because they were, I had a lot to learn and in particular musical theater, which I'd always viewed as a world never to go toward. Oh yeah. And then the Hamilton generation

came along and I see things, I see my kids processing emotions through musicals. Yeah. And I'm like, that's as good as it gets. So I listened to a lot of Dear Evan Hansen, a lot of Hamilton. Yeah. And I kind of fell in love with musical theater. Yeah, I've always had a weird soft spot for it. I don't know a lot about it, but it always gets me for no reason.

If I just see more than one person, if I'm in a theater and there's a set and people come out and they take their places and they start singing together, I'm a mess. It just moves me. I have no idea why. I'm 100% with you. There's something about a group vocal. Totally. I mean, there's a reason that happens in churches. Yeah.

But there's a reason that the Beatles became the Beatles that has to do with many things, but harmony absolutely among them. Okay, so now you're at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and that gives you some sort of cultural bona fides, right? And that gives you some sort of cultural bona fides, right? Being totally forthcoming, it was an anxious move for me because I was still making records. I could have made the choice to live with less and keep going after a music career.

But I had, you know, one of my sons, Lucian, was already born. Another was coming. Yeah. And I wanted something more solid for them. Okay. But I felt like if the Miller commercial felt like a kind of sellout, I thought, rock and roll hall of fame. How am I going to live this down?

Yeah. And it ended up being a fantastic experience for me. And nobody cared, right? Nobody cared. It's like you weren't, in order to get that type of specific attention, you got to have some sort of big profile so people can be mad about it. Yeah. People are mad about inductions, and this job had nothing to do with the inductions, really. Yeah. People are mad about inductions and this job had nothing to do with the inductions

really. Yeah. And so I had people like Chips Moment and Dan Penn, you know, uh, it's just the guests, Bootsy Collins, you know, the James Brown's drummers, uh, this, this steady flow of artists and then putting on a Sam Cooke tribute with Aretha Franklin as my headliner. I got to do, I was just writing about Harry Belafonte and bringing him out for a Lead Belly tribute. And I look back and I go, wow, they really gave me a platform to do some amazing So you were producing shows? Yeah, we would put on a yearly American Music Masters show. Yeah. But throughout the calendar year, smaller ones, bigger ones. You know, Chip's moment, major figure.

Yeah. Probably 10 people in the audience. But for me, it didn't matter. I was having these conversations. I learned so much. Oh, so you were interviewing them? Yeah. How did Chip's feel about 10 people in the audience? You know what? Chips was, I think he was really just happy to be there and happy that people were seeing where he fit historically.

And I would say, like, do not look out there at the numbers. Yeah. Know that we're taping this and this goes into the archives. So you were working as a cultural anthropologist. That's how I felt. But was that part of the job thing or is that something you carved out for yourself?

Did you take it as an opportunity, the cachet, to bring these people in and to sort of learn more for yourself, but also to sort of integrate them into the history? I mean, I wouldn't say I invented the model, but I would say there was lots of room for me to

kind of refine the model. And I got to let my interests in music drive me. And so, for instance, calling up Jerry Wexler and say, hey, Jerry, if you could have one person come in for a public event. He's like, Cowboy Jack Clement. And then I go, call Cowboy Jack Clement. And he came into the museum. Like, I got to do that stuff. And these people are heroes. Yeah. Okay.

So there you are. And now you are a guy that does that. So is that how you got the gig? When does the Dusty thing happen and when does the Scorsese thing happen? I wasn't at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for a very long time. And then what happens in my life is I've got these aspects of my work that are running simultaneously. So I keep making records. I keep writing.

I keep teaching. I keep teaching. I keep working to get more music in the classroom. And in a way, that's carried on. Documentary work snuck in the side door. When I did that Lead Belly program that I mentioned, Don Fleming, who ran the Alan Lomax archives. Great archive. Yeah, yeah.

His wife was working for Scorsese, and that's how I came in to do interviews for that project, which was incredible for me to talk George Harrison with George Harrison's friends. So that was the George Harrison doc. Yeah, yeah. And you weren't on camera, camera or you just doing background? Yeah.

The guy that gets cut out. Yeah. But in my first interview. But you were doing taped interviews. Terry Gilliam. Yeah. You were doing taped interviews. Yeah.

So, okay. So you were the, they were phrasing it as a question. Yeah. It's like, you know, Jackie Stewart, the race car driver, Terry Gilliam, Klaus Vorman. Yeah. It's great. I like that documentary. So you do the Scorsese doc on George and then how does that petty book come?

Because that petty book was huge and I think helped put him into context. It was a popular book. Well, but I mean, here's what happened is Tom got the Dusty in Memphis book. Yeah. And his management reached out and said, Tom has read this book and would like to take you out to dinner next time you're in L.A. And I hadn't seen him in a long time. Since you were a kid? Yeah, I was an academic.

And I was like, wow. So I went out to a restaurant right across from his house. He knew you from when you were a kid, though. Oh, yeah. When he read the book, he was like, yeah, it's that kid from the- He was really, you know what? He was always like really nice to me. And I couldn't, I felt undeserving.

But he read this book. We have this dinner, just the two of us looking over the Pacific. Yeah. We have this dinner, just the two of us looking over the Pacific. And he said, so I read this book. And I can't usually trace inspiration, but I wrote a song because of it. And I want you to come back to the house and hear it. And now I'm like, I had no idea this is where the dinner was going. And from that day forward, I was just kind of in his world again.

What song? Down South from the Highway Companion. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, and he like went on to Terry Gross and talked, there's this guy Warren Zanes, he wrote this book. And I was just like, what? Yeah. I was an academic.

Yeah. You know, that's how I thought of myself. Really? Yeah. And then they called about the Peter Bogdanovich not long after and said, Tom wants you to be one of the interviews. Yeah. He just, you know, it moves me. Yeah.

He could have picked other people. Sure. And, you know, he and Tom Petty and Bruce Springsteen, like when, when everybody left the house, you know, we're living in New Hampshire, 20 acres. When everybody leaves the house, you go to that turntable and you put these records on, you put on born to run, you put on damn the torpedoes and you sing until you feel just a little more freedom than you can feel when other people are in the house. Then your mother comes back with a gallon of milk from the neighbor's house

and you try to make it look like you weren't just pouring out your soul. But those records come into your body, into your life, and they do something and it stays there. Yeah. Yeah. And, and music does that. It's like, it's, it's, it, I, when people talk about comedy and music, like I, I always say that, you know, music is genuinely magic, you know, and comedy is sort of a trick where

music, it kind of grows with you. That's the weirdest thing about you, about, is once you get it in your bones, especially that older stuff, for whatever reason, the stuff that kind of defines your childhood or adolescence or whatever, it stays in you, but as you get older, like, I swear to God. I mean, what was I listening to today? I was listening to Fear of Music, you know, at the gym. And I swear, I'm like, I never noticed that guitar part.

Like, or I never noticed that lyric. Or, like, it keeps growing. It keeps speaking to you. I really tried to end the Nebraska book on that very note, just saying, you know, movies, maybe you'll see them a half dozen times. Sure. Novels, you might read them three times. Music, recording.

Yeah. Thousands. Oh, totally. Like if you just look at what the most played are on your phone, like look at what you play the most, you know, because there's a list of songs that you go back to, and it's kind of interesting, you know, what you end up listening to over and over again.

Well, the past couple of years for me, it's Nebraska. Well, I had to go back to Nebraska because I read the book and, but like, before we talk about that, just quickly,

what was your, what did you do for the, you know, 20 feet from stardom movie? Cause I love that documentary. Uh, and it got me into her, uh,

the one Mary Clayton. Yeah. I got her. So I got a bunch of vinyl. Well, Darlene love that documentary. And it got me into her. The one. Mary Clayton. Yeah. I got her so, I got a bunch of vinyl. Well, Darlene Love. Yeah, yeah. It was incredible being involved in a project that centered around women. Like popular music is no utopia. And in gender, it's definitely not.

And rock and roll, you know, very skewed male. So that project had that, these women's voices. But the way it came to me is Jan Wenner from Rolling Stone sent me an email saying, would you talk to my friend Gil about his documentary idea? And I'm like, you know, of course. Yeah. I didn't know Gil. Gil described himself as the ampersand in a&m there's herb albert and jerry moss yeah and gil's running a&m for years yeah and so gil calls me

and i was just getting divorced and my youngest yeah i will never forget this day, my youngest wanted mother and father to walk him to class. And it just wasn't going to happen. And I was so kind of devastated, like, we can't do that for this kid. And Gil calls me that day, and he goes, hey, it's Gil Friesen. How are you doing? I said, Gil? I was in that, like, I got nothing to lose here. And I said, hey, it's Gil Friesen. How are you doing? I said, Gil? I was in that like, I got nothing to lose here. And I said, let me tell you how I'm doing. And I just did this whole spiel. And at the end of the spiel, he says, would you like to know how I'm doing. And he said, well, today was also my son's first day of kindergarten.

And I'm, I can't remember how old it was. I'm 64. And I'm telling you that, Warren, to let you know there will be other chapters. Now, from that moment, like, Gil Friesen, I loved this guy. Like, he didn't tell me, like, Gil Friesen, I loved this guy. Like, he didn't tell me, like, behave. He said, I feel that you're hurting. And here's a little story that might make you consider that it's not all over yet.

Yeah. And then I was like, okay, what's your idea? And he said that he had gone to see Leonard Cohen. Yeah. And he had smoked pot before he saw the show. Yeah. And he was just kind of spacing out, looking at the background singers, wondering what their lives were like.

Yeah. And that was it. He really didn't have an idea. Right. And that tells you something about the birth of some of the best ideas. They just creep in quietly. Yeah. And then situate themselves. And then, you know, eventually he named Morgan Neville director.

And he was just persistent in making sure it was the best possible movie. And Morgan was there to respond. Who came up with that title? Jimmy Buffett. Huh. Gil was describing it to Jimmy Buffett and some other people, and Jimmy Buffett just said,

that's like 20 feet from stardom. And Gil looked at him and went, gotcha. Yeah. Well, that movie did very well, and it brought a lot of attention to those women. And I became sort of fascinated with Clayton's story. Yeah.

And I got those solo records, because she had a bit of a solo career. There's like two or three solo records. She came and sang on the third Del Fuego's record. No shit. And we all, we brought flowers. Yeah. And we all wore suits that day in the studio because we knew who was coming yeah that's beautiful so why the bruce book how did that happen

um because i had a question about this thing and i was kind of describing it earlier like why am i feeling so much of myself in this? Yeah. That was one question. The other question was, like, why in God's name would any artist do that at that point in their career? So The River was his first number one album. Yeah. With his first top ten single, Hungry Heart.

After, what, six records, five records? That's, The River's the fifth. Okay. He's poised. You know, six records, five records? The River's the fifth. Okay. He's poised. They just cracked Europe touring, their biggest tour yet. It's just the moment when you step onto the rocket launch pad and you take that trip. Yeah.

And he went in a completely different direction. And that fascinated me. Like in the book, I say, you know, it was more punk rock than any punk rock band. Yeah. It was so defiant. It was so in opposition to what was expected from the marketplace perspective. And that fascinated me. So those two things, why am I connecting with this like I am? And why did that man do it?

things. Why am I connecting with this like I am? And why did that man do it? And then when I read his memoir, Born to Run, and he talks about his breakdown right after Nebraska, I went, of course, if it's going to come, that's when it's coming. And I want to know more. So you saw that because I interviewed him and being in the presence of him is something. It's very powerful, and I think what he did in his memoir, talking candidly with that kind of vulnerability, was really, it meant a lot to a lot of people. It meant a lot to me. And the thing that, it was my inroad. It was my inroad to a book, but I still didn't know what the book was about.

How did you get him to sign on? Because you got a lot of very focused conversations out of him about this. Yeah. Because I guess you had some ideas. You saw that period as a portal. You saw it as a gap. You realized that there was something about, you know, the mental breakdown and previous to that.

And also you go out of your way to really, you know, talk about, you know, who would do this? Why would they do it in between Born in the USA and the river? You know, like he sort of stalled that launch that you talked about. And, you know, and it becomes sort of clear that he didn't really know either. I don't, it didn't seem like in the book that he was clear on his intentions. Yeah. One part of me wondered because of the way it panned out was, gosh, was there calculation here? Because what a perfect setup for born in the USA. And there was no calculation.

There was somebody bottoming out. And, like, you know, there's no hope on Nebraska, but in the story of getting from Nebraska to Born in the USA, there's a lot of hope. And the idea of someone making art from a place that dark, most people stop, and they get the art going again when they've come out of it. He made something from the heart of it. And I think that's what I was feeling. Like, it's like, so it's very curious that it, I carried it as a kind of emblem of hope.

And, you know, I've been. The way it felt in the middle of things. So the move from Nebraska to born in the USA, that was sort of redemptive and optimistic somehow. Yes. Not at the level of story, not at the level of sound, but in retrospect, the shape of that life, like something happened that allowed him to carry on. You know,

this was the feeling I had, like when we went back to the room where he made Nebraska, and it was just the two of us walking into that house. It was in a house. Yeah, it was a rental, a ranch house, small place. And like, you know, you go, you know, pretty thoroughly in the book, you kind of, you kind of set up, you know, who he was at that time, what he'd just gone through, the idea of working with the band, not working with the band, that the river was a sort of like band record, much of it done live in the room. And these were his guys. They'd always been his guys. And he had these other records. I mean, darkness is no slouch of a record,

and then something happens to him after the river where he sort of drops into this dark zone. Which many of us do. Of course. So he rents this house in New Jersey. It's not his house, right? He has another house there, right? He rented it.

No, no. He buys his first house after he makes Nebraska, but it's in Los Angeles. Right. Because even after Born in the USA, he kind of hit, wasn't great. Yeah, but this is, you know, he comes off the road. One of my favorite quotes is, you know, he comes off the road.

One of my favorite quotes is, you know, Max Weinberg saying, you know, there were some of us who didn't know where he was living. Like, it's such a band experience going out on the road. He comes off the tour, and then that band, he's a little bit, you know, he's missing. Yeah. And he's obviously missing to himself, but he's always found or looked for where he is through song, so he keeps writing. And, you know, he's spent so much money in recording studios that he's got to find another way. He's come into his early 30s, and then he gets that four-track recorder. Well, that was very interesting in what you were talking about in terms of how do you make mastering compelling is that, you know, there's definitely many levels in the book that address the culture and also, you know, just how technology is progressing around music and what, you know, production, how that's, you know, kind of evolving in music. music and what, you know, production, how that's, you know, kind of evolving in music. And you spend a lot of time talking about those home four tracks because I've used those. I had friends who had those and that was when they came out.

Yeah. Was around this time because he wanted to get these things down. He didn't, I think he assumed they were demos. He did. Yeah. Yeah. This is, it's the only album of his only official release that he made not knowing he was making an official release yeah so he's putting these songs down and he needed something to do that with and he needed to have like someone to teach him how to use that

machine and you know but but also he's coming the thing that i really liked about setting these songs up was that I had known that he was really taken with the band Suicide. I mean, I knew that. And I have that first Suicide record is really something. And clearly the darkness there through what's his name, Alan Vega? Was it Alan Vega? Alan Vega. Yeah. there through what's his name alan vega was it al vega that whatever that guy was exploring in that minimalist way with which was you know a sort of no wave band uh uh you know which a two-man

operation but the darkness that that guy like i listened to it because i was reading the book and it was what was interesting is that on which one is it? Which Suicide song is the one about Johnny? Frankie Teardrop. Frankie Teardrop is that, like somehow or another, I had a moment with it that I hadn't had before, which was that it's sort of like, it's the end by the doors.

You know the end of that song where he's like, and then he walked on down the hall. There's something that dark about that song too, that there was sort of this narrative about death and about horror and about evil. So I think this is why in the books, suicide, the band is so, so important. And Springsteen puts it beautifully saying, you know, there's an unforgivingness in this music that appealed to him.

But he was also going, isn't, you know, aren't there territories that music can go to that I haven't yet explored? Well, yeah. That there aren't that many bands, you know, romance and love and loss. These are so central to popular music. But violence, terror, despair, which many of us feel at junctures in our lives,

we don't see them in music that much. He found them in suicide. Right, but he also, as an homage or unconsciously, basically does an Alan Vega yelp. Yeah, in State Trooper. Yeah. It's right there. Yeah.

And I love that, too, that he's like, I'm going to sign your name right here. Yeah, yeah. It's a scream. Yeah. And it's like, it is that scream. But also, you know, the reference to, I had to go dig up, you know, Hank Mizell, you know, that jungle rock business, because I knew the sound of Nebraska. You kind of know that sound if you listen to old rockabilly or you listen to the darker

rockabilly stuff. But that, you know, but that stuff after you talked to him was kind of running through his brain, that that was a context, that was a sound that had haunted him when he was a kid somehow, or it spoke or it enabled him the delivery system to do what he wanted to do with that record you know because that reverb business and that echo business you know it is haunting yeah and and it's it's it's haunting all the way back to the beginning of people using that on their voice in rock and roll and it is something there's something creepy

about some of the rockabilly stuff. Always has been. Yeah, but then he combines that, so that echoplex, that kind of Sun Records reverb. And the analog echoplex he had? I think it was like the Gibson echoplex that he used. But combines it with like the Glockenspiel. Right.

You know, to get the sound of childhood. There are these things you would never put together that he was so intuitively. And like talking about him mixing it down to a broken boom box. He's like, put the elements in front of me and I can come up with a good way of going about it. Like he, he just went with intuition, but I think it was super important that he didn't think he was making a record. And so there were, there were lots of voices out of the room so that he could really attend to the voices that were in the room. Yeah. And it's just crazy. because I remember when the record came out,

and I wasn't in the same place you were. I didn't have an intellectual sort of understanding of it. When did it come out, 82? 82. Yeah, so I was just, I mean, I was home from college for summer. I don't know what, I remember getting it. I remember having it and thinking, like, what the fuck is this? Because I had the river, and I was like I was like, you know, my God.

I mean, you know, because everyone was sort of talking about it. But I was too young to really have put it into context or think about it in any sort of intellectual way. But I knew it was a special record and I liked hearing it. And I felt haunted by it. Like I felt listening to older stuff. Well, don't give me too much credit. Like my understanding of it wasn't intellectual at that time. It was really visceral.

Visceral, yeah, yeah. But this thing, like we were talking about, the best music keeps revealing layers. This one just didn't go away for me. And I knew I wasn't alone, that it was a reference point. Yeah, and then because you talk to people, you know, other artists about how it impacted them when it came out, because this is a time, you know, when, you know, punk rock is going a little bit mainstream and people are starting to use that as a definer of a genre. And then there were those who were sensitive to Bruce and sensitive to, you know, songwriting in general. I can't remember who were the people you talked to. Richard Thompson, Roseanne Cash, Matt Bereninger from The National, who was great, Steve Earle.

That had impact. Well, Steve Earle, you probably got three hours from him. Oh, well, I just did a show the other night, and he was one of my performers. Okay. And he did State Trooper in Nebraska. Oh, that's great. Yeah, yeah. But, yeah, everybody had their reason that they needed a Nebraska.

Well, and then, like, you know, once he got done with the recordings, you know, he sends them to his manager. He sends them to Landau and says, I don't know what this is, but, you know, what do you think? And what Landau said, these recordings concerned me on a friendship level. Like, is he okay? Like, that partnership, the Springsteen-Landau partnership is definitely one of the main elements in this book. But that he could get out of the head of the manager who's looking at what the next release might be to go to, it concerned me at a friendship level.

These are darker than the darkness he usually plays in. That's deep stuff to me. And then John Landau reappears saying, you need some professional help. Like those guys were able to do something where they knew when it was about human beings who might need some help and when it was about human beings who might need some help and when it was about making the next record.

And there was a sensitivity. Chuck Plotkin talks about this, that John was the one with the greatest sensitivity. And that, for this particular artist, is exactly what a manager needed to be. Yeah, because he could have slipped away. He could have slipped away after Nebraska, after born in the USA,

where he seemed to become lost. Yeah, yeah. For that Tunnel of Love record. I mean, where was that guy? I mean, I saw footage of him, you know, playing with the wallflowers, and he genuinely looked lost to me. Yeah, yeah.

No, there's, you know, we don't have a neat resolution. We're on these long, you know, these long, it's an overused word, but they are journeys. Of course. You know, peaks and valleys. So this wasn't the last valley, but it was the valley that got him to the next one. And I feel like, to me, he's a really positive figure in that not just allowing a kind of vulnerability, but he continues to question.

It was really interesting interviewing him. When he still had a question, he didn't try to sew it all up. He was totally willing to sit there with me and go that one's open-ended for me i don't have an answer yeah like that's that's a good interview sure but the as i was saying before the technology uh thread where you have this machine that you know when you're using it at home you think you're making a professional recording it's a four-track recorder but none of the guys within the industry at that time could figure out once it was decided,

like, well, this is it. The band, he brings on to them the band, you know, for what became, you know, recording several songs

for Born in the USA, which they ultimately put on hold for over a year, right? Yeah. But they tried to play some of the Nebraska songs and it just wasn't,

it wasn't it. In his words, and this was absolutely key to understanding the story, he said, every time we went into the studio to try to make those what we thought were demos better, I lost my characters. Meaning that the people in those songs who were at that moment in time, his people started to disappear when a band overpowered them.

Sure, they weren't sax characters. They weren't Steady Max characters. Yeah, exactly. And you listen, I was just listening to Adam raise the cane on my way here, and he's pushing his voice so hard to go over that band. Yeah. The Nebraska material, they were, you know, that's why Flannery

O'Connor is important. These are short stories. He couldn't fight to get those characters over the top of the music. They could only, like, kind of come under. Yeah, and I feel like that voice, whatever he learned there, you know, once he got a handle on it and took it out of the darkness, enables

him to do the Jode record. I think everything that comes after. You know, I just feel like something crucial in terms of his artistic trajectory, not just his kind of human trajectory. But he gets, you know, talking to artists like a Richard Thompson or a Roseanne Cash or a Chuck Proffitt, about Bruce, the storyteller from Nebraska forward, is really telling. Yeah.

Well, I mean, I think that's where he learned how to create unromantic characters that weren't redeemed. Yeah. Because, you know, there was sort of a glory to everything before that, even in the sad ones, you know, there was still something sweet about it. There was always a sliver of redemption. Yeah. And sometimes I think that there's art that, like, can leave that part to the listener, to the reader, to the viewer, and, you know, just not, you know,

like Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment, I always felt like there's a little light at the end and I almost wish it wasn't there. Yeah. You know? Yeah. I'll provide that. I'm reading because I'm hopeful.

Yeah. If I had no hope, I wouldn't be reading. But if you had no hope, you could listen in Nebraska. And it might make you feel less alone. That's what it's done for me. Yeah. But the sort of technological thing where they decide to make it a record and they couldn't figure out how to master it with modern equipment,

so they had to go to the top three mastering guys, and some guy eventually figured out the puzzle. And then what are you going to do with the release? You can't promote it the same way with the record. All this stuff about the nature of the songs, the nature of Bruce, how it fits into his catalog, the nature of technology at the time, the nature of his relationships with the band and with his management, and ultimately with the record label around the sort of eight songs that are sitting there that will become Born in the USA,

the idea that so many people are like, all right, well, we'll wait, and we'll work with him exactly how he wants to do this. Like, there didn't seem to ever be, you know, they, I imagine there was nervousness, but they honored it, and it wasn't even a financial gamble. I think they were mostly concerned about,

like, what's this going to do to Bruce? It could be like a kind of death knell. Right. It's so at odds with the marketplace. It's so confusing to some fans. Right. Like, that's why I had, you know, that question. Why would you do this?

It was powerful. Sometimes the artist has to do something that's all personal and completely at odds. But it wasn't like there was no precedent. I mean, you know, he comes from, you know, he's over there where Columbia, I mean, you know, you know, you're making a folk record or even something that's off. I mean, they'd done it before. It was just the nature of that era, you know, because you're coming into the 80s you i don't think anybody had done it from that position no no i guess so but i mean it wasn't it wasn't like it wasn't totally what the fuck is this i think there was a fair amount of that yeah i mean because and that's why i set it up with the river and say you know number one album yeah i get first top 10

single that's a question it was such a left turn. Why would he do this? But it wasn't like the stuff didn't make sense as music. It just asked for a lot from the listener. Right, but they knew that no matter what, that Bruce's people were going to get, they were going to buy it. Right. It went to number three. Right. So they were going to buy it.

So that means that the experience is going to be theirs. And I would imagine that many of them had your reaction. Some of them may have been confused, but I bet you a lot of people also had John Landau's reaction. Is Bruce okay? Yeah. And the incredible part is the last third of the book is that in retrospect, whether it was intentional or not, or not, probably not, it was ultimately the most genius lead in to Bored in the USA that could have happened. Because that means that no matter what, that Bruce, that album becomes essentially redemptive. It's like, you know, from afar, Nebraska's like just the pulling back of the bow. Right. Born in the USA is the release, and that arrow just goes across counties. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Even with that title song being misunderstood.

Yeah. Primarily, because I've heard the, you know, I heard the, you know, that other mix of Born in the USA that's on the, it's on. The Nebraska version. Yeah. Which is like heavy. Yeah. Yeah. It's not flag waving. No. You know, so it's harder to misinterpret. And I think that's one reason Bruce said, in retrospect, I wish I had put it on both records. Here's the Nebraska version. Here's the Born in the USA version. And then people wouldn't mistake Born in the USA for something it wasn't. But it's not on Nebraska, is it? No, no.

But he recorded that version in the Nebraska sessions. Oh, okay. And it's so different in character. But, yeah, you know, like one of the things that, and this is why I want my sons to really hear Nebraska is like imperfection,

the unfinished, you know, a pitchy vocal, tempos going off. We, in the digital era, we live in the time when the grid

and the tweaked vocal, all these things are really easy to do even at home. 20 producers, dude, on some of these records. Yeah. So it's not to say that's bad and this is good, but Nebraska, why does it keep breathing over the decades? That's one reason is because we've lost contact with the depth of the human flaw, you know, the kind of emotional resonance of the mistake. Yeah. I mean, you know, I had a conversation with my producer about how with the younger generation, you know, how vulnerability is seen as a sort of fault. is seen as a sort of fault. Yeah. I mean, the mistake is related to the vulnerability.

Of course. And I've been in the studio myself, like you're sitting with an engineer and you see right where your vocal's going off. And you're kind of like, I hope he fixes it before I have to ask him to. Yeah. But who wants to be the first person to just lay it all out there

but this record stands as like who would want to fix that that's the other thing you learn from his biography and sort of his autobiography and some of the stuff that you talk about is that you really learn that you know just how fucking hardy on himself he was and and you know i think that nebraska is a release of that and and an allowance of whatever the fuck he was. And, and, you know, I think that Nebraska is a release of that and, and an allowance of whatever the fuck he was beating the shit out of inside of himself to come out, you know, and have voices. Yeah. I mean, uh, you know, I, I had to ask him, like, I had to ask him, like, you're obviously going into a place of personal turmoil. You're not supposed to go there alone.

And he said, I hadn't figured that out yet. Yeah, but, you know, some people, they're going to go alone no matter what, no matter what they know. I think certainly, yeah, he hadn't figured that out yet, but it wasn't an option and it wouldn't have happened had he figured it out. And he only figured it out, you know, after, you know, he had done everything that he could by himself and still not resolved the problem. Yeah. Right. So I thank God he didn't figure it out. Yeah. Yeah. And that like, and I like the title of the book, deliver me from nowhere, you know? Yeah, that's it. And I think it did, at least for a little while.

Yeah. And then the beautiful thing also about the title for me is that it shows up in more than one song. Another aspect of the unfinished is the lyrics are popping up in a few different places. Well, I think that's interesting. It's unfinished, but also it's about process, right? There's such a level of exposure of craft here. Yeah, yeah. Like I think a lot of songwriters, that was one of the takeaways.

It's like you feel like you're in a Bruce writing session where nobody should be. How did the rest of the band feel about it? You know, this book was really so based around him. Yeah, I guess I'm going to talk to him now that I've been back on it. Not about the reaction to it. Yeah, but I think he makes pretty clear that it's his show. Sure. And he says, you know, from this point forward,

it's going to be sometimes I'm by myself, sometimes with a band, and he doesn't get to know which is going to be when. Yeah, but it enabled him to find himself in that zone, you know, without, like, whatever guilt he may have felt or whatever, you know, responsibility he might have felt to that group of guys who he'd known since he was a kid. You know, for him to, you know, to be able to do, to separate himself in this dark zone.

Again, that, like, not unlike it changing the way he constructed stories, it also changed the way he, you know, made choices for himself around the band. You know, he does talk about that band staying together. And it's like, he's got to trust his band. His band has to trust him. Most bands don't make it past five years. Yeah. They must have done a lot of things right here.

And I think that's indeed the case. Oh, yeah. And now, you know, Happy Bruce is out on the road, you know, dancing with people, having sing-alongs. It's funny. You know, I dedicated this book to my old band. Yeah. Which was, you know, writing about Bruce, writing about Tom Petty.

These are guys who spent a lot of time in bands. Yeah. And we didn't get very far. Yeah. And most people don't get very far. Yeah. You know, I got that bachelor's degree, those two masters, the PhD, but the degree that counts more than any other for everything I've done

was five years in the Del Fuegos. That built you. It left me with a whole lot of stuff to figure out. Yeah. And then life presented me with these incredible opportunities to figure some of it out. Like, trust me, to kind of dedicate a book to them, that took some doing.

Yeah. It took some processing for you, some letting go. Absolutely, but also to go, you know, where do bands start when people are very, very young? Sure. And most of them come from twisted backgrounds. But also, like, you're also still trying to resolve your own stuff through music. I mean, you still do the work. Yeah.

your own stuff through music. I mean, you still do the work. Yeah. And it's odd to me that, you know, you became a teacher and a sort of intellectual around these interests that you have. And your brother does children's music. You know, you're giving back

the two of you somehow. Well, I like that take. Yeah. Yeah. Well, great talking to you, man. Great book. Thank you. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, great talking to you, man. Great book. Thank you. That was fun, man. That was fun. Like talking about the old days, you know? You can get Deliver Me From Nowhere right now wherever you get books.

And please hang out for a minute, will you? Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly, host of Under the Influence. Recently, we created an episode on cannabis marketing. With cannabis legalization, it's a brand new challenging marketing category. And I want to let you know we've produced a special bonus podcast episode where I talk to an actual cannabis producer. episode where I talked to an actual cannabis producer. I wanted to know how a producer becomes licensed, how a cannabis company competes with big corporations, how a cannabis company markets its products in such a highly regulated category, and what the term dignified consumption actually means. I think you'll find the answers interesting and surprising. Hear it now on Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly. This bonus episode is brought to you by the Ontario Cannabis

Store and ACAS Creative. It's a night for the whole family. Be a part of Kids Night when the Toronto Rock take on the Colorado Mammoth at a special 5 p.m. start time on Saturday, March 9th at First Ontario Centre in Hamilton. The first 5,000 fans in attendance will get a Dan Dawson bobblehead courtesy of Backley Construction. Punch your ticket to Kids Night on Saturday, March 9th at 5 p.m. in Rock City at torontorock.com. at torontorock.com. Folks, some of the best episodes of WTF had comedians as guests, particularly in the early days of the show. For full Marin listeners this week,

we talked about 10 episodes from the first year of WTF where I sat down with a comic I knew and talked things out. This first episode I'm going to point out is episode 12. If people want to go back and find this, episode 12 is with Nick Kroll. And do you want to know why this is significant? Can you

tell me, Mark, why that's a significant episode? Chupacabra. It is not. It is not when he did Chupacabra. You had him back to do that. Oh, really? Yeah. Nick Kroll, episode 12, Oh, really? Yeah. Nick Kroll, episode 12, is the first interview you did in your garage. Really? Yeah. Oh, that makes sense.

That's when I came back. I set up the mics. That was before the garage was even set up. Right. You just sat out there on like a desk, right? With two mics. There was a table. Yeah. Yeah.

And the big mics were on the little stands. And I was going right into the power book. That's right. And yeah, there were just lamps and shit in there. The shelves weren't in. I hadn't decorated. I don't even remember if I'd put the floor in yet correctly. I think I must have.

I think the floor was in there, but it wasn't a functioning space. It wasn't really a workspace quite yet. Right. To hear that bonus episode and get ad-free access to all the episodes we talked about, sign up for the full Marin. Go to the link in the episode description or go to WTFpod.com and click on WTF Plus. Next week on Monday, I talk to Smokey Robinson. And then on Thursday, I talk to writer and producer Amy Sherman Palladino. Let's jam. Thank you. boomer lives monkey and lafonda cat angels everywhere