LITTLE STEVEN VAN ZANDT Guitarist-actor's radio show makes its Youngstown debut

He's a musician with a memory and a musical historian who cares.
By JOHN BENSON
VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT
Take one glance at Little Steven Van Zandt, and you just know he is rock 'n' roll.
Perhaps looking semidemonic with his head titled downward, eyes glancing upward and enough rock star regalia, including a taut bandana, cool shades, tight leather pants and boots that scream musician from miles away, Van Zandt may embody a lifestyle, but he is more than just a chameleon of his surroundings.
He's a student of the game, raised on the music of the '60s, only to become a music veteran of the '70s and beyond. And it is his love of rock music, specifically the down-and-dirty variety produced simply by a drummer, bass player, guitar player and a singer with an attitude, that separates the New Jersey native from so many of his peers. In conversation, Van Zandt comes across as not only a musician with a memory but as a musical historian who cares, which is refreshing in a time when artists seem to have forgotten their roots or will change colors to sell two more discs while losing all sense of integrity and credibility.
Best known as the talented guitarist from Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band, Van Zandt also acts as Tony Soprano's right-hand man on HBO's "The Sopranos." Lately, he has turned his attention to his overwhelmingly successful syndicated radio show "Little Steven's Underground Garage Radio Show," heard locally from 9 to 11 p.m. Sundays on WNCD-FM 93.3. Ostensibly a history lesson of garage rock featuring yesterday's forgotten heroes and today's lesser-known players, the show made its Youngstown debut this week.
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Calling from his home in New York City with sounds of a fish tank in the background -- pressed for time, it turns out he was shaving -- The Vindicator talked to Van Zandt about his grand vision for the radio show, his role in teaching his peers about some good new music and his acting gig.
Vindicator: Talk about the concept behind "Little Steven's Underground Garage Radio Show," which has flourished in syndication.
Van Zandt: It got started basically to support this whole contemporary garage rock movement that is out there. There are a whole bunch of new bands studying the '50s and '60s and playing what we used to call rock'n'roll. And I'm not sure how we got to this place, but we have a format on radio these days for everything except rock 'n' roll. So, I thought let me try to do something here and we kind of built the show around these bands. And at the same time, I wanted to play some of the older songs, which I think are the coolest songs ever recorded. Such as [songs from] the first five or six Beatles albums, first five or six [Rolling] Stones albums, the early Kinks, the early Who, The Yardbirds, The Animals, and even groups like The Ramones and The Clash don't get played very often. So, there is a whole lot of stuff falling through the cracks, and I thought we would combine all of these things and turn it into a new kind of format.
V: The real appeal of the show stems from its edifying nature to the true music fan. That is, baby boomers can relive and enjoy the music of their youth while learning about younger bands, while youthful listeners interested in garage music get an education on the bands that started the sound some 40 years ago.
VZ: That's exactly right and that is the idea. What is really cool is half of the time people don't know if the song is old or new. And I love that. That really says something about the timelessness about a lot of stuff. Most of this stuff was freaky in the '60s. And what was freaky then is freaky now. And it just kind of lasts that way and when young people hear it for the first time, they react the same way that I did when I first heard it. There is something really consistent about this stuff.
V: Having successfully moved over from the concert to the sound stage with "The Sopranos," are you as comfortable in front of the camera as you are in front of an arena audience?
VZ: Yeah, that happened fairly quickly. The uncomfortable part about it in the beginning was the complete giving up of control. That was strange. That took me a year or two to really get used to. ... I'm not sure you ever entirely get used to it. But coming from music, where we very, very much control our own destiny, artistically -- you go in to do a vocal on a record, you listen to it and you're like, "Let me try that one more time" -- with this, you do your thing and then you see it six months later. And you are relying on others to decide whether it was the best you could do or not, even though really, they really couldn't possibly know that. But you have to just depend on ... you have to let that go and say to yourself, "Well, it is not important that I like it. It is only important if the director likes it." That was a big, big deal.
V: Finally, if you were to give any tips to Silvio Dante (Van Zandt's mobbed-up character on "The Sopranos") in regard to his musical selections at Bada-Bing, what would they be?
VZ: The songs the girls dance to you mean? First of all, I would never critique Silvio and not to his face, I'll tell you that. That's a whole different world there and I don't think he particularly likes the music that they play for the girls to dance to. He's a Tony Bennett guy, so I don't think he's particularly relating to all of the rock stuff they play when the girls are dancing, anyway.