Playboy's 20Q: Steven Van Zandt

W ith his signature do-rag swaddling his head, and with billowy shirt and boots, Steven Van Zandt is easily recognizable. He has been described as an "urban swashbuckler whose frigate just got towed away for double parking." Now he's being recognized all over again for his role as Silvio Dante, the manager of the strip club Bada Bing in last year's hottest television show, The Sopranos.

Van Zandt is a proud native of New Jersey who has known Bruce Springsteen since Steven was 16 and even put him up at his home when Springsteen's parents moved to California. It wasn't inevitable that they should play together in a band, but they did. Van Zandt had already co-founded Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes by the time he went to work for the Boss' E Street Band on the Born to Run album and the subsequent tour. Van Zandt's 25-year career in music has seen him as a sought-after producer, songwriter and musician. In addition to his work with Springsteen, Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul and Southside Johnny, he has enjoyed a solo recording career--his fifth solo CD, Born Again Savage, met with critical acclaim.

The United Nations has twice honored Van Zandt for his work on behalf of human rights, and he received the International Documentary Association Award for his film Sun City/Making of Sun City. In 1985 he established the Solidarity Foundation to support the sovereignty of indigenous peoples.

Assistant Managing Editor John Rezek met with Van Zandt during the Springsteen tour last year. Rezek reports: "Few celebrities who come to our office in Chicago are greeted with the sort of delighted shrieks that welcomed Steven. He made time for everyone who wanted to talk--including me. We found a place where he could smoke and we spent a few hours there. He was thoughtful, funny, reflective and modest. And he toils in show business. Go figure."

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[Q] Playboy: At a poignant moment in last season's Sopranos, Tony lamented, "Psychiatry and cunnilingus brought us to this." If we free that thought from its context, is that so bad?

[A] Van Zandt: [Laughing] What a wonderful question. And the answer is no.

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[Q] Playboy: How do Sopranos groupies compare with Little Steven or Springsteen groupies?

[A] Van Zandt: Oh, the hair is higher. They always wear pants, never skirts. But I'm afraid the whole concept of groupies is a bit of an anachronism unless you're the Backstreet Boys. Adult entertainment doesn't lend itself to that sort of thing.

At this point, a lot of people say hello. I'm always on the street, and people have always said hi, and in the past it's been about the music. But I swear to God, two weeks after the show airs, 90 percent of the people who stop me in the street are Sopranos fans. Just like that. I'm not exactly recognizable in the show either. I've always heard about the instant fame that television brings, and it's actually true. That part of it is very nice, but there's no increased sexual activity from spontaneous strangers.

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[Q] Playboy: What don't you do anymore that you used to enjoy, even if it was for the wrong reasons?

[A] Van Zandt: I don't find myself watching sports at all. I don't want to watch somebody else do something for three hours. I don't keep up as much as I should with the culture in general, which for the most part in this decade showed total alienation. So I don't see as many shows or listen to as many records or listen to the radio or watch MTV or sports. I don't go to the movies as much as I'd like, but I don't think I'm missing much. I think everybody receives a certain amount of input growing up, and they reach a point where they're filled up, and then they try to turn it into output. At this point I probably have a hundred albums and movies and all kinds of things in my head that need to get out. I regret not having more output and regret being as picky as I've been about what I've done, but once you start that pattern, it's hard to break. I've probably only done four things in 25 years: Springsteen, The Sopranos, my political involvement and the records. But those are four good things.

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[Q] Playboy: How did you get your part on The Sopranos?

[A] Van Zandt: David Chase, the creator, had followed my music through the years, both with Bruce and the solo stuff. I was doing the Hall of Fame induction ceremony the first time it was televised, and David happened to be watching. I think he just liked the whole Jersey connection. I didn't have a publicist or an agent or anything so he managed to find me through my foundation. My office called me and I'm like, "Yeah, yeah, tell him to send a script." I'd seen a thousand scripts in my life, not for acting but for music in movies and things, and I'm picky about what I associate myself with. But I read it, and, shockingly, it was good. I went down for the audition and my part didn't exist at that point, so they had me read the lead character to see if I could act or if I could remember that many words in a row. Then David said, "You know, I want you in this." And I said, "I don't feel great about taking an out-of-work actor's job here." There are like a thousand out-of-work actors struggling all their lives and here I come, some rock guy. Then he said, "Well, I'll write you in," and that's what he did. So it's a Hollywood story. Or a Jersey story, I guess.

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[Q] Playboy: What energizes you during your rock-and-roll performances? Has it changed over the years?

[A] Van Zandt: When I went onstage when I was 15 years old and when I go onstage now--I want to kill. I want to do the best show anybody's ever seen. It's partly out of respect for the tradition I grew up with during that extraordinary renaissance period that was the Sixties, which we probably won't see again for hundreds of years. The rock era may be over. I don't think its cultural significance will ever be the same, but that's what I grew up with. You feel a responsibility to be as great as the people who inspired you, and I guess that's where it comes from.

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[Q] Playboy: Does the current generation have enough to inspire it? What was the message of Woodstock '99?

[A] Van Zandt: That may have been just a one-time circumstance. But it leads us to a bigger question: Is this generation receiving the same input from the culture as the previous generation did? Obviously the answer is no. There is a case to be made right now that art reflects the culture--the cynicism, the lack of norms--and none of it's good. This generation of kids gets an enormous amount of largely negative information, which has to make them tougher, less sentimental and more cynical. It's going to take enormous strength and creativity for the artists who are at street level--to go against this wave. Anything that is not reflecting destruction and conflict is almost disregarded. It's very difficult. But we can have some hope because I think the younger generation is certainly smarter than we ever were, and one hopes they'll find their way.

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[Q] Playboy: Do you know when you've nailed an acting moment, when it is real or true?

[A] Van Zandt: No, it's so new to me. You always feel like you could have done it better. The odd thing was adapting to this art form. It's so collaborative, and you're dependent on others. That was the toughest part. You completely rely on a director, so if the director is happy, you've got to be happy. It was odd to not be able to see my work until six months later. In music, you sing a song, you go in a booth and listen to it, you go back in and sing it better. With this, you act, you see it six months later and you think, Gee, I wish I had done this or that. You just have to let go and trust the director.

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[Q] Playboy: Do Mob guys tail you, shove you into a limo and tell you what they think of the show?

[A] Van Zandt: Well, of course I have no direct knowledge of anyone being in the Mafia or even if the Mafia exists. I mean, if we can't believe J. Edgar Hoover, what government official can we believe? But, you know, guys know guys who know guys, and the word is that the show is well received across a broad spectrum of critical analysis.

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[Q] Playboy: You may be the only rock-and-roller who regularly reads Foreign Affairs magazine. How does what you read evolve into what you sing?

[A] Van Zandt: Well, you take all this information and you absorb it, and you then transform it into a story. In the end, your job is to communicate emotional information. For instance, the bigger context of Los Desaparecidos on my second album was the military regime's kidnapping and killing people who opposed them--with U.S. support. That became a mother telling her child that her father is not coming home. The records don't insist that people get interested in the subject. People just enjoy them, but if something in the lyrics intrigues them, I always have a reading list on the album and go into some detail in interviews about what certain songs are about. It's a bit tricky to not be rhetorical, and I'm very proud of what I've done.

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[Q] Playboy: What's the most boneheaded foreign policy gesture the U.S. has made lately? Kosovo?

[A] Van Zandt: Yeah, that's a tough one. Nobody wants to stand around and watch something bad going on, but I've always felt that the United Nations should be militarized, that they should be the policemen of the world. I know it's controversial, but as I look to the future I don't really like that it's our role in the world.

But why Kosovo rather than Liberia or wherever else? There are probably 30 wars going on right now that aren't in the papers. Is it a racist thing? Is it an economic interest thing? Why deal with those questions as a government? I don't think one situation is necessarily more terrible than another. They all should be dealt with similarly, and I don't think we should be the ones to do it.

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[Q] Playboy: In keeping with Sopranos tradition, which world leaders should have contracts put out on them, and which would your character like to personally cash in on?

[A] Van Zandt: Boy, we had a list in the Eighties. I was never crazy about Saddam. That was one of the few times I had some agreement with our government's actions, though of course we did that whole thing for the wrong reasons and stopped too soon. I was involved a little bit with the Kurd situation, so I've never been particularly fond of him. I suppose somebody in North Korea and possibly in South Korea would probably be unlikable still. If you go around the world, I'm sure that there are a bunch of them still hanging around. But it's not like the the Reagan era, when we supported every fascist beast in the world.

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[Q] Playboy: Who are the inspirations for your character on The Sopranos?

[A] Van Zandt: I watched all the gangster movies again, back to Cagney, Edward G. Robinson, Bogart and George Raft, and I reread all the books. I think my character, Silvio, wants to broaden the scope of his business into more so called legitimate areas, such as entertainment. In that sense, he's a little bit of Frank Costello and a little bit of Bugsy Siegel--if we can call the entertainment business legitimate. It's a stretch. Of course, it's funny because he's on the lowest possible rung of the entertainment ladder. He's a strip club manager, but he has thoughts of bigger things and he likes that world. He's more comfortable in it than most guys who do what he does. He's not uncomfortable around different ethnic groups or different types of people. In that sense, he's sort of a diplomat for the family, an intermediary.

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[Q] Playboy: Is Las Vegas really a family vacation destination?

[A] Van Zandt: That was one of the great misconceptions of the century. I don't know what they were thinking, but the tide is turning the other way with the Rio and the Bellagio. They're starting to get back to what Vegas is all about, which is sin, sin as an art. But we'll call it adult entertainment.

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[Q] Playboy: Which of the seven deadly sins should still be deadly, and which have expired?

[A] Van Zandt: Sloth. And gluttony. I think anything that stops one from realizing one's potential is, in a sense, a sin. But lust is a good thing, let's get that straight right now. Lust is a good thing and much lacking in our society.

(concluded on page 154)

Steven Van Zandt

(continued from page 142)

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[Q] Playboy: How do you see your character growing in the next seasons on The Sopranos? What would you suggest to the writers?

[A] Van Zandt: Right now, I'm just happy I'm there at all. It's an easy show to be eliminated from. It just takes one bullet. I'm very grateful to the Sopranos people and HBO, because they've been bending over backward to schedule my scenes on days off from the Springsteen tour. I don't have that big a part, so it's great that I'm there at all. I do hope it lasts forever, because I love it. It may be beyond any budget, but I'd like to see Silvio become manager of a nightclub that has big-band music like the old days, because he's very much a traditionalist. It's what he has in common with Jimmy's character, Tony. They're both nostalgic for what they perceive to be the good old days, when values were respected. It's a bit romanticized in their minds, but that nostalgia for a simpler, more defined life is what the Soprano family and most of American society have in common. It's one of the reasons it's a success; it reflects what people feel.

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[Q] Playboy: Will America's prosperity eventually buy us the luxury to increase the spiritual component in our lives?

[A] Van Zandt: It feels like we're the richest we've ever been and maybe ever will be. So I would certainly like to see the old war on poverty make a comeback, the one that was sidetracked by the Vietnam war. You look at media footage from that time, and what it portrays as horrible poverty looks rather pleasant compared with what is going on now. You think to yourself, My God, we tolerate these things. We slowly adapt to terrible conditions and I don't like to see that happen. It has a spiritual component to it, but it also has a practical component, as most spirituality does. I don't know why Clinton is so quiet about most things and so ineffective. What's he got to lose at this point? I don't understand that. Why not go out with a big gesture?

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[Q] Playboy: How can we understand the real responsibilities in life?

[A] Van Zandt: I've tried to recommend to people and to myself to take as much responsibility as you're able for your life. Don't depend on government officials, the media and certainly not rock guitar players to instruct you on what's real and what's not. It's important that we spend time thinking about it. As I say that, I realize it's a luxury in our country to do that, to be able to think, to be able to ask oneself, Who am I? Religion is very personal. You start to learn about yourself and are able to be a bit more in control of your life; it's hard work, but it's worth-while. You feel better having done it, but it's hard because you're going to face a lot of things you don't like about yourself. And if we're really honest with ourselves, we all have a lot of room for improvement. My two most fundamental religious beliefs are that everything is alive and that everything is connected. If you look at the big picture, one's inner strength also relates to the planet's strengths, the strength of the oceans, the strength of the air you breathe--it's all connected. The more one becomes aware of oneself, the more one starts to look around and say, How can we make this better? Can we fix this and make it better at least for the next generation?

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[Q] Playboy: Everyone thought that The Sopranos would sweep the Emmys. What happened?

[A] Van Zandt: I never regard these things with any seriousness whatsoever. I really don't. I've never judged any work I'm involved in by somebody else's opinion. Most of the time these things are just sort of a fun way of seeing people. But for some stupid reason, I got suckered into this one, I really did. I was shocked at how pissed off I got. It's like, What's the matter with you? It's ridiculous if one puts any value on these things at all, and believe me, it doesn't matter. But obviously the voting process needs to be re-examined. Let me be as diplomatic as I can. I understood that the industry votes for the final five, and then this smaller group of people nobody knows--ex-network executives--votes for the finalists. So I understood politically that the show perhaps wouldn't win, but I could not imagine how somebody could deny Jimmy Gandolfini. For me, his role and the job he does go back to the achievements of someone like Jackie Gleason. I just didn't think somebody that extraordinary could be denied. And that has nothing to do with Dennis Franz, who I love. He's terrific on NYPD Blue, which is one of the few shows I've liked in the last ten years. You want the team to win because you feel everybody deserved it and should be recognized in some way. We all went out there to have a party, and I think the whole country wanted to celebrate because the show is like nothing else on television. With all due respect, I don't think people are gathering every week and having parties to watch The Practice.

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[Q] Playboy: Do you think that in the same way The Godfather taught the Mafia how to act, The Sopranos is an instruction manual for Mob guys today?

[A] Van Zandt: I think it's instructive, but it teaches them how not to act. We're everybody's bad example.

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[Q] Playboy: Can you at least give us one Sopranos scoop? Will the family still be in the garbage business?

[A] Van Zandt: Yeah, thank God for garbage. Life may change, but garbage goes on.