Hot Press meets The Boss
Deputy Editor Stuart Clark jetted to France for a press call with Bruce.
The Hot Press Newsdesk, 16 Feb 2012
With Mr. Springsteen preparing to re-enter the fray with a brand new album Wrecking Ball (his 17th studio effort) released on March 6 and two massive RDS dates this July, Hot Press was Paris-bound yesterday for a meeting with the great man.
Having arrived at Sony France’s Rue de Chateudeun offices, HP's Stuart Clark was subsequently whisked off on a ‘Magical Mystery Boss Tour’ to the Theatre Lucide. Next to President Sarkozy's private residence and famous for being the venue where Eric Cantona made his stage debut a few years ago, the Lucide played host to the Springsteen summit.
The press call was conducted by Antoine de Caunes of Eurotrash fame, who opened by saying he'd spent, “35 years passionately following Bruce's path, he's become the soundtrack to my life.”
Bruce arrived looking well, all dressed in black, and held forth on his new album, which is his most political, least E Street Band-like, E Street Band record yet!
Musing that it’s “a great combination to be pissed off and a rock 'n' roller”, the disgustingly healthy 62-year-old spoke of house foreclosures, the Bush Years, the Civil War, the Great Depression and Occupy Wall Street.
“These things recur, so you can apply the Civil War to what's happening now,” he resumed. “There's no doubt that the Occupy Wall Street movement was powerful in changing the national conversation. Suddenly people were talking about economic inequality.
“Our job is to gauge the distance between American reality and the American Dream.”
When asked about Obama, the New Jersey rocker said: "He killed Osama Bin Laden, which I think was incredibly important. I'd like to have seen more activism though, I thought Guantanamo Bay would be closed by now.”
He also talked about his national pride (“it's often a very angry kind of patriotism”), his parents, the effects of Catholicism on his career and his love for music, recalling a recent three hour disagreement with Steve Van Zandt on the bus going up to New York about who was better – Led Zeppelin or Jeff Beck.
And then, an album playback. Of the Wrecking Ball offerings, Stuart Clark reckoned 'The Land Of Hope And Dreams' to be the finest. Clarence Clemons' swansong, Springsteen declares it to be a track of “such size and spiritual dimension, voices from history and the other side of the grave.”
We’ll have more – much more! – on The Boss in an upcoming issue of Hot Press.
Photo Credit: Yann Orhan
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