Speaking exclusively to Hot Press, the E Street Band guitarist and Sopranos star was only too glad to name for us the all-time greatest Irish garage rock classic.
“You accept Van Morrison as a native son right?’ he says. “‘Gloria’ has become the co-national anthem of garage rock along with ‘Louie Louie’. As obstreperous as he can be, in spite of himself, he’s become quite a hero. I consider Them the archetype garage band actually, there’s been some controversy about who played on the record, but we tend to ignore those things. And he hasn’t been very helpful in that regard!”
Was Van much of an influence on the E Street Band in the early days?
“As a solo artist? Yeah, when I first knew Bruce we were listening to Astral Weeks and things like that. It became an early influence that would surface from time to time, it was one of those things that stayed quite deep in the DNA. At first it was the garage thing, and then he had a certain sort of singer-songwriter poetry sort of impact, and then he had a very significant R&B impact. So he had a very significant influence in at least three areas, and that remains I think with Bruce to this day.”
On the other hand, one of the great lost Irish garage rock heroes was John Byrne from the Count Five, whose ‘Psychotic Reaction’ was a highlight of the Nuggets box set, and one of Lester Bangs’ personal talismans.
“Yeah, I actually mention him in the first Irish show coming up. They were the more typical garage band, or what became known as garage band – that wonderful one hit wonder thing, and that’s the show we’re starting with for Ireland, a celebration of the Nuggets collection.”