I prefer the band situation. I prefer the relationship. Music is meant to be that way. It's meant to be interdependent.
When you have a relationship with music, and it's that deeply a part of your life, it's so much more than a career choice for me. It's an extension of who I am.
Well, I've always said that country music has always shared a very unique relationship with gospel music - the hooting and hollering, you know, always in abundance.
You ask for your audience's investment in your music; you're in a relationship with them. And their relationship with the E Street Band is separate from whatever else I might do. I like the idea of us being something that people rely on.
I went to school and studied music for a year at USC, which unlocked a bunch of doors for me in terms of my relationship to music.
It's impossible to overstate how my relationship to music forms a preserve for the esoteric or even spiritual aspect of my relationship to cultural stuff, to human expressivity... it's a safe enclosure.
I'm not sure it's a better music world of appreciation and performance. I think the listener is a different guy, and listening is something he does in passing, with other stuff going on. There's less care and understanding of the relationship between the song and the listener.
I never wanted to be called a fan, and that's no disrespect to any artist who calls them fans, but I never wanted a boundary in between the people listening to my music and me - for them to feel like I'm doing something that they can't do.
Formats are just illusions, and it's about the relationship between the person that makes music and the person that listens to music. Every time there's a new format, the iron is hot, and you can mold it.
The truth is hip hop has always complemented jazz and vice versa, but there's always been this communication barrier that exists based on music to lyrics.
I gathered all the different Peel Sessions recordings together - I did six or seven of them over the years - and listened to all of them. These definitely have at least a superficial relationship to each other because they're all very spare.
