Bruce Springsteen explained how he dealt with drug issues among members of the E Street Band.
He said he was proud of how he and his colleagues had survived the music industry, describing its negative extremes as a “death cult.”
He added that their concerts were about honoring late members Clarence Clemons and Danny Federici – who passed in 2011 and 2008 respectively – while sharing the audience’s grief over their own losses.
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“One of the things our band is about is remembrance,” Springsteen told the Telegraph in a recent interview. “We believe that’s important. I think it’s important in a country, it’s important in a family, it’s important in a band – you honour the people who gave their all.”
He added: “You go out on stage to repair yourself of your hurts and your difficulties, and in doing so, you try to do the same for your audience. You address their grief.”
He connected his comments to the recent death of One Direction star Liam Payne, saying: “That’s not an unusual thing in my business… It’s a business that puts enormous pressures on young people [who] get lost in a lot of the difficult and often pain inducing [things]… whether it’s drugs or alcohol to take some of that pressure off.”
Springsteen continued: “I understand that very well. I mean, I’ve had my own wrestling with different things. The band has all wrestled with their own issues.”
Bruce Springsteen Laments Music Industry ‘Death Cult’
He reported that drugs was “not uncommon” in the band over the years. “There was a boundary, however,” he explained. “I stayed out of your business, but if I was on stage and I saw that you were not your complete self, there was going to be a problem. And so it made a bit of a boundary around that stage, where people had to be relatively sober and at their best.
“And I always say, one of the things I was proudest of is that if one of my fellas passed on, they passed on of natural causes.”
Reflecting on the phenomenon of the ’27 Club’ – the number of musicians who died at that age including Jimi Hendrix to Kurt Cobain – Springsteen said: “[P]eople continue to fall to it. It’s a death cult… It’s a grift, man. That’s a part of the story that suckers some young people in, you know, but it’s that old story. Dying young – good for the record company, but what’s in it for you?”
Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band 2023 Opening Night
Springsteen hits the road with his longtime backing band for the first time in six years.
Gallery Credit: UCR Staff
