Steven Van Zandt Quotes

“As most of the population suffers through life, barely surviving, disappointed and confused day after day, hopeless, wondering what happened to their strong and beautiful country, it is in the media's power to restore, if not some of our quality of life, at least a bit of our peace of mind.”

— Steven Van Zandt

Band members have a special bond. A great band is more than just some people working together. It's like a highly specialized army unit, or a winning sports team. A unique combination of elements that becomes stronger together than apart.

— Steven Van Zandt

“I am interested in the interaction of a group of people who have a common goal, or a common obsession, each contributing something unique to make something greater than the sum of its parts. I don't know why, but from day one, that has interested me.”

— Steven Van Zandt

“The British invasion was the most important event of my life. I was in New Jersey and the night I saw the Beatles changed everything. I had seen Elvis before and he had done nothing for me, but these guys were in a band.”

— Steven Van Zandt

“Half of the modern world goes back as far as Pearl Jam. The real historians go back to U2. But they need to go back further. They have to go back to the '50s and '60s, where things started. That's how you get to be your own personality, by studying the masters. Rock and roll was white kids trying to make black music and failing, gloriously!”

— Steven Van Zandt

“What the world needs is an Emergency Boss. An Emergency Czar. An Emergency Commander. A true Master Of Disaster. One person completely responsible for the anticipation, immediate reconnaissance, and urgent execution of rescue and relief efforts around the world.”

— Steven Van Zandt

Rock n' roll is our religion, and we will continue to lose disciples as we go, but we pick up the fallen flag and keep moving forward, bringing forth the good news that our heroes have helped create, their bodies lost, but their spirits and their good work everlasting.

— Steven Van Zandt

“First of all, just because the Tea Party people appear to be generally uneducated, ignorant about the political process, ignorant about economics, confused about their own platform from the beginning, and indelicate when it comes to the craft of diplomacy, doesn't mean they're wrong.”

— Steven Van Zandt

“Rock n' roll as a genre is different from pop and hip hop: it is about bands, and that for me suggests brotherhood, family, friendship and community.”

— Steven Van Zandt

“I've always considered the government taking one out of every two dollars I earn absolute tyranny.”

— Steven Van Zandt

“Timing really is nearly everything. And what it isn't, circumstance makes up for.”

— Steven Van Zandt

The simple fact is we do not live in a democracy. Certainly not the kind our Founding Fathers intended. We live in a corporate dictatorship represented by, and beholden to, no single human being you can reason with or hold responsible for anything.

— Steven Van Zandt

“I was obsessed with politics in the '80s. I've recovered and I'm feeling much better now, thank you.”

— Steven Van Zandt

“My lifelong friend and mentor Frank Barsalona is gone. And the music business as we knew it went with him.”

— Steven Van Zandt

“Let the wealthier countries and corporations of the world fund an Emergency Organization.”

— Steven Van Zandt

“The first rule of rock and roll is it's all about live. Then you have to learn a second craft, which is making records. It should go in that order.”

— Steven Van Zandt

“The quality of our lives is diminished every time we lose a great artist. It's a different world without Sam Cooke, Otis Redding, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Curtis Mayfield, Brian Jones and the rest.”

— Steven Van Zandt

“The Rascals are something else. They're up there with the Beatles, and Stones and Byrds. That level of musicality. They have a real chemistry. It is like magic.”

— Steven Van Zandt

“Within three hours of a disaster event there should be a recon damage assessment of the infrastructure and an educated guess as to the casualties and degree of imminent human peril. Then make the airdrops of supplies and personnel. Simultaneously, Seabees would be dropped in, with lights and generators, to begin rescue efforts.”

— Steven Van Zandt

“The energy that comes when you compel people to dance stays with you your whole career - whether you are playing to 100,000 people at Glastonbury or 1,000 kids in a club.”

— Steven Van Zandt

“There is an established tradition of actors directing films that have a particular, personal meaning for them - Warren Beatty, Clint Eastwood, Kevin Costner, and most recently George Clooney to name a few. Remarkably, their films share an unusually high percentage of being very good.”

— Steven Van Zandt

“I'm a real band guy, you know? I'm really good at certain things, and the band stuff is one of them.”

— Steven Van Zandt

“It's become uncool to play other people's songs, and that's absurd. It has got to change. It's the reason why everything's so mediocre.”

— Steven Van Zandt

“Young fans want to know about the past and older fans also want to find new music.”

— Steven Van Zandt

“C-17s should be ready to go at various military bases around the world packed with water, food, medical supplies, sleeping bags and tents, all prepared to be air dropped in alongside soldiers and doctors to begin relief efforts.”

— Steven Van Zandt

“I know what it takes to make a band, how they should interact, what makes a record sound like it's a band - everything having to do with a band, I happen to be into.”

— Steven Van Zandt

“Like most people, I've always felt using words like 'best' when applied to art is a fun way for critics to stay busy at the end of the year, and I guess a good way to help get ratings for awards shows, which is fine.”

— Steven Van Zandt

“You think your congressman is working all day to get you a job? He may want to. He or she is probably not a bad person. They probably want to do the right thing. But they can't.”

— Steven Van Zandt

“From the age of 14, 13, I guess I wanted to be a rock 'n' roll star. And that was it. I wanted to make a living playing rock 'n' roll, and it was a ridiculously impossible dream at that time. But it was kind of all I ever wanted to do. It's nice to do it.”

— Steven Van Zandt

“I think it's important that all 50 years of rock 'n' roll live in the same place, because it's all connected.”

— Steven Van Zandt

“I'm not pretending to be an academic, or to have this down to a science. It's strictly my taste. But there is a connection between everything I play and the sets I put together.”

— Steven Van Zandt

“I'd never go onstage in my life without fully intending to do the best show you've ever seen.”

— Steven Van Zandt

We're a little lazy about spirituality in this country.

— Steven Van Zandt

You gotta love everything you do. You just gotta do it.

— Steven Van Zandt

“I am a reformed Taoist, part-time Buddhist, Hindu, animist, pagan, Jewish mystic, and Christian. I always got along great with priests and rabbis and mullahs and gurus, even though I spend most of my life constructively criticizing them.”

— Steven Van Zandt

Half of the acting I do is actually done by the hair.

— Steven Van Zandt

We never understood the concept of people going onstage and giving anything less than 100 percent. Maybe that's a blue-collar work ethic, but I call it just ethics.

— Steven Van Zandt

“You have to love what you're doing in order to find the energy.”

— Steven Van Zandt

“I didn't make that much money ... Once I joined Bruce (Springsteen), I took a huge pay cut.”

— Steven Van Zandt

“Anytime you spend six months on a song (Born to Run), there's something not exactly going right. A song should take about three hours.”

— Steven Van Zandt

I have a bigger mission than any kind of specific politics, which is trying to restore the accessibility of rock 'n' roll.

— Steven Van Zandt

“Rock 'n' roll is a participatory sport. It ain't passive. It ain't TV. Go out there and rock 'n' roll and dance and have fun.”

— Steven Van Zandt

“Enuff Z'nuff is one of the most underrated bands in the world!”

— Steven Van Zandt

“Touch the earth, speak of love, walk on common ground.”

— Steven Van Zandt

“I have lost a brother and a best friend. The world has lost one of the greatest actors of all time.”

— Steven Van Zandt

“Rock music had become my religion. Radio my church. And these DJs my priests, rabbis and gurus.”

— Steven Van Zandt