Little Steven Van Zandt is fighting a rock ‘n’ roll revolution. Between his syndicated Underground Garage radio show—which is approaching its 300^th episode—Wicked Cool record label and aim to develop a high school curriculum about rock ‘n’ roll’s history (with requisite concerts in the gym), Little Steven is attacking from all fronts in his effort to bring a greater consciousness to its legacy and impact. And this is to say nothing of his work as a member of Springsteen’s E Street band, producer of many an album or his turn as Silvio Dante in The Sopranos.

You’ve often said that the origin of the garage genre starts with one record: “Louie Louie” by The Kingsmen. What song is next in importance for you?

I think it [“Louie Louie”] gave birth to two genres really: garage and frat rock.

What was the next important garage-rock song after “Louie Louie”?

Probably “Gloria.” I think that those two are way above almost everything else. So Van Morrison’s “Gloria.” 

You’ve talked at length about the state of radio. You talk about the decision to replace ‘50s music with ‘70s music and that it was a decision made by a bad businessman who was uniquely stupid, deaf and dumb. Who?

That’s a really good question (laughing). I wish I knew. I’m not sure they know, you know what I mean? It’s somebody doing fraudulent marketing research. In other words, I don’t think the guys who are deciding this stuff are bad people. I just think that there’s something in the research they’re doing or the way that they’re going about trying to satisfy the lowest common denominator out there that is just fraudulent and a failure, in the most fundamental sense. I think it’s this constant tension between art and commerce that we all live with. I see both sides of it and I really do understand both sides of it.

I grew up during a time when the best music ever made was also the most commercial. So I’m not some sort of artsy person who is trying to impose something on an unsuspecting public. I understand the need to do something that is accessible and understandable and commercial in that sense. But you can’t pretend or impose 100% business on art, either. And that’s what’s happening. In other words, the reason all this works or ever worked is that the artistic side of it came from someone with passion, with vision, with things other than a fucking accounting book.

Defend your statement that “together The Sex Pistols, Audioslave and Wu-Tang Clan aren’t as wild as Jerry Lee Lewis in his prime.”

Well, that’s true. That’s a context statement. In other words, in the context of what’s going on in society and in one’s culture, we don’t really know what rebels are, because our whole consciousness has changed about that. Back in the ‘50s, there was no such thing as rebels. The government was right all the time. There was nobody questioning the government. There was no criticism of the government. There was no discussion of the government. There was no sort of sense of doing anything wrong; it was thankful. 

The general attitude after World War II, the general emotion was gratitude. Everybody was so happy that the war was over and now there was a middle class being born for the first time. People had houses in suburbia and people had cars and washing machines. It was like “Wow, how lucky we are to be in America and to have all these luxuries.” It was a time of this sort of ignorance is bliss, everybody is the same, and everybody must conform to the norm. This was all of society.

And here comes Jerry Lee Lewis. A complete freak. I mean, him, Little Richard. These guys were so freaky… they treated them like they treat clowns in a circus. That was the only way they knew how to deal with them, you know? Sort of, “Look at the monkey in the cage” sort of thing. You know, drinking and popping speed pills and amphetamines and marrying his 13-year-old cousin and kicking back the piano with his hair falling in his face. He was right out of the jungle! People like him and Little Richard were freaky. They communicating something so primitive, so liberating that it was unprecedented. Unprecedented! 

You’ve said of the older music you play, “I don’t think of this as nostalgia.” What do you think of it as?

The ‘50s and ‘60s was our renaissance and we will be studying it for hundreds of years to come, as far as I’m concerned. When I say I’m not nostalgic about it, what I mean is that I’m still in it. When I hear those songs, I don’t think “Oh, I was with my first girlfriend. That’s the song I got laid to. That’s the song I first smoked dope to.” I don’t think that way. I’m like, “This song is getting my dick hard right now. Right now! As I’m listening to it, this minute. In the present tense.” It’s just as inspiring now as it was then.

You use an interesting phrase at the end of your essay about garage rock: “Only giving everything.”

Well, that referred to one of my favorite garage- rock songs by Them, which is “I Can Only Give You Everything.” Them was Van Morrison’s first band. That’s where he did “Gloria” and “I Can Only Give You Everything” and “Here Comes the Night.” They had five or six great, classic songs. They did two albums and then he started his solo career. But Them was classic garage. They were just sort of primitive and right out of a bar. But anyway, I was partly referring to that but also referring to 100% commitment. This is what I do; this is what I believe in. 

Rock ‘n’ roll is my religion. That’s how much I believe in it. I believe in its power to communicate, its power to heal, its power to educate, its power to bring people together, which is different than other genres of music. It just is. You don’t get that sense with hip-hop or modern-pop or with heavy metal or hard rock or even indie rock. You just don’t get that same sense of community that you get from rock ‘n’ roll.

You organized the Sun City project to fight apartheid back in the mid-‘80s, which found some success and resonance. I’m curious to know your reaction to more recent politically, socially or environmentally-charged projects like Vote for Change or the recent Live Earth concerts.

Well, I’m very proud that we contributed to the fact that these things happen a little bit more often. Part of what we were hoping to do back then was… political involvement was not cool back then, in the ‘80s. It was not cool. I mean, it ended careers. Ultimately, it ended Jackson Browne’s career. The more political he got… not ended, but certainly hurt it. And I’m very proud of the fact that now, you can do these political things and nobody thinks twice about it. It’s all very cool, very accepted. In fact, it’s expected of you to be involved in some of these. And that’s an amazing difference in 25 years. 

You paid for Southside Johnny’s first album from “a good summer at the track.”

That’s true (laughing). We were big racetrack nuts. I used to be really into it. We would go to Monmouth Park, down in Long Branch. Johnny’s father was a real track guy. He taught us how to read the racing forms and all that. He was a great, great, classic character. He was a big-band freak. He would always have the bands blasting away in the house. He was a cool guy. But anyway, we happened to have a good year that year. We made whatever it was, six or seven grand, and we put it into our first album. After that, I sort of got into it. I just liked the lifestyle; until I realized that you really can’t win. And then I pretty much stopped doing it. But it has always got a place in my heart. I’m sort of half rock ‘n’ roll and then a significant part of me has always been that sort of goomba, Jersey, Rat Pack thing which now has been revealed by my being involved with The Sopranos, but it has always sort of been there.

You’ve contended that you have no interest in acting beyond what you did for The Sopranos. Now that the show is over, has your opinion changed at all?

No, I never really said I wasn’t interested in acting beyond the show, but I said that it is possible that it would be my first and last job, for a number of reasons.  Number one being that I fired every agent in Hollywood, who are just the lowest of the low. I just refuse to tolerate that level of incompetence. But I also just don’t have time to pursue that life. But I really like it, I mean, I really started to get into it. Obviously I just started to learn about it and I really liked it. So I’m hoping that at some point I’ll be able to do something else. Maybe a director will come to me that I know or a writer will have something for me that I feel I can do and I certainly would consider it. If I can find the time to do it, I’m gonna do it. 

Music played a big part in The Sopranos. Did you ever suggest any music and/or have any impact on the music?

You know, I really didn’t. David Chase is a huge music fan. He was a drummer himself in a band, in a garage band in high school. And I think if he had a choice, that’s the career he would have taken, because he really could have. So most of those choices are his. He does occasionally get some help from a guy named Martin Bruestle, who was the post-production guy. And once a year, they would come up to me and say, “We need something new. What are you playing on the show this week? We want to get a new thing in.” So we got the Greenhorns in, we got the Swinging Neckbreakers in, we got the Chesterfield Kings in, you know, a few things. But mostly not. It was maybe once a year. It was mostly David.

The show ended with Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing.” If you had it your way, what song might you have picked from that tableside jukebox instead?

We had long discussions about that, believe me. I was like “Man!” Again, this is David Chase just really not compromising. He was like, “This is what he would play. The character is a Classic Rock kind of guy.”

 So you knew ahead of time what it was going to be?

Oh yeah! We discussed it for weeks. Big debate. Huge debate, with me and David. We went round and round and round. I suggested three or four different things. I wanted “Loose Ends” by Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, I suggested “Pretty Ballerina” by Left Banke, “The Devil Came From Kansas” by Procol Harum, you know, just a bunch of different alternatives that David considered. In the end, he said “No, I got to stay true to what I think this character would do.” And I said “Oh no! Not that! (laughing) That can’t be the last thing anyone ever hears from The Sopranos. Nothing personal against Journey, but anything but that!”