By Bob Hill

Originally published via Crawdaddy! Magazine on May 7th, 2010

On March 15th, Steven Van Zandt took the stage at New York City’s Waldorf Astoria to induct the Hollies into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. During that induction speech, Van Zandt revisited several of the themes from his keynote address at the 2009 South by Southwest Music Conference. He referred to rock ‘n’ roll as a common ground, a means of communication and education, an outlet, a shared experience upon which lifelong friendships are built. He talked about the fact that something had gone missing along the way, that rock ‘n’ roll was suffering from a crisis of both commerce and craft, that the entire mechanism was broken, so to speak, and desperately in need of fixing.

Those familiar with Van Zandt know this type of thing is nothing new. For the past decade, the E Street guitarist and Sopranos star has been at the forefront of a movement to preserve and reinvigorate the grand history and tradition of rock ‘n’ roll, to reintroduce the genre to a whole new generation of music fans by developing an infrastructure capable of supporting and promoting young bands with the ability to break.

It hasn’t been easy. Almost every step of the way, Van Zandt has faced opposition from those who doubted the commercial viability of his ideas. But he pushed forward and eventually transformed his concept into a weekly radio show called “Underground Garage”—a two-hour rock ‘n’ roll extravaganza syndicated to more than 170 stations in the US, as well as several markets in Canada, Europe, and Asia.

“Originally, we sent the pilot out to 350 radio stations, and every one of them turned it down,” Van Zandt recalls during a recent phone interview. “And I thought, ‘Well, how about this?’ Then I got pissed. That’s when it turned from a fun little adventure to ‘Wait a minute. You’re telling me there’s no place in the modern world for a rock ‘n’ roll show?’ I’m like anyone else… you go through life and you kind of assume things are still kind of like they were 20, 30 years ago. I mean, what the hell happened?”

What happened was the death of free-form radio, phased out by a corporate culture that valued commercial air-time over content, pre-set pop over punk rock radio. Eventually, the entire FM dial began to operate more like an assembly line, where rigid formats ruled the day, and no one ventured outside the lines.

“A lot of classic rock stations have research that tells them they really shouldn’t play the new stuff,” Van Zandt explains. “I have these discussions with my affiliates all the time, where I say, ‘If we don’t play these new things, there’s not gonna be anybody new breaking.’ We need new blood to refresh this thing. We need young people to keep it fresh. Young people can appreciate the older records a lot more if they have young bands representing [the earlier artists]. People want to learn more about where the things they like came from. I think that’s just human nature.”

Eventually, the gamble paid off. Within five years, Van Zandt’s “Underground Garage” had amassed a weekly audience of more than one million listeners. That success led to a deal with Sirius satellite radio, which allowed Van Zandt the freedom to program two complete channels (i.e., “Underground Garage” and “Outlaw Country”); both of which were steeped in the tradition of his weekly radio show.

No doubt about it: The format Van Zandt once half-jokingly referred to as being comprised of “bands that influenced the Ramones, bands that were influenced by the Ramones, and… the Ramones” had definitely found its niche. But, as Van Zandt explains, it was only one piece of a much larger puzzle.

“Let’s face it—we kind of abandoned these last couple generations of musicians. The majors no longer do any development. And so we’re trying to make up for that a little bit and trying to form what’s going to be the new music business. That’s what we’ve been doing for the past 10 years—essentially building a new infrastructure to support a new music business, because the old one is sort of disintegrating before our eyes. It’s pretty much on the way out, and everybody knows it.”

In 2006, Van Zandt built upon the success of the “Underground Garage” by establishing Wicked Cool Records—an indie label with a similar mission and focus that soon signed a number of young and experienced rock acts including the Chesterfield Kings, the Len Price 3, the Cocktail Slippers, and the Contrast.

“Starting our own record label and putting out a few records forced us to take a look at where the record business was going,” Van Zandt explains. “We’ve done that now, so we know the business is going towards a 360 model. We have three artists signed to that model already, and in the next year or so we’ll be determining which artists we want to keep and which we don’t. We probably signed eight to 10 artists over the last three years, aside from our compilation records. It’s been a fun part of my life, especially with these last five records we’ve put out, where I’ve really gotten involved with collaborating and providing proper executive production.”

In 2007, Van Zandt founded the Rock and Roll Forever Foundation, a non-profit organization that’s first initiative, Rock and Roll High School, is dedicated to making the history and social impact of popular music part of the standard education curriculum.

“We’re facing a dropout epidemic in this country right now,” Van Zandt explains. “People may find it hard to believe, but a third of our kids are dropping out of school. Statistics show that if a kid likes one class or one teacher, they’ll continue going to school. We’re hoping to be that one class that keeps them interested.”

Van Zandt’s claim is reinforced by a recent New York Times Magazine piece that cited numerous studies, each of which found the only factors within a school’s control that have a significant impact on a student’s ability to learn are the teachers themselves and the manner in which the material is taught. Despite those findings, any organization interested in introducing a progressive component into the standard education curriculum still faces an uphill battle. A large percentage of today’s school districts are operating at a deficit, combined with an increased emphasis on standardized test scores (thanks to No Child Left Behind), both of which have forced the arts either under the rug or out the door.

So the question becomes, “How does a non-profit initiative like Rock and Roll High School gain mainstream support in an atmosphere like that?”

“Number one, you don’t ask them to pay for it,” Van Zandt explains. “That’s the most important thing for school systems and the government… This initiative is going to be privately funded. We’re already halfway to our goal for our pilot program, and I intend to raise the rest over the next couple of months.

“Secondly, we can’t go to high schools first,” Van Zandt continues. “You can’t get it done in high schools right now because of No Child Left Behind. They’re too obsessed with trying to get these kids to pass and go to college. It’s not really working, but it’s still the problem you face… When I met with Teddy Kennedy and Mitch McConnell, we talked about this program and the problems of No Child Left Behind and how it resulted in cutting all the arts classes, even though that wasn’t the intention. And we talked about the fact that kids who actually go to music class do better in math and science. Already [schools] have a problem if they’re cutting those programs and trying to improve students’ test scores. So we’re going to start in middle schools and maybe work our way down before we work our way up. This way we can show some proof of theory before we try to get into high schools later on.”

Along with that proof of theory, Van Zandt also plans to focus on the need for a “common ground” in schools, a sentiment which recently made headlines when a Mississippi court gave one school district 30 days to rescind policies that “clustered” white students from black students, in effect creating a segregated education system. In the wake of that ruling, state and federal officials now plan to investigate other school districts where similar complaints have been filed.

“I think we’re more segregated in this country now than we were in the ‘60s,” Van Zandt contends. “I don’t know how that happened. We were supposed to fix it. But I’m tired of seeing pictures of a lunchroom where all the black kids are sitting with black kids and the white kids are sitting with white kids and the Hispanic kids are sitting with Hispanic kids. It looks like 1959. What the hell went wrong? I don’t know what went wrong, but I know one way we can fix it. And we can do that by giving those kids a common ground. Rock ‘n’ roll is the only art form half created by blacks and half created by whites, with a healthy contribution from Hispanics and women… It’s gonna be an absolute revelation. And it’s gonna be an important revelation. It’s gonna be a wonderful common ground for these kids to walk on. They already have a common love of music. Every kid’s got an iPod. All we have to do is say, ‘OK, what are you listening to right now? Let’s trace the roots of it.’ And you go all the way back to the roots of the 20th century. You’ll be teaching kids not only the history of music but also the history of America in the 20th Century.”

With the E Street Band now on a two-year hiatus, Van Zandt has had a lot more time to devote to other pursuits. In early April, he served as the honorary chairman for WMGK’s 2010 Classic Rock Art Show & Sale in Philadelphia. On April 24th, Steve and his wife Maureen were the guests of honor at the Kristen Ann Carr Fund’s annual “Night to Remember” in New York City. Meanwhile, he’s been traveling back and forth across the Atlantic to work with some of the acts on his label.

In addition to all that, Van Zandt is hard at work on two projects he hopes will complete the rock ‘n’ roll infrastructure he originally envisioned almost a decade ago. The first is a television show based on the “Underground Garage” format. The second is Fuzztopia—a social networking site developed by musicians for musicians and fans.

“I still feel very strongly about the TV show,” Van Zandt admits. “I’m flying out to LA again this week in my endless pursuit to get the show on. I’ve been trying to get it on for five years. It’s basically what I think is going to be the game changer, in the case that I do get it on. It’s a very simple show called Underground Garage A-Go-Go. The concept is a combination of the old shows we grew up with—American Bandstand, Shindig!, Hullabaloo, and Ready Steady Go!. The idea is kids dancing to rock ‘n’ roll, rock ‘n’ roll bands playing… a variety show. But the main difference is nobody’s seen anyone dancing to rock ‘n’ roll on television for 40 years. Literally, since the ‘60s. Most people don’t even know you can dance to rock ‘n’ roll. So it’s one of those important moments where if we can get that show on and it’s a hit, we can literally change the game… and it’ll be 1963 all over again. That’s how strongly I feel about it.”

Back on the East Coast, Van Zandt has a team digging out the website for Fuzztopia, which is tentatively scheduled to launch in June.

“Basically, Fuzztopia is one-stop shopping for everything having to do with music,” Van Zandt explains. “Eventually, we’re going to be worldwide. So you start off with 52 different genres of music and each one has its own world [on the site]. And you add to that another eight or so icons that are centered around the music business, technology, ecological concerns about carbon footprints on tour, a section we call ‘City Secrets,’ which has to do with finding the best diner, the best hotel, and the coolest promoters in every city. Musicians will be contributing to that section on the road. Eventually, you’ll be able to find out things like where David Grohl recommends you get guitar strings in Seattle or the Edge’s favorite diner in Dublin. But you’ll also have every single band that’s on the road, talking about going from, say, Kansas City to Denver. And they’ll lay that out for you—‘this is where the cool gas station guy is,’ ‘look for this diner,’ ‘look for this hotel,’ ‘stop off and check out this cool thing on the side of the road.’

“We also plan on including the usual social networking and commerce sections. For instance, we’re developing a new idea where musicians would be able to put their stuff up for sale if they wanted to. The minute musicians subscribe, their music will be available worldwide through digital distribution. We’ll also be encouraging young musicians to go to songwriting seminars and production seminars and engineering seminars. We’re really going to try and hook people up with the craft and how it’s evolving.”

As the craft continues to evolve, so too does Van Zandt’s blueprint for a new infrastructure. Last year, his “Underground Garage” programs were responsible for playing more than 450 new bands. Wicked Cool continues to build an impressive roster of both young and experienced rock acts. With the Rock and Roll Forever Foundation and Fuzztopia both gaining traction, it seems Steven Van Zandt, who turns 60 this year, may be in the midst of redefining his legacy.

“Unfortunately, the goal is not to make money because none of these projects really do make any money,” Van Zandt admits. “And to be honest, they weren’t designed to make money. We’re starting to look for ways to achieve my lifelong goal of breaking even. But you have a certain amount of physical capital, and you have a certain amount of celebrity capital, and it’s up to you to decide where you want to spend it. You could buy lots of houses and yachts and go sip pina coladas in the Mediterranean, like smart guys would do. Or you could be a dumb guy like me and say, ‘You know, I want the
next generation to have the same inspiration and motivation that I had.’

“At its essence, rock ‘n’ roll is about bands. And bands are about friendships, and they’re about brotherhood and sisterhood. And ultimately, they communicate community. And that’s something you just can’t buy. It’s hard to find. I feel like what we’re doing is an obligation. Whatever we can be doing, we should be doing it. It may cost me some money… whatever. I’ve got a nice house. My wife is a saint. I’m very lucky. We’re not shopping at Versace instead of paying for the next Chesterfield Kings album. What are you gonna do with money? Sure, what I do is a very expensive hobby. But I’m not a philanthropist. And I don’t do it because I’m a nice guy. At some point, maybe we’ll start to break even. But as long as I do have the money, I think it’s a worthwhile thing to be a part of.”