Bruce Springsteen hasn't been known for being keen on giving interviews, but he recently decided to take some time with Rolling Stone to discuss his new album High Hopes, what he has planned for the future, his memoir and many other topics.
High Hopes didn't come together in the way we imagine a record does, as a primary focus and being tweaked from start to finish.
"The best way to describe this album would be to say it's a bit of an anomaly, but not that much," Springsteen said. "I don't really work completely linearly like a lot of people do. You have to imagine that at the end of the tour, or when I'm home, I go into a studio and I'm surrounded by paintings that are sort of half-finished. There's something wrong with this one that I couldn't finish and it's just sitting there, and I didn't have time for this one or this one didn't fit into the bigger project I was working on."
He said that the sort of randomness and sometimes bursts of songwriting leads to songs that were initially supposed to end up on one record and can even turn into the inspiration for an album of their own. Working with Tom Morello totally changed how Springsteen originally interpreted the songs on this record.
"He [Morello] said, ''High Hopes.' That's a jam. I could really do something on that.' I said, 'Okay, if you have suggestions when you come on the road, let me know what they are.' So we worked that out, and with the addition of Tom, that turned into something. It was like, 'Okay, we haven't sounded quite like this before.'
Springsteen says he's done some writing on what could potentially turn into a memoir. He doesn't want to make any promises about touring in the states this summer, but he will perform in Africa and Australia.
Read the entire transcript from his 54-minute conversation with Rolling Stone here.
