Clarence Clemons tells Nestor about life after E Street before Hammerjacks show in February 1990

Thirty years later, it seems almost inconceivable that Bruce Springsteen once was departed from E Street for over a decade. The Big Man joined Nestor during his days as an #AlmostFamous music critic at The Evening Sun in Baltimore to talk about solo life on the road.

In February 1990, Nestor Aparicio interviewed Clarence Clemons, a member of the E Street Band, shortly before a show at Hammerjacks. Clemons discussed his solo tour, which featured a new band called the West Coast edition of The Red Bank rockers. He mentioned writing new songs with band members Kevin Russell and Jimmy Dillon. Clemons reflected on the breakup of the E Street Band and his acting role in the TV series “Human Target.” He also shared his experience of the 1989 San Francisco earthquake and his enjoyment of touring despite being away from his family. Clemons expressed gratitude for his career and looked forward to future opportunities.

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

Clarence Clemons, solo career, E Street Band, San Francisco earthquake, Ringo Starr, Billy Preston, Maryland roots, new album, touring band, acting role, Human Target, family life, Baltimore show, Bruce Springsteen, creative venture

SPEAKERS

Clarence Clemons, Nestor Aparicio

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Nestor Aparicio  00:00

Welcome back wnst Towson, Baltimore and wnst.net it is wnst Rock week, and I am presenting a whole bunch of old classics. And many of these interviews sat not many. All of these interviews sat on tapes, little micro cassettes from my recordings, from these interviews many, many years ago, and I never unearthed them, because I thought, what would a 22 year old version of myself say to Clarence Clemens? Well, Clarence Clemens, of course, of the E Street Band. And many of you know of my affinity for Bruce Springsteen in the E Street Band and flying all over the world seeing the band, but this was at the very early part of, you know, after Tunnel of Love and Born in the USA, I did not read books on Bruce Springsteen or subscribe to backstreets at this point in my life. I didn’t honestly know a whole lot about Clarence Clemens. I didn’t really, honestly know a whole lot about Bruce Springsteen, other that I liked, born the run and some songs and liked Tunnel of Love, but the band had broken up and that gone their separate ways, kind of famously, for a better part of over a decade, really, before they would get back together and play again as E Street and Clarence Clemens had embarked on a solo a career in a solo tour and acting career at that time. This interview is from February of 1990 right after the San Francisco earthquakes of October 1989 which we reference in this interview. And if you really want to go to the almost famous part of this, if you’ve seen the Cameron Crowe movie, I in this tape, specifically you can hear my deep voice, because I don’t want to sound like Mr. Clemens. How are you so anyway, you can start hear the early deep tape, deep voice revolving around the tape. But I was, you know, questioning all sorts of things. And you know, he was at a point where he was trying to find himself. He was playing hammer jacks and still be loved as the big man and expected to be seen next to Bruce Springsteen. And you know, had hurt and disappointment and shock and all of that stuff, and talked about rebuilding his life. And now that he’s passed on, he certainly had an incredibly grand life, and went to school here in Maryland, as you’ll hear in the interview, and had a lot of family at the show that night at hammer Jack’s more than a quarter of century ago now. And I can’t begin to tell you how many nights around the world I have stood 50 feet from Clarence Clemens. I never spoke to him again. This was the only time I may have shaken his hand at the show at hammer jacks. But I’m not even sure that I did that. But I have no experience of any one on ones with Clarence Clemens other than this conversation. Needless to say, there are many things in life you’d like a mulligan or a do over. Hey, man, that’s part of having these things in a box for 25 years and pulling them out. Whatever I said to him early that morning, because I can kind of tell from the raspiness of my voice, was early in the morning, because I worked the night shift at the Baltimore Sun at that point in my life. But you know, he was playing with the Ringo star and Billy Preston and Ringo Starr’s all stars. And you know, all these years later, you know, I’ve known Nils Lofgren now for three decades, and you will hear plenty of Nils Lofgren on wnst this week as part of our rock week. And you know, knowing someone else in the band, Clarence isn’t one of those guys that I knew, and this is the only conversation I had. And I wish I could do it all over again, but hey, man, that’s part of the story. As you get older, you find the old stuff. I’m just glad I can share it with you, and if you want to have a laugh and feel free. This is Clarence Clemens from 1990 about to play hammer jacks. This is wnst Rock week. I Hi. Clarence Clemens, please. Hi, hi. This is Nestor from Baltimore. You got a few minutes to talk to me. Just want to talk a little bit about what you’re doing right now with the tour. How big of an undertaking is this?

Clarence Clemons  03:58

We’re out on the short tour,

Nestor Aparicio  04:03

a working tour

Clarence Clemons  04:05

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with the band and

Nestor Aparicio  04:08

writing songs and having fun. He’s all part of this band.

Clarence Clemons  04:13

I call it the West Coast edition of The Red Bank rockers. These guys all from California. Kevin Russell, who you may have seen in the last white snake video, Jimmy Dillon, two guitar players, Brad Russell, Jimmy’s brother, bass player, he’s working down in Miami studios. Mike Marty and Pete wasn’t as to people, guys from Lorraine County. They worked in Nardo Michael Walden, young guys, and did they? Help you at all with your album? No, the new album we’re working on together. We’re writing stuff together, Jimmy and Kevin, that’s

Nestor Aparicio  05:05

what you’re in the process of doing. Yeah? You do a little bit on the road, or ideas

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Clarence Clemons  05:11

when you travel with the band and know, the blessed together. This is your new

Nestor Aparicio  05:20

band? Yeah, I guess you’re parting from the E Street Band has been kind of celebrated. Is it really over? Or is it

Clarence Clemons  05:33

over? Bruce didn’t say it was over, definitely. I don’t know. Stick around and wait. Where

Nestor Aparicio  05:42

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does that leave you if he decides to say, hey, let’s put it back together tomorrow. I mean, he seems, is he the impulsive kind of guy that could do that he possibly could,

Clarence Clemons  05:51

but if I just was a role in a TV series recently, I read for a long time ago, and they called me back. Yes, couple

Nestor Aparicio  06:11

days with TV series.

Clarence Clemons  06:12

It’s a new one called human target.

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Nestor Aparicio  06:15

Human target, ABC. ABC to know, ABC, ABC in the fall, ABC, Warner Brothers, I guess you got a lot of hours in the

Clarence Clemons  06:30

fire happening, you know. And if it works out that I can go back with Bruce, I would love to do that, you know.

Nestor Aparicio  06:42

I gotta work. What college

Clarence Clemons  06:44

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Maryland?

Nestor Aparicio  06:45

You go to Maryland? They went back to your alma mater. So I guess maybe you got some friends here in Maryland.

Clarence Clemons  06:55

Oh, yeah, a lot of friends of Maryland. Man called the vibrato rocking. Was left first rock and roll band and Salisbury crisp field. Johnny Bowen from Chris field.

Nestor Aparicio  07:14

I guess coming this weekend when you play here will be a big show for you

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Clarence Clemons  07:20

play he’s from Chris field. He’s singing with me.

Nestor Aparicio  07:36

What songs do you do?

Clarence Clemons  07:37

We do a lot of stuff from the collage of my whole other day I’ve ever done, even from Bruce’s song, and a lot of the new stuff that we’ll be going into

Nestor Aparicio  07:50

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studios record when we get back with Bruce’s stuff. Do you do well,

Clarence Clemons  07:54

right now, glory days and Cadillac rants, which is, you know,

Nestor Aparicio  08:08

see that ignites the crowd a certain way, or that gets the crowd all fired up. Well, actually,

Clarence Clemons  08:18

the collage of my lifetime, everything

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Nestor Aparicio  08:31

from the first down to now. So you said you’re kind of struggling. Is this the kind of way to make money for you while you’re you’re doing some

Clarence Clemons  08:40

stuff? This is making venture for me, this is just fun for me, the band, small, creative thing, you know, creative so,

Nestor Aparicio  09:01

you know, with your family and all with, I guess, your wife and your son, they still back in Marin County. Then I guess it gets kind of lonely being out on the road, boy, you’re at a lot. It seems like

Clarence Clemons  09:13

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my family’s got used to it a long tour, you know. So I’m on my way from home a couple of weeks we’ve been playing California a lot.

Nestor Aparicio  09:28

I guess move to San Francisco. Does that sort of symbolize a change? I mean, how long you been out there now, I

Clarence Clemons  09:33

guess I subconsciously saw the handwriting on the wall when I moved out there.

Nestor Aparicio  09:41

What about the earthquake? Were you there for that? That was my first

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Clarence Clemons  09:45

earthquake experience, man, and I was really freaked. It really got me from New Jersey. You know, when I called back to New Jersey, the town that I lived in was on the water. So.

Nestor Aparicio  10:02

Where exactly were you when the earthquake hit that

Clarence Clemons  10:13

afternoon, my wife was just going to store with Over half happen. She called me from the car and

Nestor Aparicio  10:44

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problem all the tours and stuff that you’ve been on out there, you’ve never been in one or never felt the ground shake, I

Clarence Clemons  10:56

told the truck,

Nestor Aparicio  11:03

that’s when you knew you were an Eastern so I guess your sons will be at the show Sunday night. Then one other thing I wanted to ask you about that I’ve been I’m a hockey writer here. I cover the capitals and skip Jackson. You were doing a little bit of work with the

Clarence Clemons  11:27

celebrity hockey

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Nestor Aparicio  11:37

team doing that, or I

Clarence Clemons  11:39

don’t have The time now, you know, right now trying to reconstruct my life. What

Nestor Aparicio  11:46

was it kind of a shame that you had built so much around e steep brand and just to have it, you know, like

Clarence Clemons  11:53

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18 years of being married to someone and all of a sudden it’s gone, you know, shock and quite disappointment, and that was really hurt for a little while. But then, you know, I thought about the feeling that it offered me, you know, I could go out and do a lot of things now that I couldn’t do before, and then find that my life is really taking off. You know, I’ve started to unfold and really find the confidence in my own, my own, being on this wonderful

Nestor Aparicio  12:26

thing, working in his band, I guess, was a springboard to other things, like your

Clarence Clemons  12:31

Yes, it was. I really appreciate all that he gave me to look quite a learning experience being in it, man, but I feel real wonderful about being on my own now, you know, before hours and stop and check everything I did when she was okay, but now I can just go ahead and do what I want.

Nestor Aparicio  12:55

What about the All Stars, the summer tour, the rumors about an album or something. Is that over

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Clarence Clemons  13:04

to with an hour you’re

Nestor Aparicio  13:15

going to get back together when? June,

Clarence Clemons  13:17

July, June, July, July, I think June, July for Europe, and you’re

Nestor Aparicio  13:24

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going to come to the States also,

Clarence Clemons  13:26

I don’t know, I wouldn’t know about the European bar. So

Nestor Aparicio  13:31

how did you feel about that, that whole thing, looking back on the tour, it

Clarence Clemons  13:34

was a wonderful thing for my life. One of the greatest thing to be on the same stage was the stage with Ringo Starr Leon helms singing a rap song, I couldn’t afford a band like that. I played my single friend of mine with Billy Preston privilege honor. Backstage stories. Everybody got along so wonderfully

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Nestor Aparicio  14:15

sad you get involved

Clarence Clemons  14:17

with that bulletproof Hall at the Beginning you from the East Street

Nestor Aparicio  14:38

band that you know, band that you know, sort of land work, or from good experiences. I

Clarence Clemons  14:47

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guess I would like to think of when I got it from the east i. Met him some time ago. All right. Well, I

Nestor Aparicio  15:05

appreciate your time this afternoon.

Clarence Clemons  15:08

I’ll be

Nestor Aparicio  15:11

down there.

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Clarence Clemons  15:13

I got some great experiences in Baltimore to play University, Morgan, State College during the High Times. Yeah, thanks

Nestor Aparicio  15:27

a lot. I’ll see you there. Take your card. You.