Stevie Van Zandt is not retiring anytime soon.
That’s the word from Van Zandt via his Twitter account, which pushed back on Monday, Aug. 27 against a report on Magicvalley.com that suggested he was stepping down from Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band.
“Don’t worry. I retire when they pull my guitar from my cold dead hands!” tweeted Van Zandt.
The Middletown native, 67, also rebuffed a web rumor that his pal Springsteen absolutely won’t tour after the run of “Springsteen on Broadway” ends in December.
Right now, there’s no answer to that.
“Beware of yet another (blank) headline,” Van Zandt tweeted. “Bruce is on Broadway through December. He may decide to tour in January. Or he may not. January ‘19, ‘20, ‘21, or never! The question was do I THINK we’ll tour again. And I said yes I THINK we will. But there’s no way to know when. Got it?”
Got it. The past few days have been rife with speculation about a future E Street Band activity. The Magicvalley.com article suggested, with Van Zandt quotes, that Little Steven was going to pursue something “behind the scenes” instead of touring again.
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“The performing part of what I do in general is fun and important in its own way, but what really gets me off and what I really dig is the creative stuff which is producing and writing,” Van Zandt said. “I’ve always had more of an interest in the behind the scenes sort of thing rather than being necessarily in the spotlight.”