How much is Steven Van Zandt worth?
| Net Worth: | $90 Million |
|---|---|
| Profession: | Professional musician |
| Date of Birth: | November 22, 1950 |
| Country: | United States of America |
| Height: | 1.7 m |
About Steven Van Zandt
In addition to co-founding Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes, he was also a co-founder of The Miami Horns, a band whose name was derived from Van Zandt’s nickname, “Miami Steve”. Van Zandt was instrumental in laying the groundwork for the band’s performance of a rhythm and blues-oriented style of music. Additionally, he was the producer for all three of Southside Johnny’s albums. Van Zandt was responsible for writing the vast majority of Southside Johnny’s music, which contributed to the band’s overall success and was a major factor in their accomplishments.
Steven Lento Van Zandt was born in Winthrop, Massachusetts on November 22, 1950. His parents were Mary Henrietta (née Lento) Van Zandt and Vince Borello. His middle name is Lento. He is of Italian ancestry; his grandfather was from Calabria, and his grandmother’s parents were from Naples. This gives him a mixed level of Italian ancestry.
When he was young, Van Zandt taught himself how to play the guitar, and this experience sparked his interest in music. In 1964, he caught the live concerts of the Rolling Stones and the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show and the Hollywood Palace. Van Zandt went to Middletown High School, but he was expelled for having long hair.
The first time that Bruce Springsteen met Van Zandt was in 1965, when Springsteen went to the Hullabaloo club in Middletown. Van Zandt was there at the same time. During this particular performance, Van Zandt and the Shadows were giving a rendition of “Happy Together” by the Turtles. They were in bands together, including Steel Mill and the Bruce Springsteen Band, and they played together.
In 1974, Van Zandt began working with fellow Jersey Shore band Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes as a songwriter and producer. He is credited with penning the band’s signature song, “I Don’t Want to Go Home” as well as co-writing other songs for the band with Bruce Springsteen.
It was not long before Van Zandt began dividing his time between performing with the E Street Band and writing songs for Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes. During an interview on The Howard Stern Show, he stated that he did, in fact, arrange the horns that appeared on “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out” which was released in 1975.
As can be seen on the concert DVD from 1975 that is included in the Born to Run 30th Anniversary Edition, during those early years, Van Zandt was responsible for a significant portion of the lead guitar work that was performed by the band live.
After Van Zandt’s departure from the E Street Band in 1984, he continued his career as a musician and utilized his fame to fight against issues relating to apartheid in South Africa.
As a protest against the construction of the Sun City resort in South Africa, he initiated the formation of the music industry activist group Artists United Against Apartheid in the year 1985. On the track known as “Sun City” which was a collaboration amongst 49 recording artists, some of the participants were Bruce Springsteen, U2, Bob Dylan, Pete Townshend, Joey Ramone, Tom Petty, Afrika Bambaataa, and Run DMC. Through sales of the record, more over one million dollars was raised to support anti-apartheid operations. The major objective of both the album and the organization was to encourage a cultural boycott of South Africa in order to raise attention to the racist apartheid policy that was in place in that country.
In the latter part of the year 1989, Van Zandt and his garage band The Lost Boys made another album under the title Nobody Loves and Leaves Alive. Despite the fact that he was no longer a member of the E Street Band, he participated as a special guest in a number of shows during the Born in the USA Tour and appeared in a few music videos, one of which was for the song “Glory Days” Once some time had passed, Van Zandt rejoined the E Street Band after it had been resurrected (for a limited time in 1995, then on a continuous basis since 1999), and he has remained a member ever since.
On the album The World in Motion, which was released in 1989, Jackson Browne sang a rendition of “I Am A Patriot” by Van Zandt, which was originally written in 1983. Van Zandt is responsible for the production of a variety of other records, one of which being the Iron City Houserockers’ Have A Good Time, for which he was not given credit (But Get Out Alive). Van Zandt was the producer of Majek Fashek’s blockbuster album, Spirit of Love, which was released in 1991. Majek Fashek is a reggae hero and a superstar in Nigeria. Van Zandt contributed his song “All Alone on Christmas” and its production to the soundtrack of Chris Columbus’s film Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, which was released in 1992.
Before 1999, Van Zandt lacked any previous experience performing professionally. His primary concentration had been on music, whether it be the numerous bands in which he was a member, the ensembles for which he wrote music, or the music that he wrote on his own. After that, he was approached about taking part in an episode of The Sopranos, and after that, acting started to become a part of Van Zandt’s career.
He participated in the casting process for the part of Tony Soprano. However, HBO was of the opinion that the job should go to an experienced actor, so Chase crafted a character specifically for Van Zandt to play in the show. In the end, Van Zandt gave his blessing to appear on the show playing Silvio Dante.
Little Steven’s Underground Garage is a weekly radio show that has been syndicated since 2002 and is presented by Steven Van Zandt. The show honors garage rock and other rock subgenres that have been popular from the 1950s up until the present day. Van Zandt established his own record label, which he named Wicked Cool Records, in December of 2004.
Van Zandt established the non-profit Rock and Roll Forever Foundation in 2007, along with its TeachRock project, which is responsible for developing national curriculum for grades K-12. Van Zandt has served as the director of a music selection committee for the computer game Rock Band ever since the year 2007. In this role, he is in charge of choosing new songs to include in the game.
In the year 2010, Van Zandt had a cameo appearance as himself in the Norwegian soap opera Hotel Caesar, which was aired on TV2 Norway, the country’s most watched commercial channel. In addition, he was a guest on Skavlan, one of the most popular talk shows in Scandinavia.
A concert that Bruce Springsteen was playing in Oslo, Norway, on April 29, 2013, while he was on his Wrecking Ball Tour, featured Van Zandt performing a cover of “My Kind of Town” by Frank Sinatra.
As a single on February 9, 2017, Van Zandt released “Saint Valentine’s Day,” a rendition of the song “Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre,” which he had originally written for the Cocktail Slippers. “Saint Valentine’s Day” was a cover of the song “Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre.” On the radio show that Underground Garage hosts, the song was played over and over again. For the 2018 movie The Christmas Chronicles, Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul recorded a rendition of “Santa Claus Is Back in Town” by Elvis Presley. Actor Kurt Russell provided the lead vocals for the version of the song that was recorded.
Van Zandt has a cameo appearance in The Irishman, an epic gangster film directed by Martin Scorsese, lip-syncing the song “Al Di La” performed by singer Jerry Vale. Unrequited Infatuations, the autobiography written by Van Zandt, was released by Hachette Books on September 28, 2021.
