Ahead of his PBS special, Warren Zanes talks about Bruce Springsteen movie and the power of 'Nebraska'

Warren Zanes was driving to Nashville last fall with his dog Tobey when his phone rang. It was Bruce Springsteen.

“I wasn’t expecting a call. I’m not going to pretend that I get lots of calls from Bruce Springsteen,” Zanes tells me with a laugh from his Montclair, New Jersey home while Toby plays in the background.

Springsteen “was just calling because he wanted to know who was doing what song” on the upcoming PBS special Zanes was driving to Nashville to direct.

“He wanted to know: ‘What are the Lumineers doing? What’s Lyle Lovett doing?’ He wasn’t doing it to be kind. He was doing it because he, too, loves that album,” the Concord, New Hampshire, native tells me. 

“At the end of the call, he said, please tell everyone thank you for doing this. But in that call, I was also talking to Bruce about the fact that some producers had reached out to me, interested in making a movie, a biopic about that period in his life.”

Making the special

In ways, Warren Zanes’ book about “Nebraska” has been as much a ripple in still water as the Bruce Springsteen record he was writing about. 

In a lonely moment, you poke a branch into a silent pond. Suddenly, Frogs hop. Fish surface. Reeds sing.

The ripple effect of Zanes’ “Deliver Me from Nowhere: The Making of Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska” now involves Jeremy Allen White, Noah Kahan, Emmylou Harris, Lyle Lovett, The Lumineers, and director Scott Cooper (“Black Mass,” “Crazy Heart.”) 

“Books are funny. You think you’re their master, but when they’re done, they’re the master. It’s almost like they’ve been turned into these living things. They look at you and say: Now it’s my turn,” Zanes tells me.

It was in solitude, in an introspective period, that the Concord, N.H. native wrote a book about an album Springsteen wrote in his own solitude and introspective period. 

Poke the water. From it: an ecosystem of buzzing activity.

In the works now: a feature film, directed by Scott Cooper, about Springsteen’s “Nebraska” era with Jeremy Allen White of “The Bear” to play Springsteen — and sing his own songs, apparently. “Succession’s” Jeremy Strong is in talks to star as Springsteen’s manager, Jon Landau, in the 20th Century and Disney movie. 

Meanwhile, Zanes just wrote and directed a PBS special, “Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska: A Celebration In Words And Music.” Taped in Nashville last fall, it hits like the coolest non-fiction book talk ever — Zanes reads passages from his book on stage, interspersed with A-listers singing the Springsteen songs he references.

Trailer for Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska_ A Celebration of Words and Music (PBS) from Don Maggi on Vimeo.

Vermonter Noah Kahan does a tremendous “Atlantic City.” Emmylou Harris does her thing on “The Price You Pay,” and “Nebraska.” Lyle Lovett, a friend of Springsteen’s, delivers a heartfelt “Used Cars,” and “My Father’s House.” The Lumineers do a powerful “Mansion on the Hill,” and “State Trooper.” Two rock songs from “Born in the U.S.A.” are given almost haunting interpretations: Eric Church’s “Dancing in the Dark” and Lucinda Williams’s “Born in the U.S.A.”

Set your Roku or DVR to record (or drink a few Red Bulls) to catch an encore performance on GBH at 1:30 a.m. Aug. 19. (Basically late Sunday night.) Meanwhile, you can also catch it Sept. 2 at 10:30 p.m. on New Hampshire PBS or streaming via PBS Passport.

“After we taped, the next day, back in the car with Tobey, I had this feeling of: That was the biggest night of my career,” Zanes told me. 

Favorite song? “It changes. Emmylou’s ‘Nebraska’ stunned me. Lyle Lovett doing ‘My Father’s House’ was magical. Lucinda, the spirit she brought to that version of ‘Born in the USA,’ there were tears in people’s eyes.”

The ‘Nebraska’ era

I’d talked to Zanes — a former member of Boston-based band The Del Fuegos and Tom Petty biographer — last May about both his book and Springsteen’s 1982 album. 

During the “Nebraska” era, Springsteen was going through his own personal hell, Zanes reports in his book. Springsteen recorded “Nebraska” tracks with a home recorder, alone in a bedroom, a “matter of months from a breakdown.”

In ‘82, Zanes was a senior at Phillips Academy in Andover, a scholarship kid, twice asked to leave. “I didn’t feel like I fit in,” Zanes told me previously. 

He wrote “Deliver Me” at a time when he felt just as lost: His father died. He lost his job. His second marriage fell apart: “All that happened in one year,” he told me then.

Zanes is far from the only person touched by “Nebraska.” 

“The proof is in the pudding,” he said, referring to the musicians who signed up for the PBS special, and the movie interest.

The PBS special grew organically from the format of book-talk Zanes was giving (he reads, stars sing the songs he references), including an event at Pop in Providence, Rhode Island, with Ted Leo, Ian O’Neil from Deer Tick, and Mark Cutler. 

One of the first to sign on was Vermonter Noah Kahan. “I had no idea the degree to which he was going to blow up from that time forward. He just sold out two nights at Fenway Park,” Zanes says. 

Lovett, Zanes tells me, wanted in, in part, because he “had this period in his life where he would ride motorcycles with Bruce. They had this friendship based around many things, but that being at the center.” (Love it, Lovett.)

Two highlights: Lucinda Williams’ goose-bump inducing “Born in the USA” at Eric Church’s almost religious delivery of “Dancing in the Dark.”

“It’s been just amazing seeing how malleable ‘Nebraska’ is as a subject matter,” Zanes said, adding that people “were tearing up at soundcheck” over Williams’s cover.

Gratitude

But back to that drive to Nashville with Tobey in the car and Springsteen on the phone: 

“So I was talking to Bruce and saying, ‘Hey, these producers have some good insights about how the book could be adapted. I think they understand the spirit of it. They sent me on a blind date with this director Scott Cooper, and I think he really understands it, too. I think it’s worth you thinking about it,’” Zanes recalls. 

(Cooper told Zanes that “Nebraska” is “his favorite record. “It’s almost like being a member of a secret society. If I know you love ‘Nebraska,’ I know a lot about you,” Zanes tells me.)

“There was a one-page description of what the movie could be. [Springsteen] said, ‘Let me go read that again.’ He got back and said, ‘You know, I think you’re right.’ But even at that point, it l seemed like too wild a dream.”

Zanes was cautious. “I’ve had people call me about [other books] — Dusty Springfield, Tom Petty. I say the same thing to everyone: Getting the rights to the book will be your easiest part. You need music rights, life rights. You’re nothing if all you got is Warren Zanes.”

Zanes got a call from LA-based producer Eric Robinson. “Because if all you got is Warren Zanes, you have nothing. I just kept blowing him off. Finally, he said, ‘Look, I’ll come to your town and take you out to dinner.’ If you want my ear, give me some brisket within a mile of my house.”

At that meeting, Robinson told him, “‘For this project, my ideal director would be Scott Cooper, and my ideal actor to play Bruce Springsteen would be Jeremy Allen White.’ I just kind of looked at him like, ‘Well, dare to dream.’ But he called it.”

Cooper met with Springsteen and they “just hit it off. Even at that point, it still seems like a dream,” Zanes said. 

“You learn to be a little bit guarded and not to let your expectations run away with you. But at a certain point, the project got sold. Then it got announced that Jeremy Allen White is playing the lead.” At this point, Strong, Kendall Roy himself, is in talks to come on.

And it must feel almost magical, I tell him, that from sitting at his desk at his lowest point, listening to that LP, grew these projects. Ripples so far-reaching.  

“I’ve got my LP next to me right now. I just look at it, and go, ‘Man, there’s a lot of power in you.’ This book experience was not just any book experience for me. It kept becoming other things. That’s a testament to the power of what Bruce created.”

Poised to create a radio-hit stadium-rocker, an introspective Springsteen took a sharp left turn and created “a whisper. ‘Nebraska’ was speaking in a confused tongue. People had to sit still to get it. That’s its power: it looks like it’s this quiet affair, but keeps becoming more.”

He pauses. Then he dropped a quote that stayed with me long after we hung up.

“I remember taking a script-writing class, and there was some [rule] that you need to mention something three times so that the quote ‘slow Joe in the back row’ gets it. Sometimes we need something different from culture. Sometimes the deeper mystery of a song or a book or a movie is what drives it. If you lose somebody in the back row, so be it. You have a deeper connection with half the audience.”

Zanes looks around his office. Points out the magnolia trees he sees through the window. The stack of LPs and turntable by his writing desk. 

“Writing books is a lonely business. You’re in the room by yourself. ‘Nebraska’ was on that turntable for a year. Just me and ‘Nebraska.’ The point was to get to a finished book. I wasn’t thinking about PBS specials. I wasn’t thinking about a movie directed by Scott Cooper. I was just looking to finish writing a book. And this one has been so good to me. The trick is to just have some gratitude that it happened at all.”

Lauren Daley is a freelance writer. She can be reached at [email protected]. She tweets @laurendaley1, and Instagrams at @laurendaley1. Read more stories on Facebook here.