The Boss is back: Bruce Springsteen sets ‘Tonight Show’ residency ahead of new album
Maggie Linton / The Times
Bruce Springsteen’s tour of the United States, which kicked off Tuesday, comes to an end next month. But before that, he plans to spend another month or so here on the U.S. show circuit, with an ongoing project that is at least partly to serve as the next installment of what he calls his “Tonight Show” residency.
I reached Bruce in New York, where he has a home in East Rutherford (though he sometimes prefers to stay in the city’s downtown area), and he said the “Tonight Show” work may help him complete a song of a new album he’s been writing, which he plans to work on in concert.
“We’re doing this together,” said Springsteen. “I’ll let you know when we’re about to finish and I’ll let you know. But we’re going to be doing songs that are kind of more rock, like ‘Rosalita’ and ‘Glory Days’ and ‘Dancing in the Dark.’ Just kind of different things, some of them not related to the set. But we’re going to be working on stuff, because there’s a lot of time on tour.”
When asked if the set could serve as the next “Tonight Show,” Springsteen said: “I suppose it could. I don’t know yet. I don’t know yet. Not yet. But there’s a lot of time on tour.”
I asked about Springsteen’s use of a laptop while recording, but he said it’s just a laptop and no actual keyboard or touch screen, and he doesn’t use it “because I’m not writing with a laptop anymore with all the stuff that comes out.”
What’s the plan this time? Springsteen said: “What we’re going to do is a lot of the same thing we did on tour [last fall]. We’re going to do the whole tour, and then come back. We’ll go out, play a lot of shows, have fun. Then we’ll go back and start working on the new album.”
Springsteen said it would take months to finish and then another two months to tour, and perhaps three while rehearsing songs. That is, he said, when the final version of the new album may be complete.
Springsteen said he has been working through the new album
