Bruce Springsteen talks 'Road Diary' and being a band boss: 'You're not alone'

TORONTO – Bruce Springsteen sums up his new documentary succinctly: “That's how we make the sausage.”

The New Jersey rock music legend premiered “Road Diary: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band” (streaming Oct. 25 on Hulu) at Toronto International Film Festival on Sunday night. Director Thom Zimny’s film – his 14th with Springsteen in 24 years, in addition to 40 music videos – follows the group’s 2023 to 2024 world tour, going back on the road for the first time in six years, and shows The Boss being a boss.

Through Springsteen’s narration and rehearsal footage, it covers everything from how he runs band practice to his crafting of a set list that plays the hits but also tells a story about age and mortality – for example, including “Last Man Standing” (from 2020’s “Letter to You”) about Springsteen being the last member of his first band still alive.

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Patti Scialfa reveals multiple myeloma diagnosis in Bruce Springsteen's 'Road Diary' documentary

"Road Diary" also reveals that Springsteen's wife and bandmate Patti Scialfa was diagnosed in 2018 with multiple myeloma, and because of the rare form of blood cancer, her "new normal" is playing only a few songs at a show every so often. During a scene in which they duet on "Fire" and sing in a close embrace, she says via voiceover that performing with Springsteen offers "a side of our relationship that you usually don't get to see."

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“We have the only job in the world where the people you went to high school with, at 75, you're still with those people,” Springsteen said in a post-screening Q&A about his longtime partnerships with bandmates. “The same people that you were with at 18, at 19, 50, 60 years later, you're still with those people. You live your life with them, you see them grow up. You see them get married, you see them get divorced. You see them go to jail, you see them get out of jail. You see them renege on their child payments, you see them pay up. You see them get older, you see their hair go gray, and you're in the room when they die.”

For producer Jon Landau, who has worked with Springsteen for 50 years, the movie showcases an innate quality about the man and his band that's kept them so vital for so long: “To me, what’s always attracted me to Bruce, going back to when I was a critic in the ‘70s, was his incredible vision, even in its earliest stages – that there was a clarity of purpose behind every song, every record, every detail.”

“Letter to You” and the current world tour covered in “Road Diary” marked a return to band mode for Springsteen after his New York solo residency “Springsteen on Broadway” and his 2019 album/film project “Western Stars.”

“I get completely committed to everything that I do. But the band is the band,” Springsteen said. “We've been good a long time. All those nights out on stage where you are risking yourself – because that is what you're doing, you are coming out, you are talking to people about the things that matter the most to you. You are leaving yourself wide open – you're not alone.

“That only happens to a few bands. Bands break up; that's the natural order of things. The Kinks, The Who. They can't even get two guys to stay together. Simon hates Garfunkel. Sam hates Dave. The Everly Brothers hated one another. You can't get two people to stay together. What are your odds? They're low.”

But the E Street Band has done it right, with what Springsteen called “a benevolent dictatorship.”

“We have this enormous collective where everyone has their role and a chance to contribute and own their place in the band,” Springsteen said. “We don't quite live in a world where everybody gets to feel that way about their jobs or the people that we work with. But I sincerely wish that we did, because it's an experience like none I've ever had in my life.

"If I went tomorrow, it's OK. What a (expletive) ride.”