Bruce Springsteen at Met-Life Stadium
Photo by Greg Cristman

Bruce Springsteen planning new album & 2020 tour with E Street Band

Bruce Springsteen is releasing a new solo album, Western Stars, on June 14, but for those hoping he’d follow the album with an immediate tour announcement, that doesn’t seem to be the case. Speaking to Italian newspaper La Repubblica, Bruce said, “we will go on tour next year. I’ll record with the E Street Band in autumn and, when we are done, we’ll go on tour. Of course I’ll come to Rome. I love it.”

Speaking with Martin Scorsese at a Netflix event earlier this month, Bruce confirmed that he had written “almost an album’s worth of material for the band” after “about seven years” of writers block, Variety reports:

It’s like I’ve spent about seven years without writing anything for the band,” Springsteen continued. “I couldn’t write anything for the band. And I said, ‘Well, of course … you’ll never be able to do that again!’ And it’s a trick every time you do it, you know? But it’s a trick that, because of that fact that you can’t explain, cannot be self-consciously duplicated. It has to come to you in inspiration.

“And then about a month or so ago, I wrote almost an album’s worth of material for the band. And it came out of just… I mean, I know where it came from, but at the same time, it just came out of almost nowhere. And it was good, you know. I had about two weeks of those little daily visitations, and it was so nice.” He laughed out loud at the memory. “It makes you so happy. You go, ‘F—, I’m not f—ed, all right? There’ll be another tour!”

E Street guitarist Little Steven, whose tour with The Disciples of Soul Bruce made a couple of surprise appearances with, told NME that Bruce “gets first priority” when it comes to tours:

We’ve talked about various things, but I’m yet to commit to it and we haven’t planned it. But he’s always got plenty of stuff, so we’ll talk in a few months about what he wants to do and he gets first priority for me.

“If he wants to go out then we’ll go out. I’m booked through November 6, but we’ve got time to do a new E Street album and then head out on a tour.”

Listen to Bruce’s Western Stars singles below.