Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Stevie Van Zandt: Disciple’ on Max, An Admiring Career Survey Of A Rock ‘N’ Roll Lifer

Stevie Van Zandt: Disciple, now streaming on Max, features extensive interviews with the guitarist, songwriter, producer, arranger, radio host, and actor, extensive enough to encompass his over five decades of professional work, whether as a guitarist with Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band, the longtime leader of his own group the Disciples, a staunch political activist, or with his memorable and initially unexpected turn as Silvio Dante on The Sopranos. There are lots of testimonials to Stevie here, too, from Springsteen, Paul McCartney, Eddie Vedder, Richie Sambora, Joan Jett, Bono, and Darlene Love, to filmmaker Chris Columbus, Sopranos creator David Chase, and actor Vincent Pastore. “Seems like yesterday, you’re listening to the radio saying ‘I’d like to do that,’” Van Zandt says in an old clip. “And then you are…” 

STEVIE VAN ZANDT: DISCIPLE: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT? 

The Gist: “He became my rock ‘n’ roll brother, instantly.” That’s Bruce Springsteen’s summation of what meeting Steven Van Zandt back in the late 1960s meant, and illustrates the bond they’ve shared over the many ensuing years of making records and playing shows. Disciple moves easily through those early years, and all of the gigs played out in the swamps of Jersey, and Van Zandt himself handles a kind of narration for long stretches – at times, he’s even reading passages straight out of his autobiography. But it’s an easy rhythm, hearing about his family history and how he moved up in the record business at the pace of a nice conversation. 

While Springsteen is a key character in Van Zandt’s life as both a friend and collaborator, Disciple also emphasizes Stevie’s work apart from his legendary buddy. There’s a ton of incredible live footage here featuring the Disciples in their 1980s heyday, when Van Zandt had split from the E Street Band. (Technically, he was still a producer on Born in the USA during this same time period, which everyone admits made some moments awkward.) Disciple even includes snippets of Men Without Women, an apparently lost quasi-autobiographical film Van Zandt and his band made to accompany their 1982 album of the same name.

Broken into four “books” – Salvation, Revolution, Evolution, and Revelations – Stevie Van Zandt: Disciple also focuses on his activism with the founding of Artists Against Apartheid, which resulted in the album Sun City and manifested political change in South Africa. It focuses, too, on some of the inevitable career lows that are gonna accompany all of the highs. And it brings it all the way around to success again when Van Zandt, who’d never even thought about acting, was suddenly auditioning for what would become his memorable turn as Silvio in The Sopranos. “I went out into the wilderness, man, and walked my dog for seven years.” And when he got home, Sopranos creator David Chase was calling on the telephone. 

What Movies Will It Remind You Of? Van Zandt and Springsteen are both a big part of Wings for Wheels: The Making of Born to Run, which these days streams on Paramount+. And if you’re a Van Zandt fan, it’s always worth revisiting his later career turn toward acting, as Silvio Dante in The Sopranos and in Lillyhammer, Netflix’s first-ever branded original series.  

Performance Worth Watching: The testimonials to Van Zandt are many in this doc. Like, so many. But they can also be pretty meaningful. Separately, Eddie Vedder and Jesse Malin each recall how enamored they were of the band photographs that graced the gatefolds of the classic Springsteen records Van Zandt was a part of. How, in an age before social media and even music videos, this bunch of guys had an imposing, ultra-cool look, like a gang you wanted to be in. For his part, Vedder even goes into a pretty solid impersonation of the Boss’s foggy speaking voice.    

Memorable Dialogue: “Steve is very specific about balances,” says Grammy-winning record producer Bob Clearmountain about Van Zandt’s acumen in the studio as a producer and arranger. “The fifth bar, the second trumpet sticking out a little bit – he hears all of that in his head.”

Sex and Skin: Nah, nothing like that. What’s cooler in Disciple is its survey of “Miami Steve” Van Zandt’s many, many provocative looks. With the banded fedoras and wide collar shirts of his original E Street era, his affinity for floor-length multicolored scarves, fanciful pirate head coverings, and wrists ringed with jewelry, Van Zandt has always dressed for the stage even when he’s not on it.  

Our Take: It felt like overreach when the press materials for Stevie Van Zandt: Disciple referred to the veteran rocker as “New Jersey’s consigliere to Bruce Springsteen and Tony Soprano.” But then Sopranos creator David Chase appears to say that once he tapped non-actor Van Zandt to audition, they drew on Stevie’s decades of friendship and collaboration with Bruce to develop Silvio Dante, Tony’s lifelong BFF and mafia right-hand man. That’s just one example of how Disciple embraces the concept of a “hangout doc.” While its otherwise pretty traditional format is rightly centered around new interviews with Van Zandt and Bruce Springsteen, the numerous notables who stop by to chip in with little anecdotes about and heartfelt tributes to the man of the hour give it the feel of a celebrity roast, with the major difference that everyone’s being really nice.

We learn a few more fast facts about Van Zandt through those appearances, as well as his own inviting and self-effacing manner of storytelling. But another thing Disciple does well is to just let the jams tell the story. You’d think music documentaries would always be heavy on performance footage, but that often isn’t the case. Disciple bucks that trend with extended cuts of Stevie with his band the Disciples – their flashy, anthemic 1980s tours of Europe look pretty legendary – and a lot of vintage cuts from the old Asbury Park days, when Jersey Shore guys Van Zandt, Springsteen, and Southside Johnny Lyon put in boisterous residencies at the Stone Pony and established the rock and soul bonafides that would define their careers.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Stevie Van Zandt: Disciple will be a treasure for any fans of its subject’s work, since his take on all of it is included here, summarized in Stevie’s disarming, favorite son of rock ‘n’ roll style.  

Johnny Loftus (@glennganges) is an independent writer and editor living at large in Chicagoland. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media, and Nicki Swift.