Max Weinberg rolls with 'jukebox' shows between Springsteen tours: 'When he’s ready, he’s gonna tell me'

Max Weinberg subscribes to an ethos he absorbed from Bruce Springsteen: Try to do your best every time you step on stage because “it’s up to the performer to turn the audience on.”

That motto has served the ace drummer well for his 50-plus years as not only the rhythmic backbone in Springsteen’s vaunted E Street Band, but throughout his various side projects – two stints (in the ‘90s and late-2000s) as the house band for Conan O’Brien’s late-night shows; the creation of the Max Weinberg Big Band in 2010; and, since 2017, his freewheeling Max Weinberg Jukebox concerts.

During the shows, Weinberg, along with a rotating cast of two guitarists and a bassist, plow through a set list chosen by the audience. He offers about 320 songs to choose from, spanning The Dave Clark Five to Roy Orbison to Springsteen classics. The options used to scroll on a video screen and the audience would yell out their picks. But in the era of COVID and masks, they write their selections on cards placed in a drum and randomly retrieved, bingo style.

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Weinberg, 70, doesn’t sing (“They won’t let me,” he jokes), but he does tell stories about some of his interactions with the musicians he’s emulating.

He and his bandmates have played about 300 shows since starting the live love letter to what he calls “the renaissance of rock ‘n’ roll” and managed 50 dates this year despite pandemic interference.

He’ll wrap his round of 2021 shows Monday at The Birchmere in Alexandria, Virginia, before returning to the road for dates in early 2022 in New York, Maryland and Illinois.

Chatting from his home in Delray Beach, Florida, where he and wife Becky moved several years ago, Weinberg is warm and gregarious, with an authentic deep-rooted love of all things music.

Q: You started doing these shows in 2017. What instigated the idea?

Max Weinberg: In April 2017, I was playing a club in Illinois and the place was packed – the good old days before the pandemic – and (by the encore) we had run out of songs. I went out and looked at this bachelor party (in the crowd) and said to the guy, “What do you want to hear?” And he said “Glory Days.” So I said, we’ll play it if you come up here and sing, and he did. For another 45 minutes we played all sorts of songs. I grew up with AM radio when you could hear the Beatles to the (Rolling) Stones to (Jimi) Hendrix to James Brown all at the same time.

Q: Playing these shows must be a little different than the scope of being with the E Street Band.

Weinberg: I have no crew. I get (to the venue) early and set up the drums and work with the lighting guy and sound guy. You’re a working musician. It’s something I did my entire 17 years before I met Bruce. Since 1974 I’ve had someone (setting up for me), but they know how I want it done. I knock wood all the time about the longevity I’ve had in the E Street Band with people I love and music I love to play. Playing with the E Street band is an intense musical experience. The jukebox show is a party, and even though we’re in the throes of this continual back and forth (with COVID), people do come out and have a good time. Live performance in general depends on some form of stability and (the pandemic) has been very tough on the rock clubs like we’ve been playing.

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Q: What are some of your favorite songs to play?

Weinberg: The one thing I’ve never done is make a judgment about another song. If someone wants me to play (The Archies’) “Sugar Sugar,” the original bubble gum song, I’m going to play the hell out of it. I do like playing the Beatles songs because the (band) digs into the arrangements and the interstitial parts of what made those records great. When I get to imitate Ringo (Starr), that’s a trip for me. He invented a certain level of rock drumming… Sometimes we open with “The Night Before” from “Help!” I love imitating Keith Moon. We also do a pretty credible version of (Led Zeppelin’s) “Good Times Bad Times.”

Q: At this point, what does 2022 look like? Think you’ll be on the road with Bruce?

Weinberg: I know that COVID keeps throwing curveballs, so I’m hopeful that the people who attend to these matters for Bruce and the E Street Band are looking at various possibilities. I haven’t gotten the “pack your bag” phone call. Having been with Bruce for almost 50 years, there’s a seventh sense, not even a sixth sense, when he’s going to do something. You don’t know what it might be and I don’t ask. When he’s ready, he’s gonna tell me, and it’s always worked out. I did see him a couple of weeks ago at a wedding and he knows I’m always anxious to get out and play. When you’re a touring band playing large places in multiple countries and they all have different protocols, I would assume that has added another level of complexity to touring. Unless you throw caution of the wind – and I know he’s not going to do that.

The E Street Band is a special group of people. I’ve always said the hardest thing is having great songs and a great singer and we have that covered. We lost (keyboardist) Danny (Federici, in 2008) and (saxophonist) Clarence (Clemons, in 2011) and that’s something you never get over. But we’ve carried on because you believe in the power of music to heal and change. I’ve seen some incredible sights from what I call the best seat in the house, back there (behind the drums).

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Max Weinberg's 'jukebox' shows keep the Springsteen drummer busy