{"id":2909,"date":"2025-06-19T16:35:17","date_gmt":"2025-06-19T16:35:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/the-dark-side\/"},"modified":"2025-06-19T16:35:17","modified_gmt":"2025-06-19T16:35:17","slug":"the-dark-side","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/the-dark-side\/","title":{"rendered":"THE DARK SIDE"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/06\/GettyImages-77186952-e1750350864824.jpg\" width=\"\" height=\"\" alt=\"Bruce Springsteen performs during the last show of the 1985 \u2018Born in the U.S.A. Tour\u2019, October 2, 1985 in Los Angeles, California. (Credit: Getty Images\/Bob Riha, Jr.)\"><\/figure>\n<p>Not much information about the film is available as of this writing, save for <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/oQXdM3J33No?si=zXPx7O89IcYDUa-p\" target=\"_blank\">a trailer that premiered July 18<\/a> and a release date of October 24, 2025. Other than that, all we know is that Scott Cooper is directing, Jeremy Allen White plays Springsteen and Jeremy Strong plays Jon Landau, and that shooting has taken place in various New Jersey locations including Freehold, where Springsteen grew up, and the Stone Pony in Asbury Park, where he launched his career and has returned to throughout the years.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>My first thought was, why make a movie about recording Nebraska? Then I read Warren Zanes\u2019 book <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.penguinrandomhouse.com\/books\/647205\/deliver-me-from-nowhere-by-warren-zanes\/\" target=\"_blank\">Deliver Me From Nowhere<\/a><\/em>, on which the movie is based.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>More from Spin:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.spin.com\/2025\/06\/walts-pinball-bar\/\">Pinball Wizards<\/a>\n\t\t<\/li>\n<li>\n\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.spin.com\/2025\/06\/the-character-assasination-of-mo-troper\/\">THE CHARACTER ASSASINATION OF MO TROPER<\/a>\n\t\t<\/li>\n<li>\n\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.spin.com\/2025\/06\/bruce-springsteen-biopic-trailer\/\">See Jeremy Allen White As Bruce Springsteen In First Biopic Trailer<\/a>\n\t\t<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>It\u2019s a dark story.<\/p>\n<p>Zanes was inspired to write his book, which came out in 2023, after reading Springsteen\u2019s autobiography,<em> Born to Run, <\/em>and noticing that the chapter on the making of <em>Nebraska<\/em> was surprisingly short.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Zanes tells me: \u201cThat section about\u00a0<em>Nebraska<\/em> blows by in three pages. I\u2019m thinking, \u201cThere\u2019s no way.\u201d That was a major turning point. I felt there was more to the story.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-full\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"800\" src=\"https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/06\/GettyImages-1680655205.jpg\" alt=\"Warren Zanes reads from his book 'Deliver Me From Nowhere' in 2023. (Credit: Al Pereira\/Getty Images)\" class=\"wp-image-466755\" srcset=\"https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/06\/GettyImages-1680655205.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/06\/GettyImages-1680655205-340x227.jpg 340w, https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/06\/GettyImages-1680655205-240x160.jpg 240w, https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/06\/GettyImages-1680655205-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/06\/GettyImages-1680655205-498x332.jpg 498w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\"><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Warren Zanes reads from his book \u2018Deliver Me From Nowhere\u2019 in 2023. (Credit: Al Pereira\/Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><em>Nebraska, <\/em>a mostly acoustic, starkly literary 10-track imperfect masterpiece, features downtrodden and at times downright evil characters, such as Joe Roberts and his criminal brother in \u201cHighway Patrolman,\u201d the estranged son searching for his father in \u201cMy Father\u2019s House,\u201d the poor siblings in \u201cMansion on the Hill,\u201d and the serial killer Charles Starkweather. And the LP came two years after Springsteen\u2019s fastest-selling album to date, <em>The River<\/em>.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Between December 17, 1981 and January 3, 1982, Springsteen recorded 17 demo tracks in the back bedroom of a rental house in Colts Neck, New Jersey, a 12-minute drive from Freehold. Sitting on the edge of his bed with his Gibson J-200, a harmonica, a couple of mics, and a consumer-grade TEAC four-track cassette player, the songs he put to tape were meant to be sketches he would teach the E. Street Band to play for the final, full-ensemble, studio versions.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Seven of the tracks he did save for <em>Born in the U.S.A.<\/em>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The other 10, for reasons he couldn\u2019t explain at the time, kept calling to him, begging for attention. So he quickly mixed the songs through a Gibson Echoplex, then mastered them onto the water-logged Panasonic boombox he had sitting on his couch, which, according to Zanes\u2019 book, had miraculously come back to life despite falling out of a canoe.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>When Landau first heard the cassette, he told Zanes he was concerned \u201con a friendship level\u201d due to the dark, sinister nature of the songs. Up to that point, Springsteen\u2019s songs were about redemption. The tape Landau heard, however, was stark and violent, lonely and sad; the opposite of Springsteen\u2019s signature writing style.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Springsteen spent weeks in the studio trying to turn those demos into full-blown E. Street tracks, complete with Clarence Clemons\u2019 signature saxophone sound. According to Zane\u2019s book, while others thought the sessions were going well, Springsteen did not. \u201c\u2018Every time I tried to make the recordings better, I lost my characters,\u201d he told Zane. The songs\u2014the ones on the cassette he continually carried around in the back pocket of his jeans \u2014as if by some mystical force wouldn\u2019t allow it.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1282\" height=\"1659\" src=\"https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/06\/GettyImages-609307592.jpg\" alt=\"Springsteen performs in 1982  (Credit: Rick Diamond\/Getty Images)\" class=\"wp-image-466756\" srcset=\"https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/06\/GettyImages-609307592.jpg 1282w, https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/06\/GettyImages-609307592-340x440.jpg 340w, https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/06\/GettyImages-609307592-768x994.jpg 768w, https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/06\/GettyImages-609307592-1187x1536.jpg 1187w, https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/06\/GettyImages-609307592-498x644.jpg 498w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1282px) 100vw, 1282px\"><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Springsteen performs in 1982  (Credit: Rick Diamond\/Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Springsteen released <em>Nebraska<\/em> on September 30, 1982 with very little fanfare. No American singles. No tour. No photos of him on the cover; just a black and white image of a desolate, rural highway, taken from the dashboard of a car. A now insanely iconic album cover.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe\u2019s just had his first No.1 record, and his first top 10 single. He\u2019s poised to go big. No one around him is making a decision to go \u2018lo-fi\u2019 in the wake of their first No.1 album,\u201d says Zanes.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou get this color from the TEAC 144, and then you get a layer from the boombox they mixed down to, which had water damage, and then they run everything through an Echoplex, which simulates that early Sun Records slap back,\u201d Zanes tells me.<\/p>\n<p>Fans were confused at first. But once they listened to the songwriting, unparalleled to anything he\u2019d released before, it resonated in such a deep, emotional way that more than 40 years later, 20th Century Studios is making a film about it.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The imperfections of <em>Nebraska<\/em> is a reflection of the imperfection of Springsteen\u2019s early life. Unresolved trauma from his childhood seeped into the album.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>As Zanes explains, that\u2019s what\u2019s so compelling. \u201cHe had trauma in his past that he was either going to contend with or it was going to contend with him.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That stemmed mainly from his father, Douglas, who had a bad temper, struggled with depression, was an alcoholic, and suffered from mental illness that would later be diagnosed as schizophrenia. Because Douglas couldn\u2019t keep a job, the Springsteen household moved in with Bruce\u2019s grandparents shortly after his sister Virginia was born in 1951. The house was in complete disrepair with only one functional room. During the five years they stayed there, Springsteen describes in Zanes\u2019 book how he was given free rein to do whatever he wanted. No discipline at all. \u201cIt destroyed me and it made me. At the same time,\u201d Springsteen said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>It turns out that the making of <em>Nebraska<\/em> was like turning on a valve of a darkness he didn\u2019t realize he had inside of him, a depression that caused him to have a breakdown around the time of the album\u2019s release.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen someone goes back to a difficult childhood, exploring the facts of what went down is not enough,\u201d Zanes tells me. \u201cYou have to dig to find out what those facts mean to you as an adult facing trouble in your life. Not that he did this on a conscious level. He didn\u2019t know at the outset what he was going back into.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Springsteen started going to therapy. He began working out, transforming himself into \u201cThe Boss.\u201d Two years later he released <em>Born in the U.S.A.<\/em>, which made him a superstar.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>To see our running list of the top 100 greatest rock stars of all time, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.spin.com\/2021\/07\/the-greatest-rock-stars-of-all-time\/?utm_source=yahoo&amp;utm_medium=bottomlink&amp;utm_campaign=yahoolink\">click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div style=\"margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;\" class=\"sharethis-inline-share-buttons\" ><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Not much information about the film is available as of this writing, save for a trailer that premiered July 18 and a release date of October 24, 2025. Other than&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34,31,24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2909","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bruce-springsteen","category-features","category-pushly"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2909","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2909"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2909\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2909"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2909"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2909"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}