Steel Mill: one of Bruce Springsteen’s first-ever bands
In 1964, a teenage Bruce Springsteen decided that he was going to dedicate his life to becoming a musician after hearing The Beatles for the first time. However, Springsteen’s career took several years to bear the fruit of his labour and numerous failed projects before he finally got a taste of success with the E-Street Band.
Looking back on his life during an appearance on the BBC’s Desert Island Discs, Springsteen recalled how The Beatles track ‘I Wanna Hold Your Hand’ changed everything for him. He explained: “This was another song that changed the course of my life. It was a very raucous-sounding record when it came out of the radio. It really was the song that inspired me to play rock and roll music — to get a small band and start doing some small gigs around town. It was life-changing. It’s still a beautiful record.”
Springsteen also addressed this moment during an interview with Rolling Stone, where he delved into more detail about the stranglehold the track had on him. “‘I Wanna Hold Your Hand’ came on the radio in 1964 — that was going to change my life because I was going to successfully pick the guitar up and learn how to play,” he revealed.
As a result of the new-found inspiration, Springsteen’s first musical group was The Castiles, who played around the New Jersey circuit in the 1960s and recorded two songs. Despite Springsteen’s belief that they’d make it big, success evaded him. The budding musician soon moved on to a new musical venture, Earth, who briefly performed on the club scene. However, they didn’t last long either.
Springsteen’s next band, Steel Mill, were active from 1969 until 1971, a pivotal time in the singer-songwriter’s career. They built up a strong reputation in the local area thanks to their impressive live shows, and Springsteen reportedly felt Steel Mill was his ticket to success, but again, the singer-songwriter was proved wrong. On the plus side, the group did feature three future E-Street Band members, Vini Lopez, Danny Federici, and Steve Van Zandt, so all was not lost.
Furthermore, Steel Mill weren’t exclusively known within the local New Jersey area. The band had started to play across the US, including in Virginia and California. Additionally, Springsteen’s group rubbed shoulders with some of the most notable figures from that era in music, such as Black Sabbath, Chicago, Roy Orbison, and Ike & Tina Turner.
Their final show came at the beginning of 1971 when Steel Mill performed at The Upstage in Asbury Park, New Jersey. For Springsteen, he knew they needed to part ways after having his eyes opened on a trip to California. After stepping out of the comfort of his local surroundings, Bruce was hit with the stark realisation they weren’t as good as he initially thought, which hurled the band’s future into doubt. Speaking to Rolling Stone in 2016 about his trip to California, which proved to be fatal for the future of Steel Mill, Springsteen said: “I learned. I went some place I hadn’t been. I went into a bigger environment musically, and I learned that we were very good, but not quite as good as I thought we were. I had to think what I was going to do about that.”
Interestingly, during the same interview, it’s mentioned how Springsteen’s manager Jon Landau noticed similar flaws in Cream as Bruce realised in Steel Mill. The singer-songwriter responded: “Of course, looking back, Cream was pretty good. [Laughs] But yeah, I think people do reach these reckoning points where you bump up against the limits of what you’ve structured at that time, and you make other choices.”
Ultimately, Springsteen felt Steel Mill had reached the natural conclusion of their journey, and if he was to utilise his talent to its full potential, he’d need to achieve his goals under a new guise. Following the split, Springsteen was backed by a number of groups before they eventually merged to create the E-Street Band, and his talent was finally recognised.
