British actor and comedian Rob Brydon has spoken about his life-long love of Bruce Springsteen, revealing that, as a teenager growing up in Wales, he found Springsteen's songs about New Jersey wholly relatable to his own life.
Brydon, perhaps best known for his role as Bryn West in the much-loved BBC TV sitcom Gavin and Stacey, and his three series alongside Steve Coogan in The Trip, shares his love for Springsteen in the documentary When Bruce Springsteen Came To Britain, which aired on BBC2 on May 31.
As proof of his devotion to Springsteen, Brydon shows viewers of the documentary a scrapbook of articles on the legendary New Jersey singer/songwriter which he collated in the early '80s, cut from the pages of music magazines such as NME and British newspapers.
"I bought The River at Woolworths in Porthcawl," Brydon recalls. "It was the first album I ever had with a lyric insert and I remember showing it to my grandmother, saying, Look at this, this is like poetry!
"Part of the connection," her continues," is when he writes about the New Jersey Turnpike, driving 'on a wet night, 'neath the refinery's glow', where I grew up in South Wales, we had oil refineries near us, and there was a kind of steel town feel. When I was young, and Paul Weller talked about Down In The Tube Station At Midnight, what the hell is a tube station? I was from Port Talbot. I felt much closer to New Jersey, than I did to London."
In 2019, Brydon was able to translate his love of The Boss into his role in Blinded By The Light, a British comedy-drama directed by Gurinder Chadha (Bend It Like Beckham), inspired by journalist Sarfraz Mansoor's obsession with Springsteen while growing up as a Muslim teenager in Luton, England.
"One of the things Blinded By The Light does very well is show people's devotion to Bruce," says Brydon. "My character had to sing a bit of Thunder Road, and I was so enchanted by the idea that Bruce would have to see that, he'd have to at some point sign off on the film, and he'd see this idiot singing in a very badly-advised wig!"
For those resident in the UK, or those with access to a VPN, When Bruce Springsteen Came To Britain is available now on BBC iPlayer.
Springsteen will release Tracks II: The Lost Albums, a set of seven complete, unheard records made between 1983 and 2018, boasting 74 never-before-heard songs, on Columbia Records on June 27.
“The Lost Albums were full records, some of them even to the point of being mixed and not released,” Springsteen said when announcing the box set. “I’ve played this music to myself and often close friends for years now. I’m glad you’ll get a chance to finally hear them. I hope you enjoy them.”
“I often read about myself in the 1990s as having some ‘lost period,'” he added in a promo video. “Not really. I was working the whole time.”
The collection includes the lo-fi LA Garage Sessions '83, which is described as “a crucial link between Nebraska and Born In The USA.”
The set is available in limited-edition nine-LP and seven-CD formats, including original packaging for each record, with a 100-page cloth-bound, hardcover book featuring rare archival photos, liner notes on each lost album from essayist Erik Flannigan, and a personal introduction on the project from Springsteen himself.
