“It was a wild situation Bruce threw me into and I think he knew what he was doing. He’s the only actual genius I’ve ever played music with”: Jay Weinberg on the Bruce Springsteen test that left him “deathly afraid” when sitting in with the E Street Band

Jay Weinberg and Bruce Springsteen.

Steve Van Zandt had an idea. Max Weinberg, the long-standing drummer of the E Street Band was double-booked, and with Conan O’Brien demanding his services for television he would have to sit out a Bruce Springsteen tour. The E Street Band needed a stand-in. Van Zandt raised his hand: what about Weinberg’s kid, Jay?

Weinberg’s kid, Jay, joining MusicRadar over Zoom, says he only found a couple of years ago that that it was the E Street Band guitarist’s suggestion that he should be the stand-in. It was a crazy idea. Max Weinberg had been in the E Street Band for decades. Jay Weinberg had only been playing drums for three years.