Steven Van Zandt at L’s Bar inside Tampa’s Hard Rock Hotel and Casino Credit: Yvonne Gougelet c/o Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino

If Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band’s work-night show in Sunrise two Thursdays ago (the only Florida date on their current Land of Hope And Dreams tour) wasn’t an option for you, E Street’s Little Steven Van Zandt headed into Tampa by himself last Friday to host a no-cover mezcal launch party at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Tampa. And this wasn’t just another artist slapping their name onto a spirit, either.

At a VIP pre-party, the Boss’ 75-year-old right-hand man told Creative Loafing Tampa Bay that his partnership with St. Johnsbury Distillery gave him a major hand in establishing Malvado Maple Mezcal’s formula, mentioning how he only wants the highest quality possible in the few products with his name tied in.

During some quick opening remarks at the party, Van Zandt, rocking his standard eclectic, pirate-ish regalia and bandana, revealed that the spirit’s maple infusions were courtesy of some maple trees owned by his friend in Vermont.

“There’s lots of flavored liquors out there […] but there’s no flavored mezcal,” he stated. “It’s a little bit different than a typical mezcal — it’s a little bit smoother.”

Following a soft launch last year—with some plans for 2027 and beyond—Malvado Maple Mezcal’s welcome party ended up seeing Mr. “Bitter Fruit” mingling with Silvio Dante stans and Springsteen fans alike, as well as a mariachi band and some DJs on site.

Read our full chat with Steven Van Zandt below.

This was a very quickly planned event, having been announced maybe two or three weeks ago. What brings you to Tampa specifically to launch this mezcal?

Well, I’m familiar with Tampa. We did a show here with the Buzzcocks some years ago, and the people here were just a really fantastic audience. Just a lot of energy here. So we thought, let’s launch it with the Hard Rock. The Hard Rocks have been the first sponsor of my radio show, so we have a special relationship with them to begin with. So is this a matter of which Hard Rock we want to do, and we picked this one because it’s a different kind of crowd here it’s great.

Yeah, definitely. And you’re doing another one in Atlantic City next week, right?

Yes, like next week.

Similar vibe?

Yeah, pretty much. A Northern version.

Nice. So how did you get involved with Malvado in the first place? I know that part of this came from your friend’s maple trees in Vermont.

We have this other company, the Underground Apothecary, where we sell his syrup, right? He has this award-winning syrup — they win awards every year. So, we figured “what else can we do with it?” The one thing that we’d never heard of is a flavored mezcal. There’s a flavored everything else…vodka and this and that. So, we experimented with it for quite a while, but it was a perfect…not too sweet, but just sweet enough. I hit the perfect formula.

So you did help with the recipe. I was wondering about that, because a lot of musicians tend to put their names on beverages. Bob Dylan did with Heaven’s Door, Sammy Hagar did tequila, and I think Rush did a beer recently.

Maybe so, yeah. No no, I was very, very involved. I don’t have my name on a lot of things, you know what I mean? So the things my name is on, you can depend on.

That’s good. I did want to talk a little bit of music though, if you don’t mind.

Sure, sure.

I wanted to ask you about “Sun City.” Obviously as a protest song, a lot was at stake when you made it, but you would be damned if someone was going to stop you from being adamant about how you felt regarding Apartheid. From what you can tell, when it comes to protest music, in a world that seems to need it now more than ever, do you think that artists today take fewer risks than back in the day, or just different kinds of risks?

Well, it’s such a different time now. I feel that everybody who’s a citizen has a certain responsibility and obligation to participate. It doesn’t have to be a protest necessarily, but if it’s something you feel very strongly about, make sure you do the research, and then, express yourself. I think it’s important for people to express themselves. Our freedom of speech is so important, but do the homework first.

The difference is right now, we’re so fragmented, you know? We couldn’t do “Sun City” now. It would not happen, because to get everybody to agree on something? It’s so hard now. To get such a big group of people like we had—left and right, Republican and Democrat all together—that’s very hard these days. You can do smaller things, and you should. You don’t have to, but if you feel like doing something, do it locally, do whatever you can do. But it doesn’t have to be some big deal, because you’re not gonna see that mass, shared experience anymore. We’re just too fragmented.

Right. And because of that, the age of the supergroup charity song has kind of passed, I feel.

Yeah. I mean, just to get anybody to agree on anything these days is hard. Nevermind a big group of people, so…do what you can do locally, small. That’s alright.

Yeah. And adding onto what you said about being fragmented, I saw you and the E Street Band in Sunrise the other week, and something Bruce said near the end of the show was that the hardest part of all of this is how isolated we are from our neighbors.

Exactly right. And Bruce is so right about that because up until recently, we might have had disagreements, but it wasn’t like we hated each other, or someone’s the enemy. That’s a recent development. Now of course, this generation, that’s all they’ve ever heard. I don’t know who started it, but it wasn’t always this way. It’s a shame, and hopefully, we’ll get past this and start to find our common ground again.

Here’s hoping.

So, I also know that you’re a massive Beatles fan, and now that we’ve had a few years to really let it marinate, I was wondering your thoughts on ‘Now And Then.’ Even though it only ended up being for cleaning up John Lennon’s vocals, were you skeptical at first when you heard there’d be AI involved?

No, I think whatever works, you know what I mean? We shouldn’t be afraid of these things. As long as it helps the art and doesn’t try to replace the art — that’s different.

But in this case, it was just complimenting and helping the art, and I got no problem with that.

Speaking of new music, I interviewed Gary U.S. Bonds about three years ago, and he told me that he sent you a couple of new songs before you went on the road with Bruce in 2023. Can you say anything about that?

We haven’t had a chance to really get into it, but I spent the last couple of years making sure those records that we did were re-released. They weren’t available.

Really?

Yeah, they were not available until recently. So we got the two albums re-released.

So we’ll see about the future, but that was important to me. Those two records are terrific records. It really shows Gary Bonds as one of the great singers of all time, and his original records didn’t necessarily present him as that. They were party records, and he invented the party record! *laughs*

He was the king of it.

Yeah. But you didn’t think of him as one of the great singers like Ben E. King or Chuck Jackson or David Ruffin. But he is one of those, and we showed that on those records. He’s one of the great soul singers of all time.

He still is, too. I think Gary’s pushing 90 now.

He’s up there, man. He’s up there. I tell you, rock and roll keeps us young.

Yeah. I need a piece of wood to knock on.

*laughs*

One more for you, and I’ll let you go. This is a photo I grabbed at the Sunrise show, during “American Land.” Can you tell me a little bit about that mandolin you’re playing? Because that was really funky.

*laughs* This guy, a local guy, Dave Petillo is a wild man. He’s a very, very artistic cat and he made that mandolin for me, and all the pickguards that are on my guitars he makes. He’s a real creative artist—and you play what’s most appropriate for the song. [“American Land”] is kind of a folky, almost Irish folk song. It felt like the mandolin would complement it, you know?

Yeah. And I’m glad I’m not alone in that, because the first time I heard that song, I thought it was very Irish. But anyway, thanks so much for your time, Steven, and congratulations again on the launch. You gonna be bartending at all later?

*laughs* I don’t know — maybe so!

*This interview has been edited for clarity.