Bruce Springsteen has said you “learn a lot” from working with the same musicians over a long period of time.
The musician, 71, told Apple Music Country his band have seen “things go well” and “things go bad” for him during the time they have been together.
He said they have been together since “our very, very young adulthood”.
“So that means you went through every aspect of their lives with them and they went through every aspect of yours,” he said.
“They saw you grow up, they saw things go well, things go bad.
“They saw you getting married. You saw them get married, get divorced, have children. You’ve seen the children grow up.”
Give it up for @springsteen and the E Street Band! pic.twitter.com/1Xua2qty8D
— Saturday Night Live – SNL (@nbcsnl) December 13, 2020
Springsteen added that “rock and roll is the only business where the people you were in high school with, 50 years later you are working with those exact same people”.
“There is no other business in the world that I know of where that’s the case,” he said.
“The challenge of that is enormous, and I think you learn a lot.”
E Street Band have been Springsteen’s career-long companions and he worked with the group for his latest album Letter To You.
In October he scored his 12th UK number one album with the record.
Just a modest little #LetterToYou billboard in Sydney… 🇦🇺 pic.twitter.com/QbUI12NDvH
— Bruce Springsteen (@springsteen) October 27, 2020
Springsteen also told the radio station he is still motivated by wanting to be “great”.
He said: “Well, I always said that more than wanting to be rich or famous I wanted to be great.
“That was the thing that motivated me when people looked at me and my band. I wanted to say, ‘Well, man, they were one of the great ones’. You know?”
He said he is still as motivated as he was by trying to be great as he was when he was aged 16.