Legendary E Street Band drummer Max Weinberg joined host Kenneth Womack to talk about how The Beatles “shifted everything” for him as a young musician and much more on “Everything Fab Four,” a podcast co-produced and distributed by Salon.
Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Weinberg will also be joining us at the inaugural “Everything Fab Four” Fest this November in Asbury Park, NJ, for a conversation with Bob Santelli (Director of the Bruce Springsteen Archives & Center for American Music) and a performance of several songs with the Weeklings band. The event will celebrate the 60th anniversary of The Beatles’ seminal “Rubber Soul.”
Years before the turning point of that album, though, Weinberg was growing up in Jersey, where he was “a gigging drummer” even as a child. As he told Womack, his father had bought him a real miniature conga drum (“I still have it”) to play, and it was the first time he remembered “linking up my energy to any kind of organized rhythm.” His older sisters were Elvis fans at the time, and Weinberg recalled seeing Presley’s drummer D.J. Fontana on a variety show they were watching. “On TV at that time, there was one camera, so you saw the drummer as much as anyone else. It was then that I first picked up the drumsticks. I could follow a rhythm, and I never looked back.”
In November of 1963, a 7th grade classmate of Weinberg’s named Jane had traveled to London over the Thanksgiving break and came back with a record by a band that was “the biggest thing going on in England.” She invited some friends over to her house to listen and, “it was a revelation to me,” said Weinberg. “The rhythm section was wild and loud. I was immediately grabbed.” And when The Beatles made their American debut a few months later on “The Ed Sullivan Show,” he observed the “four distinct and unique musical personalities, but Ringo [Starr] was having the time of his life. Come hell or high water, I decided that’s what I’m going to do. I became singularly focused.”
That focus carried Weinberg through many iterations of bands and even playing in pit orchestras until nailing an audition for an ad he’d answered in the Village Voice, which changed his career trajectory forever. Weinberg had never seen Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band and was unfamiliar with their material, but his crisp, powerful drumming would become a highlight of such hits as “Born in the U.S.A.” During the band’s hiatus in 1993, he also went on to great success as the musical director and band leader for “Late Night with Conan O’Brien,” assembling a top-flight set of musicians to form the Max Weinberg 7.
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Follow and listen to “Everything Fab Four” on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, RadioPublic, Pocket Casts or wherever you get your podcasts.
For “The Mighty Max,” though, it was the “wildly earth-shattering” debut of The Beatles that started it all. “I liken it to the creation of the Internet or the cell phone. It’s impossible to overstate the importance of The Beatles.”
“Everything Fab Four” host Kenneth Womack is the author of a two-volume biography on Beatles producer George Martin and the bestselling books “Solid State: The Story of Abbey Road and the End of the Beatles” and “John Lennon, 1980: The Last Days in the Life.” His latest book is the authorized biography of Beatles road manager Mal Evans, “Living the Beatles Legend,” out now.
Tickets for Everything Fab Four Fest are now available to purchase on Eventbrite. For more information, please visit the festival’s website.
