Atwood Journal’s Aidan Moyer presents a behind-the-scenes peek of the Jeremy Allen White-led biopic ‘Springsteen: Ship Me From Nowhere,’ chronicling Bruce Springsteen’s recording of his 1982 album ‘Nebraska.’
Three hundred twenty-somethings are herded into the Stone Pony, wearing leather-based and denim ensembles with mops of untamed hair.
The streets of Asbury Park are cordoned off and suffering from classic automobiles. On this room, on this December morning, it’s the early Nineteen Eighties. With Vox organs, drum risers and saxophone holsters in place, we’re about to listen to a well-recognized music for the primary time. In a momentary break from this excellent phantasm, director Scott Cooper teases a particular visitor in the home to kick off the day’s filming.
“Is all people right here from Jersey?!”
Bruce Springsteen emerges from the ether in a white leather-based jacket. He takes a stage that, for all intents and functions, is on mortgage to each different musician who enters these hallowed halls. As we roar in reverence, the Boss insists, “Carry that very same power for the [actors] onstage!” Soaking within the sight of a throwback crowd, Springsteen muses, “Are these YOUR garments? Ah, they gave ‘em to ya – properly, you look nice!”
I’ve taken it upon myself to go full ‘methodology’ as an additional. I’m wearing classic Italian cowboy boots, a denim vest, and sporting shoulder-length hair. Tucked into my again pocket is a sketchbook full of fake ticket stubs and illustrations depicting icons of the day. My bandmate Trevor and I’ve cross-referenced east coast tour dates from Wings, Stevie Surprise, Tom Petty and the Boss amongst others to authentically lead our characters from the mid-70s to this night time in Jersey.
Retreating into the shadows, 75-year-old Bruce is changed by his 33-year-old famous person stand-in, The Bear’s Jeremy Allen White.
White was scouted by Springsteen himself to star in Springsteen: Ship Me From Nowhere, a chronicle of the fraught recording classes that yielded Nebraska. The movie attracts from Warren Zanes’ immersive 2023 biography of the identical title. Zanes delves into the strain Springsteen felt after the success of The River, a cross-country retreat that spurred a psychological breakdown, and the tv noir that seeped into Springsteen’s four-track demos. The E-Road Band ran by way of electrical variations of Nebraska – freshly launched to tie into the movie – however they’re absent from the completed product.
Nebraska is an oddity within the early Springsteen canon, a lo-fi meditation within the midst of a inventive melancholy. After a string of album covers adorned with portraits of Bruce in all his glory, his face is nowhere on the album art work. Its most enduring observe, “Atlantic Metropolis,” has turn into a dwell E-Road staple, however many of the materials on Nebraska attracts from Flannery O’Connor’s bleak quick tales, anecdotes of assassin Charles Starkweather, and the punk stylings of the band Suicide. The movie and bio pull their title from a couplet in “State Trooper,” as a wandering driver pleads:
Hey, any person on the market –
Take heed to my final prayer
“Hello ho, Silver, oh!”
Ship me from nowhere
Springsteen recorded Nebraska in Colts Neck, ten minutes away from his hometown of Freehold, New Jersey. A lot of Springsteen: Ship Me From Nowhere is filmed on location with units retrofitted to the Nineteen Eighties and Fifties. Zanes casts Nebraska-era Springsteen as Odysseus, who undertook a twenty-year retreat from Ithaca, earlier than returning in unassuming garb to reclaim his throne.
Springsteen’s homecoming got here within the type of meteoric MTV success and his most large hits. “Born within the USA” initially appeared on Nebraska as a bluesy lament of a Vietnam vet’s plight; the ultimate product has since been co-opted for barbecues and misappropriated for political campaigns.
The live performance scene on the Pony, ultimately lower from the ultimate movie, flashes ahead to Dancing within the Darkish, recorded for 1984’s Born within the USA at Springsteen’s industrial zenith. Jeremy Allen White and the facsimile E-Road Band run by way of the quantity a dozen instances. Although their devices are unplugged, the chord formations are genuine.Max Weinberg’s fills are performed with aplomb by Yeah Yeah Yeahs drummer Brian Chase. The vocals, piped in by way of a PA, sound like a mixture of dwell Springsteen performances and White doing an in-studio vocal impression. Our best collective appearing problem is pretending to not know each lyric by coronary heart.
With the preliminary crowd setup full, we break for lunch. Outdoors the Pony, Johnny Cannizarro, the spitting picture of Steven Van Zandt,greets us warmly. On the stage door, onset photographer Danny Clinch captures Springsteen with a handful of crew members. Trevor and I tuck ourselves into the background and provides a ‘thumbs up’ with the hope of technically being photographed with Bruce. Because the Boss prowls the lunch line, he spots a row of metalheads in matching leather-based jackets and quips, “You guys appear like the police line-up!” There are whisperings of different notables on set; half of Greta Van Fleet (Jake and Sam Kizca) and Rival Sons’ Josh Buchanan snag some catering.
Onstage, Buchanan’s mic is dwell and he completely rips by way of some bar band requirements, “I Put a Spell On You,” “Lucille,” and “Increase Increase.” He and half of Van Fleet painting Cats On a Easy Floor, one-time Stone Pony home band. The Kizcas half-jokingly entertain crowd requests: “Play Stairway!” White has clearly labored over Springsteen’s stage persona and sweats and strains his manner by way of his visitor look.
Schedules are shuffled and weeks cross earlier than the pickup pictures are filmed. We commerce the stifling warmth of the inside live performance pictures for a brutal January chill. I curse my sleeveless denim vest and too-thin denims as I put up up in opposition to a traditional automobile. Smatterings of locals put up up throughout the road to catch a glimpse of the motion. The hours of the nightshoot bleed collectively and there aren’t sufficient hand and foot heaters on the East Coast to manage our physique warmth. Fortunately, mercifully, digicam placement is swapped and a handful of us are allowed contained in the Pony for espresso and a respite.
Gathered for the ultimate day of the Jersey shoot are Springsteen, Clinch, White and the remaining crew. The Boss is about 5 ft away, however on the final second, I demur. There’s an invisible power subject and an unblinking thought- “Don’t spoil it by saying one thing silly.” Within the curiosity of constructing small discuss, I escape my sketchbook and flip by way of to a double-page unfold that includes White as Springsteen and a now-infamous Jon Landau quote – “I noticed rock and roll future and its title is Bruce Springsteen” – and the e-book is promptly snatched out of my fingers. One other further, Sabrina, has made a beeline to the espresso machine and the Bear himself.
“Jeremy, check out this!”
“Woah!”
I’m ushered over to a again nook the place a particularly convivial Jeremy Allen White asks me to stroll him by way of the sketchbook page-by-page. What started as a private venture has was a rapid-fire walkthrough: “You’ve acquired all of the stubs-oh, is that Bob Dylan? And also you’ve acquired Stevie Surprise, too!”
Fortuitously, Sabrina has the foresight to seize the second. Within the ultimate hour of the ultimate New Jersey taking pictures day, telephone laws are extra lax. White, having eliminated his brown contacts to unveil piercing child blues, generously poses together with his in-character portrait.
Springsteen: Ship Me From Nowhere is in theaters as of October 24, 2025, coinciding with the discharge of an expanded Nebraska field set.
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© Aidan Moyer
