35 Years Ago: Bruce Springsteen Fires the E Street Band

It seemed that Bruce Springsteen would never part ways with the E Street Band, given how much they had been mythologized in songs like "Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out" and "No Surrender." But on Oct. 18, 1989, that's exactly what he did.

A month earlier, they all celebrated Springsteen's 40th birthday at a Jersey Shore bar. The night naturally ended with a jam session. Still, as much fun as that seemed to be, it couldn't hide the fact that there'd been internal problems for a while.

Springsteen had used the band sparingly on his previous album, 1987's Tunnel of Love, and many longtime fans thought that its ensuing tour lacked the spark that had made his concerts so legendary.

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"I think we got into a rut in our relationships," Springsteen told Peter Ames Carlin in Bruce. "I needed to take a break, do some other things, probably play with some other musicians – which I hadn't done in a long time. ... I just didn't know where to take the band next. It seemed like we'd reached an apex of what were were trying to do and say."

His association with some members extended back to the late '60s, so that made no small degree of sense. Time spent observing Sting and Peter Gabriel, both of whom had left successful bands, while on the Human Rights Now! tour in the fall of 1988 showed Springsteen the possibility of using other musicians to explore new creative paths.

He phoned members of the E Street Band one-by-one and broke the news. In his memoir Big Man, Clarence Clemons wrote that he and Nils Lofgren were in Japan with Ringo Starr in the first incarnation of the All-Starr Band when the call came. Fortunately, Starr knew a thing or two about moving on from a world-famous group and was able to provide emotional support.

Listen to Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band's 'Blood Brothers'

Bruce Springsteen Insisted the Split Wasn't Forever

Springsteen was looking in other directions, but he made it clear that the split wasn't permanent, only indefinite. "He never said he was breaking up the band," bassist Garry Tallent told Carlin. "He was like, 'Just so you know, for the next little while I'll be doing some other things, and you're free to do other things.' It was a courtesy call to let you know you were free to go down any pathways you found appealing."

Springsteen also didn't make a clean break from E Street. Keyboardist Roy Bittan and backup singer Patti Scialfa, whom Springsteen married in 1990, appeared on the subsequent Human Touch and Lucky Town albums and tour. Bittan also co-produced Human Touch and co-wrote two of its songs.

The E Street Band reconvened in early 1995 to complete some new tracks for a compilation, even bringing back Steven Van Zandt, whom Lofgren replaced in 1984. The accompanying documentary Blood Brothers shows those sessions to be all smiles, but it whitewashed over the tension in the studio. Shortly thereafter, Scialfa, Tallent and keyboardist Danny Federici contributed to 1995's The Ghost of Tom Joad. Later that year, the whole band performed at the opening of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, which was deemed by all to be an uncomfortable gig.

In the fall of 1998, 10 years after the end of the Human Rights Now! tour, they finally began discussing a comeback. The E Street Band's full-scale reunion with Springsteen began in the spring of 1999, shortly after he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.