Feel like partying with 'Miami Steve' Van Zandt, guitar-slinger with Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band? You can. Just hit the radio dial for Dublin City FM on Saturday and join the dude, who also plays Silvio in The Sopranos, as he hosts his weekly Rock'n'Roll Dance Party!

As you might expect Steve is passionate about roots rock'n'roll. So passionate that he set up his own radio show. It became so popular that it's now syndicated around the globe.

"What we're trying to do here is, god forbid, fun," he enthuses. "It's enjoyable and it might be inspirational."

Little Stephen's Underground Garage presents the wackiest, most way-out, rug-cuttin', hip-dippin' rock'n'roll on the planet. If that happens to include Chuck Berry and the Small Faces, alongside The Cramps and Dublin band The Urges, then Steve's on the case.

ratings

"We're on in 200 cities in America," he says. "Our ratings are riduculously high. But it's not even that new. Other than combining all 60 years of rock'n'roll in one place which, granted, no one had done before."

The success of the show has prompted Steve to lobby for rock'n'roll to be accepted as a bone fide college degree course. To that end he's fundraising for his High School Foundation project.

"We've been endorsed from inside the academic community which hasn't happened before," he reveals. "Rock'n'roll is still the last outcast. You can get curriculums on movie making or jazz but rock'n'roll has been late to the game. Bruce Springsteen, Martin Scorsese and Bono are my first three board members so it's going to be extremely exciting."

What with his E Street Band duties and his acting career, I ask Steve if perhaps he's a workaholic. "You do what you love," he protests.

"This feels like a vacation. I was doing all this and filming The Sopranos. I'm always doing about five jobs."

righteous

But Little Stephen is on fire. He burns with a righteous indignation.

Yes, he's thrilled to be pumping out the sounds on Irish radio but it hasn't been easy. Not everyone wants the undiluted, grade A boogaloo.

And this challenge keeps Steve fighting the good fight.

"I know I'm going to be the most famous DJ in South Dakota, right?" he asks. "But they still turned me down. It was amazing. This was after the first season of The Sopranos which was huge, and after Bruce Springsteen and the E Street band's first reunion tour, which was a big success.

In spite of those things it was like, "Eh, we don't want a two-hour rock'n'roll show." And there's nothing else like it. I never felt more confident in my life about anything. Our format is simply the coolest records ever made. How can that fail?"

Jersey boy Steve was perfect as the extravagantly pompadoured Silvio Dante in The Sopranos. The rocker is still amazed at his good fortune. "I had walked away from music," he tells me. "I couldn't relate any more. Grunge was happening. There was a good band or two there, Pearl Jam, Kurt Cobain. But I'm strictly a rootsy guy. If I don't hear the roots in contemporary rock'n'roll it's irrelevant to me. In the early '90s, I'd produced four albums in a row including a Southside Johnny reunion record. There was no reason to make a great record anymore.

The infrastructure that had supported rock'n'roll had disappeared.

"Disintegrated. There was no support. So I just walked away."

It was then that TV producer David Chase saw Steve inducting The Rascals to the Rock'n'Roll Hall of Fame and reckoned he'd be perfect for The Sopranos.

"They called up," recalls Steve. "I said, 'Maybe I'll be an actor for a while'. It was fun to jump into a whole new art form. But then I discovered this contemporary garage rock world, a bunch of young kids listening to the '50s and '60s again. I said, 'I need to support this thing'.

"So I started the radio show. Then Bruce put the band back together so I went from no job to three jobs."

Steve has long been the perfect foil onstage for The Boss. He recalls the early days of their friendship. "February 9, 1964, The Beatles came over and played a variety show called Ed Sullivan," he says giving an outline history lesson.

"On February 8 there were no bands in America. On February 10, the day after the Beatles played, everybody had one. In the suburbs they rehearsed in the garages, which is where the term comes from.

"There were 10 or 12 bands in our region. The ones who were left were the true freaks, misfits and outcasts, which were basically me and Bruce. People think, 'You were so noble hanging in there against all the odds'," he laughs. "But that's nonsense. We were there because we had no choice."

Steve spots a similar determination in the bands he plays including The Urges, a Dublin band who's album Psych Ward received a rave review in the Herald.

"We've just signed them to the label," enthuses Steve. "We support all the bands we play on the radio show, but once in a while somebody needs distribution in America so we will sign them. They are absolutely terrific. They're authentic."

Little Steven's Underground Garage Saturday 10-midnight 103.2 Dublin City FM. Working on a Dream by Bruce Springsteen and the E Street band is in shops

- Eamonn Carr