Age, Biography and Wiki
- Age: As of 2025, Steven Van Zandt is 75 years old.
- Biography: Born as Steven Lento, he adopted the surname Van Zandt from his mother's new husband. He began his musical journey in New Jersey, influenced by rock legends like The Beatles and The Rolling Stones. Notable for his work with Bruce Springsteen, he joined the E Street Band in 1975 and contributed to albums such as "Born to Run" and "Born in the U.S.A." .
- Wiki: His Wikipedia page provides extensive details about his life and career: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Van_Zandt.
| Occupation | Rock Singer |
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| Date of Birth | November 22, 1950 |
| Age | 75 Years |
| Birth Place | Winthrop, Massachusetts, U.S. |
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| Country | U.S |
Height, Weight & Measurements
While specific details about his height and weight are not readily available, Steven Van Zandt is known for his distinctive style and stage presence.
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Dating & Relationship status
Steven Van Zandt is married to actress Maureen Van Zandt. They have been together since 1982 and share a strong bond in both their personal and professional lives.
He has Italian ancestry; one grandfather was from Calabria and one grandmother's parents were from Naples. His mother remarried in 1957, and he took the last name of his stepfather, William Brewster Van Zandt. Actor Billy Van Zandt is Van Zandt's half-brother and actress Adrienne Barbeau is his ex-sister-in-law. He also has a half-sister named Kathi, who is a writer. When he was seven, the family moved from Massachusetts to Middletown Township, New Jersey.
Van Zandt attended Middletown High School in Middletown Township, New Jersey, where he was expelled after refusing to cut his long hair. He later returned to school in 1968, largely to appease his mother. As a teenager, he was involved in a car accident that caused him to smash his head through the windshield, leaving several scars on his head. To cover this up, he began wearing hats, and later, large bandanas, which has become his characteristic look.
In 1999, Van Zandt took one of the lead roles in The Sopranos, playing level-headed but deadly mob consigliere and strip club owner Silvio Dante. The casting choice was made by series creator David Chase, who invited Van Zandt to audition after seeing him induct The Rascals at the 1997 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and being impressed with his humorous appearance and presence. Though Van Zandt had never acted before, he auditioned for the role of Tony Soprano. HBO felt that the role should go to an experienced actor, however, so Chase wrote a part especially for Van Zandt. Van Zandt eventually agreed to star on the show as Silvio Dante, and his real-life spouse Maureen (née Santoro) was cast as his on-screen wife Gabriella.
Van Zandt married actress Maureen Santoro in New York City on December 31, 1982. Later she portrayed his wife on The Sopranos. Bruce Springsteen was the best man at their wedding, Little Richard presided over it, and it featured Percy Sledge singing "When a Man Loves a Woman".
He and his wife Maureen also serve on the Count Basie Theatre's Board of Directors, and were named as that organization's honorary capital campaign chairs in 2015.
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Net Worth and Salary
- Net Worth: As of 2025, Steven Van Zandt's net worth is approximately $80 million. This wealth is accumulated from his extensive career in music, acting, and other ventures such as radio hosting and production .
- Salary: His exact salary is not public, but his earnings come from a variety of sources including music tours, album sales, and TV appearances.
Career, Business and Investments
- Music Career: Van Zandt is a key member of Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band and has contributed to some of the band's most iconic albums. He also has a successful solo career, releasing albums like "Men Without Women" and "Voice of America" .
- Acting Career: Notably, he played the role of Silvio Dante on the hit TV series "The Sopranos," which significantly boosted his profile and earnings.
- Business and Investments: Besides his music and acting ventures, Van Zandt is involved in radio hosting and has been active in various philanthropic efforts.
Van Zandt later returned to the E Street Band when it was reformed (briefly in 1995, and on an ongoing basis since 1999) and remains a member. By this time, his guitar playing had mostly been reduced to a background rhythm role, due to Nils Lofgren's position in the band and his capability as a lead guitarist. In addition, Springsteen had begun taking many more guitar solos as his music became more guitar-centered. Van Zandt said on the Howard Stern Show that he is okay with being second in command, especially since he has been in charge before with his solo music and his role in Lilyhammer.
Continuing his involvement in issues of the day, in 1985 he created the music-industry activist group Artists United Against Apartheid as an action against the Sun City resort in South Africa. Forty-nine recording artists, including Springsteen, U2, Bob Dylan, Pete Townshend, Joey Ramone, Tom Petty, Afrika Bambaataa, and Run DMC, collaborated on a song called "Sun City" in which they pledged to never perform at the resort. The song was modestly successful, and played a part in the broad international effort to bring attention to apartheid, which the South African government later ended. He produced the award-winning documentary The Making of Sun City and oversaw the production of the book, Sun City by Artists United Against Apartheid, the Struggle for Freedom in South Africa: The Making of the Record, as well as the teaching guide.
Van Zandt announced in November 2016 that he was in the process of remastering and reissuing his albums for a 2017 release, including the unreleased Lost Boys album. Additionally, Van Zandt has stated that he was planning on releasing a new cover album, including a cover of Etta James' "The Blues Is My Business", as well as new recordings of songs Van Zandt wrote for others, including Southside Johnny, that he describes as "me covering me." The album is a soul record, composed of a 15 piece band including 5 horns and 3 singers. Van Zandt revealed that Richie Mercurio plays drums on the album. On February 9, 2017, Van Zandt released "Saint Valentine's Day," a cover of the song, "Saint Valentine's Day Massacre," that he originally wrote for the Cocktail Slippers, as a single. The song was repeatedly played on the Underground Garage radio show.
Until 1999, Van Zandt had no professional acting experience. His main focus had been music, whether it was the multiple bands he participated in, groups he composed pieces for, or music he wrote on his own. Then, he was asked to play a part in The Sopranos. After, acting became part of Van Zandt's career.
Van Zandt is also the program director for two radio channels for the Sirius Satellite Radio network. The channels continuously broadcast on satellite radio in the US, and worldwide on Sirius Internet Radio. One channel, named Underground Garage, has the same philosophy and musical mandate as his own radio show. On-air hosts on the channel include original Rolling Stones manager/producer Andrew Loog Oldham, singer/guitarist Joan Jett, former record executive Kid Leo, punk rock singer Handsome Dick Manitoba and rock entrepreneur Kim Fowley. The second channel, named the Outlaw Country, presents the edgier side of country music, both roots and contemporary. On-air hosts for this channel include pop-culture satirist Mojo Nixon.
Social Network
Steven Van Zandt is active on social media platforms, where he engages with fans and shares updates about his projects. However, specific details on his social media presence are not widely documented.
After returning to New Jersey, Van Zandt continued wearing Hawaiian shirts because he did not particularly like winter, which was how he got the nickname "Miami Steve".
Among E Street Band members, Van Zandt often had the second-most "face time" in concert after Clarence Clemons, frequently mugging and posing for the audience and sometimes delivering his unpolished, nasal backing vocals while sharing a microphone with Springsteen. His playing or singing is most prominently featured on the songs "Glory Days", "Two Hearts", "Long Walk Home", which featured a Van Zandt outro vocal solo during live performances "Land of Hope and Dreams", "Badlands", "Ramrod", and "Murder Incorporated", among others like the live versions of "Rosalita". He often trades vocals with Springsteen in live versions of "Prove It All Night". He features prominently in the video for "Glory Days", sharing the spotlight with Springsteen during the choruses, while swapping lines with him during the (non)fade, and in live versions he does the same. During the E Street Band's performance at the Super Bowl in 2009, Van Zandt was the most prominently featured member of the band, playing a guitar solo on the final number of the set, "Glory Days," as well as sharing lead vocals and exchanging humorous banter with Springsteen.
Van Zandt became a songwriter and producer for fellow Jersey shore act Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes in 1974, penning their signature song "I Don't Want to Go Home", co-writing other songs for them with Springsteen, and producing their most-acclaimed record, Hearts of Stone. As such, Van Zandt became a key contributor to the Jersey Shore sound. He also produced two Gary U.S. Bonds albums. Van Zandt then went on to share production credits on the classic Springsteen albums The River and Born in the U.S.A. The first Springsteen song he co-produced was "Hungry Heart." In 1989, Jackson Browne covered the 1983 Van Zandt composition "I Am A Patriot" on his World in Motion album. Van Zandt has produced a number of other records, including an uncredited effort on the Iron City Houserockers' Have A Good Time (But Get Out Alive). Less successful was his work on Lone Justice's second album Shelter, which was a career-ending flop for the Los Angeles cowpunk band.
In 2011, he starred in, co-wrote, and was the executive producer for an English and Norwegian language series entitled Lilyhammer, the first original Netflix series that was produced in collaboration with Norwegian broadcaster NRK. The name recalls the city of Lillehammer, which hosted the 1994 Winter Olympics. On the show, Van Zandt portrays a Sopranos-like role of an ex-mafioso who enters the witness protection program and flees to Norway to escape a colleague against whom he testified. The show premiered on NRK television on January 25, 2012, with an audience of 998,000 viewers (one fifth of Norway's population), and ran for three seasons before being cancelled in 2015.
Education
There is limited information available about Steven Van Zandt's formal education. His early life and career were heavily influenced by his musical interests and experiences in New Jersey.
He debuted his new album at the annual Rock and Roll for Children event at the Fillmore Theater in Silver Spring, Maryland, on March 18, 2017. Van Zandt debuted a doo-wop song called "The City Weeps Tonight," that was an outtake from Men Without Women. At the end of the show, he covered "Bye Bye Johnny" as a tribute to the late Chuck Berry. According to Backstreets, Van Zandt's new album was going to be called Soulfire, titled after the song he co-wrote for the Breakers. The album was officially released on May 19, 2017. Van Zandt was selected as the commencement speaker and received a honorary degree from Rutgers University in May 2017.
In 2007, Van Zandt launched the non-profit Rock and Roll Forever Foundation and its TeachRock project, which creates K-12 national curriculum. TeachRock includes interdisciplinary, arts-driven materials. The initiative features lesson plans covering topics in social studies, general music, language arts and media studies.
