Bruce Springsteen has a mild grievance with Rolling Stone and he let the magazine’s founder Jann Wenner know about it during a recent event.
Springsteen and Wenner took part in a conversation event at the 92nd Street Y in New York City to promote Wenner’s new memoir Like A Rolling Stone. Per Variety, The Boss took the opportunity to channel his inner Frank Costanza and air his grievance.
“I was not on the cover of Rolling Stone when ‘Born to Run’ came out, you know,” said Springsteen during the event. “I’m not picking a bone or anything, but I always felt — while we’re talking about it — they were a little skittish about putting me on the cover when that record came out. I was on the cover of Time and Newsweek.”
Wenner defended the move of not putting Springsteen on the cover during the Born to Run era since Time and Newsweek were viewed as “the establishment.” (Of course, Springsteen would go on to appear on the cover of Rolling Stone over 20 times.) Interestingly, The Boss associates the Time and Newsweek covers with getting into trouble with the Internal Revenue Service.
“I hadn’t paid a penny in taxes when I was on the cover of Time and Newsweek, and the IRS found out about it, and it took me 10 years [to pay it],” said Springsteen, with a laugh.