Warren Zanes, Ph.D.
New York Times Bestselling Author, Musician, Recording Artist, Grammy-nominated Filmmaker & Professor
Author—SPRINGSTEEN: Deliver Me from Nowhere,
The Making of Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska
Now a Major Motion Picture
—Performing Springsteen Songs to Illustrate his Talk
Warren Zanes is a musician, recording artist, New York Times bestselling author, Grammy-nominated filmmaker and, an NYU professor. His latest book, Deliver Me from Nowhere: The Making of Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska (full description below), tells the story behind the making of Springsteen’s most surprising album, revealing its pivotal role in the artist’s career. The book has been made into a major motion picture, directed by Scott Cooper and starring Jeremy Allen White (The Bear) and Jeremy Strong (Succession) (release date, October 24, 2025).
Zanes's talk takes us deep into what Springsteen’s album Nebraska reveals about the man, his life, American music and the the most dramatic career shift of one of our world’s best-loved artists. Based on extensive interviews with Springsteen, Zanes's talk offers personally shared insights from Springsteen, and includes short performances of Springsteen's material by Zanes to illustrate the music’s power. As Springsteen says, “If I had to pick one album and say, 'That’s going to represent [me] in fifty years from now,' I’d pick Nebraska.” It was Springsteen’s sixth album, released on September 30, 1982, over 43 years ago. Zanes is currently at work on a full biography of Bruce Springsteen’s life and career, with Springsteen’s participation.
Warren Zanes other books include: Dusty in Memphis, the first volume in the celebrated 33 1/3 Series; Revolutions in Sound: Warner Bros. Records, The First Fifty Years; and, Petty: The Biography. With Garth Brooks, Zanes worked on six books in the artist’s bestselling Anthology Series, talking to hundreds of musicians and songwriters, weaving their voices into the pages. In addition, Zanes has written liner notes for projects including George Harrison’s Let It Roll and Elvis Presley: The Searcher.
After conducting interviews for Martin Scorsese’s George Harrison: Living in the Material World, Zanes acted as Consulting Producer for the Oscar-winning Twenty Feet from Stardom, writer on The Gift: The Journey of Johnny Cash, and producer on the Grammy-nominated 8-part PBS series Soundbreaking, executive produced by Beatles producer George Martin. A former member of Warner Bros. recording artists The Del Fuegos (with brother Dan Zanes and still performing), he has released four solo recordings with Dualtone Nashville and is currently a member of Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Paul Muldoon’s Rogue Oliphant, co-writing songs with Muldoon. Zanes is the former vice president of education and public programs for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum and was formerly executive director of Steven Van Zandt's Rock and Roll Forever Foundation.
Warren Zanes was only 17 when he joined roots rockers the Del Fuegos, a band led by his older brother, Dan. The group made three albums for Warner Bros. in the mid- to late '80s, then vanished off the map until their recent reunion concerts. Zanes followed a similarly obscure path, pursuing his bachelor's degree, and then, bit by the bug of academia, continuing on to earn two master's degrees and a doctorate. He earned a Ph.D. in Visual and Cultural Studies in 2002 from the University of Rochester, and would eventually land teaching spots at Case Western Reserve University, Rochester Institute of Technology, and The School of Visual Arts. In addition to all else he is doing, he is currently a professor at NYU, where he's been teaching for more than a decade.
Zanes continues to write and play his own music, write about music, and listen to it, always. His fifth solo album is scheduled for release in 2025.
ABOUT the BOOK
SPRINGSTEEN: Deliver Me from Nowhere by Warren Zanes
AN NPR BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR
Without Nebraska, Bruce Springsteen might not be who he is today. The natural follow-up to Springsteen’s hugely successful album The River should have been the hit-packed Born in the U.S.A. But instead, in 1982, he came out with an album consisting of a series of dark songs he had recorded by himself, for himself. But more than forty years later, Nebraska is arguably Springsteen’s most important record—the lasting clue to understanding not just his career as an artist and the vision behind it, but also the man himself.
Nebraska is rough and unfinished, recorded on cassette tape with a simple four-track recorder by Springsteen, alone in his bedroom, just as the digital future was announcing itself. And yet Springsteen now considers it his best album. Nebraska expressed a turmoil that was reflective of the mood of the country, but it was also a symptom of trouble in the artist’s life, the beginnings of a mental breakdown that Springsteen would only talk about openly decades after the album’s release.
Warren Zanes spoke to many people involved with making Nebraska, including Bruce Springsteen himself. He also interviewed more than a dozen celebrated artists and musical insiders, from Rosanne Cash to Steven Van Zandt, about their reactions to the album. Zanes interweaves these conversations with inquiries into the myriad cultural touchpoints, including Terrence Malick’s Badlands and the short stories of Flannery O’Conner, that influenced Springsteen as he was writing the album’s haunting songs. The result is a textured and revelatory account of not only a crucial moment in the career of an icon but also a record that upended all expectations and predicted a home-recording revolution.
Without Nebraska, Bruce Springsteen might not be who he is today. The natural follow-up to Springsteen’s hugely successful album The River should have been the hit-packed Born in the U.S.A. But instead, in 1982, he came out with an album consisting of a series of dark songs he had recorded by himself, for himself. But more than forty years later, Nebraska is arguably Springsteen’s most important record—the lasting clue to understanding not just his career as an artist and the vision behind it, but also the man himself. Nebraska is rough and unfinished, recorded on cassette tape with a simple four-track recorder by Springsteen, alone in his bedroom, just as the digital future was announcing itself. And yet Springsteen now considers it his best album. Nebraska expressed a turmoil that was reflective of the mood of the country, but it was also a symptom of trouble in the artist’s life, the beginnings of a mental breakdown that Springsteen would only talk about openly decades after the album’s release. Warren Zanes spoke to many people involved with making Nebraska, including Bruce Springsteen himself. He also interviewed more than a dozen celebrated artists and musical insiders, from Rosanne Cash to Steven Van Zandt, about their reactions to the album. The result is a textured and revelatory account of not only a crucial moment in the career of an icon but also a record that upended all expectations and predicted a home-recording revolution.
Dusty in Memphis, Dusty Springfield's beautiful and bizarre magnum opus, remains as fine a hybrid of pop and rhythm and blues as has ever been made. In this remarkable book, Warren Zanes explores his own love affair with the record. He digs deep into the album's Memphis roots and talks to several of the key characters who were involved in its creation, many of whom were - like Zanes - outsiders drawn to the American South and mesmerized by its hold over the imagination.
PETTY: The Biography by Warren Zanes
The New York Times Bestseller
*One of Rolling Stone's 10 Best Music Books of 2015*
An exhilarating and intimate account of the life of music legend Tom Petty, by an accomplished writer and musician who toured with Petty.
No one other than Warren Zanes, rocker and writer and friend, could author a book about Tom Petty that is as honest and evocative of Petty's music and the remarkable rock and roll history he and his band helped to write.
Born in Gainesville, Florida, with more than a little hillbilly in his blood, Tom Petty was a Southern shit kicker, a kid without a whole lot of promise. Rock and roll made it otherwise. From meeting Elvis, to seeing the Beatles on Ed Sullivan, to producing Del Shannon, backing Bob Dylan, putting together a band with George Harrison, Dylan, Roy Orbison, and Jeff Lynne, making records with Johnny Cash, and sending well more than a dozen of his own celebrated recordings high onto the charts, Tom Petty's story has all the drama of a rock and roll epic. In his last years, Petty, known for his reclusive style, shared with Warren Zanes his insights and arguments, his regrets and lasting ambitions, and the details of his life on and off the stage.
This is a book for those who know and love the songs, from "American Girl" and "Refugee" to "Free Fallin'" and "Mary Jane's Last Dance," and for those who want to see the classic rock and roll era embodied in one man's remarkable story. Dark and mysterious, Petty managed to come back, again and again, showing us what the music can do and where it can take us.
For half a century, Warner Bros. Records has rocked the world. Frank Sinatra, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Tom Petty, and Madonna have all recorded for the labeland this celebratory anniversary book tells their inside stories and hundreds more, with photographs, many never before seen, from the Warner Bros. archives. Also featured are groudbreaking comedians, from Bob Newhart to Steve Martin. This book goes into the recording studios and on the cover shoots, and on tour with the biggest names in music. Join the 50th anniversary party in a nonstop celebration of American music.
ARTH BROOKS ANTHOLOGY SERIES: I’ve been working on the Anthology series with Garth for six remarkable years. There is no story like his. We’ve talked to hundreds of musicians and songwriters, weaving their voices into the pages. This project has been one of the great joys in my life. - Warren Zanes
Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere - Official Film Trailer 20th Century Studios
An exhilarating and intimate account of the life of music legend Tom Petty, by an accomplished writer and musician who toured with Petty
Scott Cooper and Jeremy Allen White on Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere
Praise
SPRINGSTEEN: Deliver Me from Nowhere by Warren Zanes
“Brilliant reading . . . For fans of American music, Deliver Me from Nowhere makes a great ghost story.”—The Boston Globe
“Warren Zanes is in possession of a genuine, often astonishing writerly gift. This book is about Bruce Springsteen’s weird, gothic, heartbroken 1982 left turn, Nebraska, which is not just a startling swerve in the career of a great American artist or a pivotal yet neglected transitional moment in the history of recorded music, but the question Springsteen asked himself forty years ago: What do you do when you begin to understand that the things you have loved most have begun to do you harm? This is some of Zanes’s best writing ever, which is saying a lot.” —Michael Chabon, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
“Zanes has emerged from the wilderness of Nebraska with one of the greatest books about the creative process ever written. By focusing on Springsteen’s dark masterpiece and the soil it emerged from, Zanes elevates it to near mythic stature. Deliver Me from Nowhere is profoundly felt, deeply understood, and (as it should be) full of joy and abandon—with a hint of menace.”—Nick Flynn, author of Another Bullshit Night in Suck City“
This book, more than any other, reveals the hidden corners of Bruce Springsteen’s creative world. It zeroes in on a period of both volatility and artistic breakthrough, when Springsteen made the record no one was asking for but that he was compelled to make. Warren Zanes, one of our very finest music writers, always comes from the place of the music and its maker. No one else could have told this story.”—Judd Apatow
You can waste your access by protecting your subject or trying to get too pretty. Warren Zanes does neither. He honors the access he gets to all of his central characters. If you’re a writer, his gift will make you jealous. But not jealous enough to stop reading. This is the Springsteen book we’ve been waiting for.”—Geoff Edgers, national arts reporter for The Washington Post and author of Walk This Way: Run-DMC, Aerosmith, and the Song that Changed American Music Forever
“Illuminating . . . Zanes builds a strong case for the album’s singularity, achievement, and influence. . . . Even those who aren’t convinced that Nebraska is Springsteen at his best will hear it with fresh ears.”—Kirkus Reviews“Intimate . . .
Zanes traces how the album’s punk rock spirit pushed back against the industry’s preferred polished sound to become a chart-topping success, and delivers the narrative in energetic prose that makes his enthusiasm for his subject palpable. Rock ’n’ roll fans will want to crank this up to 11.”—Publishers Weekly
About PETTY: The Biography
*One of Rolling Stone's 10 Best Music Books of 2015*
An exhilarating and intimate account of the life of music legend Tom Petty, by an accomplished writer and musician who toured with Petty.
No one other than Warren Zanes, rocker and writer and friend, could author a book about Tom Petty that is as honest and evocative of Petty's music and the remarkable rock and roll history he and his band helped to write.
Born in Gainesville, Florida, with more than a little hillbilly in his blood, Tom Petty was a Southern shit kicker, a kid without a whole lot of promise. Rock and roll made it otherwise. From meeting Elvis, to seeing the Beatles on Ed Sullivan, to producing Del Shannon, backing Bob Dylan, putting together a band with George Harrison, Dylan, Roy Orbison, and Jeff Lynne, making records with Johnny Cash, and sending well more than a dozen of his own celebrated recordings high onto the charts, Tom Petty's story has all the drama of a rock and roll epic. In his last years, Petty, known for his reclusive style, shared with Warren Zanes his insights and arguments, his regrets and lasting ambitions, and the details of his life on and off the stage.
This is a book for those who know and love the songs, from "American Girl" and "Refugee" to "Free Fallin'" and "Mary Jane's Last Dance," and for those who want to see the classic rock and roll era embodied in one man's remarkable story. Dark and mysterious, Petty managed to come back, again and again, showing us what the music can do and where it can take us.
