Steve Van Zandt thinks that Bruce Springsteen has just one more major E Street Band in him before calling it quits. Van Zandt, who’ll be on the road throughout the fall with Little Steve & His Disciples Of Soul, told Britain’s Daily Star, “Bruce is booked on Broadway through to December, all sold out, and that will have been 15 or 16 straight months. It’s been an amazing run for him and then he’s going to take some time off… He’s been doing that show five days a week for 15 months. I was joking with him the other day. I told him that this is the first legitimate job he’s ever had!”

Van Zandt, who met Springsteen in 1966 and played in several New Jersey bands with Springsteen before finally becoming an E Streeter in 1975, revealed: “I think the E Street Band has one more tour then maybe that will be that.”

Regarding a new album, Van Zandt seemed more optimistic, saying, “Bruce is always writing new songs and always has an album in his pocket. In the next couple of years it will happen.”

Bruce Springsteen explained to Pulse that for years he kept his chronic depression personal demons at bay through performing: “Y’know, you’re young and you don’t understand the different things you’re feeling — you certainly don’t understand if there’s any chemical imbalance. So all I knew was when I played it deeply centered me and chased away my blues. There was an enormous amount of self-realization in playing and when you walked off the stage at night, you knew who you were and you felt you’d done something constructive. So, you’re left with a certain feeling of lightness and a certain positivity that eluded me in a lot of the rest of my daily life.”

Steve Van Zandt told Pulse that Springsteen’s recent work isn’t that far away from what first attracted him to his earliest songs: “Well, he’s still writing at a very high level of quality and that’s always inspiring to me. Sometimes it maybe a little more politically slanted or socially slanted than romantically or emotionally slanted — but, y’know, I don’t really judge that way. You go onstage with the script that you have and you do that as well as you can possibly do it. Y’know, that’s all I know.”

Little Steven & The Disciples perform in Chicago on November 5th at The Copernicus Center.