It Happened To Me: Bruce Springsteen Hand-Wrote Me A Card

My life as a music journalist has gotten me backstage with Billie Eilish, tea with Neil Young, and an apology from Slash.

By: Steve Baltin

Backstage with ASAP Rocky after he sold out the Forum in LA. Took my friend Liberty to the show and she didn't believe Rocky and I were friends, thought I was trying to impress her. After the show we were waiting in a room for him with a group of people, he comes in and makes a beeline for me and asked what I thought of the show. Never doubted me again 😂

Yes, I like to claim, and so far, no one has proven me wrong, I am the only music journalist to sit with James Brown and smoke with ASAP Rocky. Similarly, I will bet no one else can say they had an hour-long tea with Neil Young and hung backstage with Billie Eilish. I have no doubt several people can lay claim to one or maybe even two of these experiences. But to cross generations like that, nope.

So, how does one get these transcendent experiences? Besides a shitload of luck. And, before I go on, I have a million of these what the fuck stories!

Backstage with Billie Eilish. We had met a few months earlier when she sold out three nights at the Fonda. A year later she was the biggest pop star in the universe.

Slash apologizing to me for being led away from me at the Super Bowl, because he was an unannounced performer. I was only at this Super Bowl in Dallas because Will.I.Am called the CEO of AOL, where I worked at the time, and told him to send me. He didn’t call my boss. He called Tim Armstrong, who had no idea who I was,