STEVEN VAN ZANDT: ANGLOPHILE ON E STREET.

Although better-known for his roles in Bruce Springsteen's band and The Sopranos, Steven Van Zandt also hosts a long-running US radio show with the Sixties' British Invasion at its heart. Following the show's debut on these shores, Van Zandt talks to Music Week about his love for UK music

By Paul Williams

AS MOBSTER SILVIO DANTE IN THE SOPRANOS, Steven Van Zandt cut a very familiar figure on our screens, but his next TV venture may well find him in more relaxed surroundings.

Working around a hectic schedule that incorporates acting, production, performing as a solo artist and being a fully-paid-up member of Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band, the man known to the world as Little Steven has been busy these past seven years hosting a weekly radio show that is syndicated to more than 200 stations in the US.

That programme, Little Steven's Underground Garage, finally arrived in the UK last month and can now be heard from 8pm every Monday on digital radio station Absolute Classic Rock. But the E Street Band guitarist and mandolin player is not ready to stop there: his eye is fixed on transferring the show to TV.

"I'm determined to get the TV equivalent of my radio show on; it's a big, big factor," says Van Zandt, whose programme mixes vintage and contemporary rock`n'roll and garage rock with the British Invasion acts of the Sixties at its heart.

"With a tour this year we may not get round to it, but I certainly want at least to get a pilot done and, if not, a deal done," he says.