Bruce Springsteen revealed that although still very close to his kids — they really pay little attention to his career. People reported that during his recent chat on Britain’s Gram Norton Show, “The Boss” explained how his kids came to terms with his stardom, recalling, “When they were really little, they would ask why people would come up to me so I told them it was because where I worked I ‘was like Barney for adults’ so they understood. . . Now they have virtually no interest in music or in that part of my life. But as I always say, ‘They don’t need a hero, they need a father.’”

Regarding his new R&B covers collection Only The Strong Survive, he said, “Maybe I’ll sing someone else’s songs? I had all these songs I was brought up on as a kid and all these soul singers whose work I have studied very hard and whose music I have loved for such a long time. It’s very joyful music so it was easy to have a good time.”

When discussing his own vocal chops, he said, “I am really a bar singer and have a good voice for five sets a night and can go on for hours and hours as I usually do.”

Decades after first topping the charts, Bruce Springsteen remains a realist about the highs and lows of his recording career: “Since 1975 I’ve had about a million people that buy my records and they buy them very steadily and they’re involved with my music over a long period of time. And then, if there’s a moment or there’s a song, or there’s a particular place in time that brings in a lot of people that are really not your followers, let’s say or people who. . . then your record sales will go up — but unlikely to stay up, because it’s people that have been attracted by a particular moment, y’know?”