Van Zandt scores for David Chase

When it came time for David Chase to pull together the music for Not Fade Away, his meticulously detailed ode to ’60s rock (out Dec. 21), he turned to a familiar consigliere: Steven Van Zandt, the E Street Band guitarist and costar of Chase’s landmark series The Sopranos. ”It’s not easy to license anything, and I had to license 50 songs from the Beatles, the Stones, Bob Dylan — you know, the easy guys,” Van Zandt jokes. A combo of begging and calling in favors netted contributions from all those acts, as well as Van Morrison, the Moody Blues, and the Sex Pistols. ”I don’t care who I am, in the end they say yes because of their respect for David Chase,” Van Zandt says. ”They went along with him because he doesn’t know how to spell the word compromise, and he’s not going to stop until the thing is as good as it can possibly be.”