In a new Rolling Stone interview tied to the release of his new box set Tracks II: The Lost Albums, Bruce Springsteen speaks at great length about the seven unreleased LPs he resurrected for the package, why most people have the wrong idea about his productivity in the Nineties, the upcoming biopic Deliver Me From Nowhere, and even his plans for a third Tracks box.
But when the conversation came around to his next album, he only offered a few details: “I have a record finished,” he says. “It’s a solo record…I would imagine it will come out in ’26 sometime.” When we asked if would say anything more about it, we got a one word response: “No.”
He was was willing to expand more when Tracks III came up. “That’s something that I’ve finished and is ready to be released,” he says. “It’s just a question of when we have time to put that out, considering that I have a variety of other things that I’m interested in releasing soon also. But you won’t be waiting 25 years for the next Tracks album. I suppose it’ll come out in the next three years or so.”
Unlike the second volume of Tracks, this one isn’t centered around shelved albums. “This is all music from different points in my work life that I’ve made, some with the band, without the band, some that go way back,” he says. “At that point, the vault will be not completely empty, but virtually empty. There will be really not more, which I’m sort of excited about doing, finally getting all the music that I have and have recorded out to my fans.”
Three years ago, Springsteen released the covers collection Only the Strong Survive where he tackled classic soul/R&B songs like “Don’t Play That Song,” “Somebody We’ll Be Together,” and “Turn Back the Hands of Time.” He hinted at a second volume back then, and he tells Rolling Stone it’s indeed been recorded.
“It’s been finished for quite a while,” he says. “Once again, timing. The covers records are things I make for my own amusement and entertainment when I’m not writing. It was just a project that I had a lot of fun doing. And I love all that music, I love all those songs and those singers. So I do have another one, and there’s other covers things I’ve done that were not necessarily soul-related, so it’s another project.”
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Springsteen is currently on tour in Europe. It wraps up July 3 in Milan, Italy. That’ll officially mark the end of an extensive E Street Band run that started back in February 2023. It’s unlikely he’ll ever do a tour quite that long again. “Rather than do a 130-show stretch,” he says, “which we did this time because we had been off for six years, so I had to get back in touch with my audience, and it was fun playing with the band … in the future, I think we’ll probably play more often and less dates.”
How about a tour without the E Street Band that would gave him a chance to spotlight different corners of his catalog? “I will be doing that again at some point,” he says. “I’m not sure what the music will be, but I’ll have a lot to draw on because I’m making a lot of records. But at some point, I’d like to do that.”
