Maxwell Weinberg was born on April 13, 1951, in Newark/ New Jersey.

At the age of five (!) he saw the "Ed Sullivan Show" where Elvis Presley appeared in 1956. But he wasn't fascinated by Elvis, as you may think. Max was fascinated by Elvis' drummer D. J. Fontana! So he wanted to learn drumming. His parents supported him and already at the age of seven Max played publicly! "All I ever wanted to do was play the drums; I felt good about myself when I played the drums. (...) So I worked anywhere and everywhere I could lug my drums in."
"My father wasn't a very good lawyer (...), which is why I was allowed to play bars and strip joints when I was 14."

In 1974 he even got a job drumming for the Broadway-Musical "Godspell".
But in the same year he found the ad in "Village Voice" (it said: "Drummer (no jr. Ginger Bakers, must encompass R&B and jazz), pianist (classical to Jerry Lee Lewis), trumpet (must play r&b, Latin & jazz), violinist. All must sing. Male or female. Immed auditions for Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band (Columbia Records). Appel. 759-1610. 10 AM - 6 PM") and this ad changed his life, you know! He got into the E Street Band!
Within ten days of his successful audition, he was on the road, leaving college and Broadway behind to tour with "Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band".
Max was chosen from more than 60 other drummers.
"I still can't believe I hooked up with Bruce Springsteen through a want ad. At the first rehearsal he said, 'How ya doing, I am Bruce, let's play.' They were the best band I'd sat in with."

The first album Max recorded with Bruce and the E Streeters was "Born to Run" in 1974/ 75. Soon Max saw himself touring all around the world! The next 15 years he drummed for Bruce Springsteen (till 1989 when Bruce broke up the E Street Band). Logically he also drummed on "Born in the USA" - a few years later Bruce said that Max' drumming was the best of the whole record...
Max was angry about the breakup: "I'd never been fired from anything!", he once said.

In the meantime Max also was with other singers onstage like Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Sting, Ringo Starr (one of his big idols), The Who, Bob Dylan and Meat Loaf.
Max is a proud owner of one of Ringo Starr's bass drum heads from the Beatles' 1964 American tour.

In 1984 Max released his first, and up to now only, book (written in collaboration with Robert Sontelli, which was titled "The Big Beat: Conversations with Rock's Great Drummers". As the title already says, it's a book which contains a series of chatty talks and rhythm tips from Max and a few of his favourite stickhandlers.

On October 18, 1989 Max got a phonecall by Bruce, in which Bruce told Max that he wants to disband the E Street Band. That was a shock for Max, but not a surprise because he had noticed that things were changing.

After the E Street Band Max Weinberg went to Seton Hall University again to finish his to twenty-one remaining credits.

In 1990 Weinberg founded his own record label called "Hard Ticket Entertainment".

Since September 13, 1993, he played for Conan O'Brien's show "Late Night with Conan O'Brien". Max also became featured perfomer in the show's sketches, including "Max on Max", "Max's Greatest Hits" and "Max's Poetry".
One night, before O'Brien's show ever existed, Max met Conan in New York at a traffic light, where Conan waited that the light will change. They began to talk and then Max was asked if he had any ideas for music and Conan gave him an adress where to write and soon he met with Conan's head-writer Robert Smigel. In August they wanted to meet with Max and his band. But up to then, Max didn't have a band... So he put a band together in three days! The "Max Weinberg 7".

In 1995 "Mighty Max" and the rest of the E Street Band got back together to record several songs for the "Greatest Hits" record.

In 1996 he also played at the presidential inauguration of Bill Clinton with Bill Clinton at the saxophone and his band in the White House.

In 1999 Max Weinberg and the E Street Band went back on the road for the worldtour.

In 2001 Max released his first - and up to now only - solo-album with his band "The Max Weinberg 7" on the Universal-distributed Hip-O Records label.

In 2002 Bruce and the band recorded a new album - "The Rising", which was released on July 30th 2002. It was followed by a huge worldtour, which lasted until October 2003.

Articles:
??? (10/ 23/ 2000)
NY Daily News (10/ 01/ 2003)
www.brockpress.com (03/ 09/ 2004)

Interviews:
Modern Drummer Magazine (10/ ??/ 1999)
??? (??/ ??/ 2000)

Photos of Max