I was giving a public program on “Born to Run and the American Experience,” in Brick Township, NJ, recently and someone in the audience shared a “fun fact” with the crowd during the Q&A portion: Bruce’s earliest professional recordings were made in the Jersey Shore town in 1966. It’s true and, of course, we here at the Springsteen Center have a copy. Read on to learn more.
Photographed by Mark Krajnak for the Springsteen Center
Before Greetings from Asbury Park, NJ, before the E Street Band, before anyone called Bruce Springsteen “The Boss,” there was his teen band, the Castiles. As Bruce recalls in his autobiography:
“The band consisted of George [Theiss], myself, drummer Bart Haynes, bass player Frank Marziotti, and a revolving set of tambourine-killing hatchet men. The front man position was one for which few locals qualified at the time because you needed to actually have rhythm and sing. We were all little white boys with weak time and voices, but hey, that didn’t stop the [Rolling] Stones, and the Stones were our Holy Grail and blueprint of cool.”
You might be wondering—why wasn’t Bruce the lead singer? As he tells it, “I was considered toxic in front of a microphone, my voice the butt of many…jokes…”
The Castiles, formed in 1965, were named after a brand of shampoo, and, as Bruce recalls, “it was a name that fit with the times. There was still a remnant of the fifties doo-wop groups in it but it would also suit to take us towards the Valhalla of the rock and blues skiffle we emulated. Our set list was a mixture of pop hits, R&B, guitar instrumentals, even a version of Glenn Miller’s ‘In the Mood’ … so we would have a diverse repertoire. We even tucked an original song or two in here and there.”
Photographed by Mark Krajnak for the Springsteen Center
The band played trailer parks, teen clubs, military bases, beach clubs, pizza parlors, a psychiatric hospital—you name it. And they recorded a single.
Granted, these were kids with limited budgets. So it wasn’t cut in New York or Philadelphia, but in a strip mall at 2785 Hooper Ave. in Brick Township. The small, unassuming studio was called “Mr. Music.” But for a band whose members were mostly still in high school, recording professionally was a formative act. You might say it marked the moment when Springsteen, then a teenage guitarist with more drive than polish, began to understand music not just as a pastime, but as a vocation.
As Bruce notes, “The Castiles had cut a single in a small studio in Bricktown, NJ: ‘That’s What You Get for Loving Me,’ backed by ‘Baby I,’ our two self-penned originals. We walked out of the studio that afternoon with a two-track tape and some acetates (little 45-RPM-looking records that were good for only a few clean plays).”
Like those records, the Castiles had a shelf life. As Bruce recalls, by 1968, “We…knew we’d hit a wall…” Frustrated with their ability to take the band to the next level and with several members of the band caught up in a drug bust, the Castiles broke up after a “great three-year-run.” With that, Bruce’s “epic elementary school of rock was closed forever. The group I’d taken my first baby steps with and strutted my way to small-town guitar-slinging glory with was over. There would be no encore.”
No encore—but the recording remains. It’s an artifact that represents a milestone in Bruce’s career, yes; but it’s also a reminder that history often begins modestly, in the places you would least expect.
While you can’t listen to our copy, you can hear “Baby I” on Chapter and Verse, the musical companion to Bruce Springsteen’s autobiography Born to Run.
Melissa Ziobro
Director of Curatorial Affairs
Bruce Springsteen Archives & Center for American Music
Monmouth University
January 15, 2026