Today’s guest blogger, Howie Chaz, is the founder of the Bruce Springsteen fan group known as the Spring-Nuts (along with his wonderful wife, Julie). I’ve had the pleasure of working with the Spring-Nuts dating back to our 2019 exhibit Springsteen: His Hometown, and over the years I’ve been continually struck by the warmth and generosity of this community. They are, of course, passionate Springsteen fans, but they are also extraordinarily welcoming, supportive, and committed to giving back. They have taken the sense of community and compassion that runs through so much of Bruce’s music and found ways to put it into action, raising money for charitable organizations, helping individuals and families in need, and taking care of one another along the way. Howie’s story is ultimately about much more than the creation of a fan group. It’s about what can happen when a shared love of music becomes the foundation for a genuine community. I hope you enjoy hearing from Howie in his own words!
– Melissa Kozlowski, Director of Curatorial Affairs, Bruce Springsteen Center for American Music
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I used to write daily blogs for another Springsteen fan page on Facebook, sharing my personal thoughts and experiences through the lens of Bruce’s music and lyrics. Over time, people began taking an interest in what I had to say, and those posts became a way for me to connect and interact with other Bruce fans from all over.
In fact, those posts ultimately led me to something far greater than I ever could have imagined.
It’s how I met my wife, Julie.
And, in a roundabout way, it’s also how Spring-Nuts was born.
One day, I wrote a post about a very special Springsteen moment from 1993. Bruce and Stevie were performing at a Kristen Ann Carr benefit show at the Meadowlands with Bruce’s then-current Human Touch/Lucky Town touring band when Clarence Clemons unexpectedly joined them onstage for a surprise performance of “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out.”
Anyone who understands the relationship between Bruce, Clarence, and the fans can imagine what happened when the Big Man came through that tunnel. And with the legendary E Street Band seemingly disbanded at the time, seeing core members of the E Street family together onstage with Bruce again made the moment even more extraordinary.
When Clarence hit that stage, the place exploded.
In describing that moment in my post, I wrote:
“The place went Spring-Nuts.”
I have no idea how profound I was trying to be with the rest of that particular blog, because it didn’t matter. Of everything I wrote, there was one thing everybody seemed to latch onto:
Spring-Nuts.
People loved the phrase.
So, I started using it again in some of my future posts. It became a fun little way for Bruce fans to describe themselves—and that particular kind of insanity that only another Springsteen fan can truly understand.
As I continued writing those daily posts, a thought started creeping into my head:
Why don’t I start my own group?
I threw the idea out to Julie, and she immediately thought it was a great idea. But, of course, she asked the obvious question:
“What would you call the group?”
I looked at her and said:
“What else?… Spring-Nuts!”
And so, one month later, on August 7, 2015, the doors to the Spring-Nuts Asylum officially opened.
We started with just a couple hundred members.
Today, across all of our social media platforms, the Spring-Nuts community has grown to more than 70,000 people worldwide.
But the numbers aren’t really the story.
Something happened early on that completely changed what Spring-Nuts would become.
After our first year, we could see the group growing quickly. Our presence was becoming noticeable not only among Bruce fans, but even among members of the E Street Band.
Then tragedy struck the family of one of our original members.
Their young nephew unexpectedly passed away, and the family needed help with funeral expenses. A GoFundMe was shared in the group, and almost immediately, Spring-Nuts responded. People who had never met this family opened their hearts and their wallets, and together the community helped them reach the amount they needed.
That moment changed everything for us.
It made us ask ourselves a very important question:
What exactly did we want Spring-Nuts to be?
Were we going to be just another Springsteen fan group, posting the same Bruce photos, videos, concert clips and news that could already be found a hundred times over on social media?
Or could we become something more?
We had somehow brought together this incredibly compassionate and empathetic community of people. Maybe there was a higher purpose to all of this. Maybe our shared love of Bruce’s music could become the starting point for something that actually made a difference in people’s lives.
The answer became obvious.
If the music we loved talked about community, compassion, friendship, hope and taking care of one another, then maybe we shouldn’t just listen to those words.
Maybe we should live them.
And from that point forward, that became the heart and soul of Spring-Nuts—and the group began to take on a life of its own in ways Julie and I could never have imagined, let alone dreamed of.
Through the efforts of this incredible community, the Spring-Nuts name became increasingly synonymous with Bruce fandom, and our reach seemed to grow stronger by the day. Suddenly, opportunities were coming our way that we never could have anticipated.
We found ourselves collaborating with Warner Bros. on premieres and promotions for Blinded by the Light. We were invited as guests on iconic Springsteen radio programs like Tom Cunningham’s Springsteen on Sunday and Jim Rotolo’s The Wild and the Innocent. We joined forces with Springsteen tribute bands like Tramps Like Us, celebrating the music alongside the very community that had brought all of us together.
And most recently, Spring-Nuts had the incredible privilege of being some of the very first people to walk through the doors of the Bruce Springsteen Center for American Music—two weeks before its official public opening.
Then there were those moments that truly made us stop and realize just how far this little group had come—like the late, great Glenn Stuart of the B Street Band writing an original song and actually using the term “Spring-Nuts” in the lyrics to describe Springsteen fandom itself.
Think about that.
A phrase that began almost accidentally in one of my daily Facebook posts had somehow taken on a meaning and an identity all its own.
For Julie and me, it was humbling.
It was incredible.
And, quite frankly, it was absolutely surreal.
As Spring-Nuts continued to evolve, another chapter began—one that, in many ways, brought me right back to where this whole journey started: sharing stories and connecting with people through the music.
Only this time, we were bringing some of the notable names and true legends of the E Street world directly into our members’ homes through the Spring-Nuts Café Podcast, hosted by Julie and me alongside Ryan Hiligoss and Stan Goldstein.
Like so many things with Spring-Nuts, the podcast started simply as another one of those “Hey, what if we tried this?” ideas.
And, once again, it took on a life of its own.
Before we knew it, we were sitting down and having conversations with people whose music, stories and contributions we had admired for decades. Our guests have included Stevie Van Zandt, Garry Tallent, Max Weinberg, Gary U.S. Bonds, David Sancious, Vini Lopez, Mike Appel, Thom Zimny, Ron Aniello, Danny Clinch and Hank Azaria, along with so many other wonderful members and friends of the extended E Street world.
For me personally, there is something wonderfully full circle about it all. I think back to those days when I was simply sitting behind a computer writing my daily thoughts about Bruce, his lyrics and my experiences as a fan. Now, all these years later, I sometimes find myself sitting across from the very people I once wrote about, listening to them tell us their stories.
Once again, it’s one of those moments when Julie and I look at each other and think:
How in the world did we get here?
But amid all the incredible experiences and opportunities, we have never forgotten the purpose we discovered in those early days.
More than 11 years later, the Spring-Nuts group and community has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for charities and organizations including TeachRock, WhyHunger, Light of Day, Fulfill, The Pink Fund, the New Jersey Pandemic Relief Fund, and Mary’s Place by the Sea.
And just as important to us are the many individuals and families we’ve been able to help during some of the most difficult moments of their lives through our “We Take Care of Our Own” program.
That phrase isn’t just a Springsteen song title to us.
It became our mission.
Every year, we also hold our Spring-Nuts Seaside Serenade, when hundreds of Spring-Nuts from around the world make the pilgrimage to Asbury Park to celebrate this crazy family we’ve created.
We recently held our biggest event to date, Seaside Serenade 8, with the Funky Mofos—Anthony Almonte, Ozzie Melendez and Curtis King Jr.—performing for the group and being joined by fellow band member Michelle Moore for several songs.
Over the past several years, members of the E Street family themselves have joined us at the Serenade, including Garry Tallent, Vini Lopez, Stevie Van Zandt, and Maureen Van Zandt.
And then came one of those moments none of us could have predicted.
One year, Bruce himself sent a special thank-you video to the Spring-Nuts community, recognizing the charitable work and support the group had provided over the years. Seeing the crowd’s reaction when Bruce appeared on that screen and opened his message with the words: “SPRING-NUTS! SPRNG-NUTS” while smiling just brought the Pony to its knees in absolute euphoria. People in the audience were literally crying. And as I said in my speech that day: “If people ask you if Bruce knows who the Spring-Nuts are, you can say to those people emphatically… Damn straight he does.”
For our tenth anniversary, members of the band sent congratulatory messages that we were able to play during our celebration at the Stone Pony.
Think about that for a second.
Something that began with me sitting down and writing some thoughts about Bruce Springsteen songs had grown into a worldwide community—and now the very people whose music brought us together were acknowledging what that community had become.
But there was still one more incredible chapter to come.
In October 2025, TeachRock, Stevie Van Zandt, and Maureen Van Zandt honored Julie and me, along with the entire Spring-Nuts community, at the Stone Pony with the TeachRock Visionary Award, recognizing the work Spring-Nuts had done over the years.
That alone would have been overwhelming.
But there was a surprise waiting for us.
Bruce showed up.
After Julie and I accepted the award, Bruce walked over, shook our hands, flashed that unmistakable smile and said:
“Congratulations. Great job, guys.”
It was only a few words.
But standing there in the Stone Pony, with Julie beside me, those few words meant more than I could ever adequately explain. In that moment, they represented three things that carried more weight than Bruce could possibly have known: validation, confirmation, and absolute vindication. My mind went back to those early days.
Writing those little daily blogs.
Meeting Julie.
Remembering Clarence walking through that tunnel in 1993 and casually typing the words:
“The place went Spring-Nuts.”
There was no master plan.
There was no thought that someday tens of thousands of people around the world would call themselves Spring-Nuts. There was certainly no thought that hundreds of thousands of dollars would be raised for people and organizations in need, or that one day Julie and I would be standing inside the Stone Pony receiving an award with Bruce Springsteen himself congratulating us.
It started with a few words.
Then it became a Facebook group.
Then it became a community.
And somewhere along the way, it became a family.
Bruce’s music may have brought us together, but what we’ve chosen to do with that connection is what defines us.
After all these years, through the friendships made, the miles traveled, the concerts shared, the people we’ve helped and the lives that have crossed because of this community, the message remains the same one we discovered all those years ago:
We Take Care of Our Own.
And that, more than anything else, is what it means to be a Spring-Nut.
Howie Chaz
September 10, 2026