Bruce Springsteen, with E Street Band, releasing new album in July

NEW YORK (AP) _ After releasing just three studio albums in the past decade, Bruce Springsteen finished his latest record in eight weeks. He was as surprised as anybody. ``I woke up

Monday, June 3rd 2002, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

NEW YORK (AP) _ After releasing just three studio albums in the past decade, Bruce Springsteen finished his latest record in eight weeks.

He was as surprised as anybody.

``I woke up one morning, and I had a record,'' Springsteen joked about his new album, ``The Rising,'' due in stores July 30.

``The Rising'' will be Springsteen's first studio rock album since 1992, and his first effort with the full E Street Band since 1984. He worked with a new producer, Brendan O'Brien of Pearl Jam fame, and credited his collaborator with speeding the recording process.

Springsteen, who performed at several post-Sept. 11 benefits, said he wrote all but two of the 15 new songs on the album after the terrorist attacks that killed more than 3,000 people.

``The songs I wrote sort of occur in that context,'' he said in an interview with The Associated Press. ``It's more of an emotional feeling that I felt _ and that I felt was in the air at that time.''

Some songs, he said, ``deal more directly with it than others, but the stories all happen in a post-Sept. 11 context. If you were writing at that point, it's in everything in some fashion.''

``My City of Ruins,'' which Springsteen performed on the national telethon for Sept. 11 victims, will appear. ``Further On (Up the Road),'' an unreleased track that Springsteen has performed live, also is included on the album, to be released on Columbia.

Other song titles include ``Into the Fire,'' ``You're Missing,'' ``Empty Sky'' and ``The Fuse.''

The 52-year-old singer raved about the work of his longtime sidekicks, the E Street Band.

``It's a very powerful sound, just the intensity I wanted to capture doing anything with the band again,'' he said. ``The guys are playing better than they did 15 years ago. There's a confidence.''

Springsteen said the sessions were somewhat similar to their 1975 work on the classic ``Born To Run,'' with the band playing live in the studio for the basic track and other parts added later.

``The sound is very recognizable and very different,'' Springsteen said. ``If you have all of our other records, you don't have this one. We picked up the level of intensity. I can't wait for people to hear this record.''