Steven Van Zandt will bring ‘Soulfire’ sound to Huntington

Last year, Steven Van Zandt found himself in the unusual situation of not having a major creative project on the horizon.

The E Street Band wasn’t going to tour because their boss — The Boss — Bruce Springsteen was preparing for his Broadway show. His TV show “Lilyhammer” ended and none of the shows he was working on were set to move into production for a while.

Could he simply focus on the “Little Steven’s Underground Garage” radio show, his record label Wicked Cool Records, and his Rock and Roll Forever Foundation, which brings rock history into the classroom? Sure.

But after Van Zandt brought together a new version of The Disciples of Soul for an unexpected European festival, he decided to keep going.

“It was completely spontaneous,” Van Zandt said. “I decided to revisit these old songs that I had written for other people and then do some rootsy stuff, some doo wop, some blues, some Ennio Morricone. I thought it would be a fun way to reintroduce myself, introduce who I am as an artist.”

Soon, Van Zandt found himself recording “Soulfire” (Wicked Cool), his first solo album in 18 years, finishing it in only six weeks. “It was fun to make it,” he said. “I had never done a cover song before.”

Thrilled by how the record, which was released in May, sounded, Van Zandt decided to do an entire tour. “I thought, ‘Let’s make some real impact and take advantage of E Street being off this year,” he said. “I put a 15-piece band together because that’s what we need to reproduce that album . . . It ended up sounding like the history of rock and roll. It was organic.”

Any listener of “Little Steven’s Underground Garage” knows he has eclectic tastes, but Van Zandt had a specific sound in mind for this tour. “I wanted what was most uniquely me — rock meets soul,” he said. “I wanted to go back to that. I really, really liked the fun of that jigsaw puzzle of having the background vocals and the horn parts and the string parts all finding their place in the arrangement. I kept that basic sound.”

Van Zandt, who plans to focus on The Disciples of Soul until the E Street Band returns to touring, said he is proud of his show, which stops at The Paramount in Huntington on Wednesday. “It’s an entertaining show,” he said. “The musicality alone — we do like 10 different genres of music — and the quality of musicianship should keep people interested . . . It’s been very artistically satisfying.”