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Steel Mill was an early Bruce Springsteen band. Other members of the band included three future members of the E Street Band, Vini Lopez, Danny Federici, and Steve Van Zandt. As well as playing on the Jersey Shore, Steel Mill also played regularly in Richmond, Virginia and played gigs in California and a festival in Nashville, Tennessee. They opened for acts such as Chicago, Boz Scaggs, Grand Funk Railroad, Roy Orbison, Ike & Tina Turner, and Black Sabbath. Since 2004 Vini Lopez has led Steel Mill Retro which has performed and recorded original Springsteen songs from the Steel Mill era.
On February 21, Lopez, Springsteen, Federici, and Roslin got together at the Upstage and formed a new band called Child. Carl "Tinker" West, a surfboard designer and concert promoter originally from California, became the band's manager.
From March 1969 on, Child played regularly at the Pandemonium in Wanamassa, New Jersey. On May 28 they opened for James Cotton at this venue. Child also played there on July 20, 1969, the night of the Apollo 11 first crewed Moon landing. The club installed several TV monitors especially for the occasion. During the show the audience stopped watching the band and turned their attention to Neil Armstrong. As a result, the band fell out with the club management and never played there again. On November 1, 1969, the band played their last show using the name Child at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia.
Shortly after, they discovered that another band from Long Island was also using the name and had just released an album under that name on Roulette Records. Roslin has stated that they were actually mistaken for the other Child during shows in Richmond, Virginia.Charles R. Cross: Backstreets - Springsteen: The Man And His Music (1989) Backstreets #19 Winter 1987
On February 22, the band recorded three songs, "Goin’ Back To Georgia", "The Train Song" and "He’s Guilty (Send That Boy To Jail)", at Pacific Recording Studio in San Mateo, California for Bill Graham. Graham had just formed Fillmore Records and offered Steel Mill a contract. However the band rejected it. Shortly after returning from San Francisco, Roslin left Steel Mill. He played his last gig with the band at Virginia Commonwealth University on February 28, 1970. He was subsequently replaced by Steve Van Zandt. Roslin was let go by the band due to disagreement over rehearsal time and effort put in.
On their return from California, Steel Mill continued to play regularly on the Jersey Shore and in Richmond, Virginia. On June 13, 1970, they opened for Grand Funk Railroad at the Ocean Ice Palace in Bricktown, New Jersey. On June 21, they played at the Clearwater Swim Club in Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey, where their opening act was Glory Road, a band whose line up included Garry Tallent and Bill Chinnock.
In August, the band added Robbin Thompson as lead vocalist. Thompson had been the lead singer with Mercy Flight, a Richmond-based band that had regularly opened for Steel Mill. He made his debut with Steel Mill on August 29 at the 3rd Annual Nashville Music Festival, sponsored by WMAC. Steel Mill was one of about twenty different acts to take part. Headliners included Roy Orbison, Brian Hyland, Ronnie Milsap, Bobby Bloom, Ballin' Jack, Ten Wheel Drive and The Illusion. Steel Mill was one of only a handful of acts on the bill without a record contract - some college students with connections on the festival’s organizing committee had seen Steel Mill perform previously in Richmond and helped the band gain a slot on the bill.
On September 11, they played another show at the Clearwater Swim Club. Among the opening acts was a local folk singer, Jeannie Clark, whose backing band consisted of Steve Van Zandt, Garry Tallent and Southside Johnny. Steel Mill's lineup for this show included guest drummer Dave Hazlett of Mercy Flight. Lopez had earlier been detained in Richmond after getting caught up in a police raid. The show was put on in order to raise money for their drummer. Steel Mill kept playing after curfew, causing police officers to come to the stage to end the gig, cutting the power in the process. Protests were heard and Danny Federici allegedly dropped some sound equipment on the police in front of the stage, then managed to disappear into the crowd as riots broke out between the crowd and the police. Federici escaped arrest and earned the nickname "Phantom", which would stay with him.
On October 11, they opened for Ike & Tina Turner at The Mosque in Richmond. On November 27, they played on a triple bill with Cactus and Black Sabbath at the Sunshine Inn in Asbury Park, New Jersey.
On Thanksgiving, November 25, 1970, they played on a bill with The Institution at Newark State College, now Kean University. The Institution was a seminal New Jersey garage band founded in 1965 by Philip Rubin, J. Howard Duff, Richard Lester, and Marvin Coopersmith, whose members also included Joey Kramer, later of Aerosmith.
Steel Mill played their final show on January 23, 1971 at The Upstage. During the early 1970s Springsteen, Lopez, Federici and Van Zandt would go on to play together in several short-lived bands based out of the Upstage. These included Bruce Springsteen & The Friendly Enemies, The Sundance Blues Band, Dr. Zoom & The Sonic Boom, which once opened for the Allman Brothers at the Sunshine Inn in Asbury Park, and The Bruce Springsteen Band, which often played at the Student Prince in Asbury Park. These bands eventually evolved into the E Street Band.
During the 1990s, Lopez led his own bar band, Maddog & The Disco Rejects. Members of the band included John Luraschi (bass) and Ricky DeSarno (guitars). The band also performed early Springsteen songs in its setlist, Backstreets #47 Fall 1994 By 2002 Lopez was playing with Cold Blast and Steel which also included John Luraschi and Rick DeSarno. and eventually developed into Steel Mill Retro, which included Ricky DeSarno.
In 2007, they released "The Dead Sea Chronicles", an album that featured Steel Mill era songs. In September 2008 Steel Mill Retro also played at a Springsteen fan convention in Rotterdam, organised by the Dutch fan club Roulette. They were accompanied to the convention by Carl "Tinker" West, the original manager of Steel Mill. The current line-up of the band features Lopez, Steve Lusardi and Adam Glenn (keyboards), Ed Piersanti (bass) and John Galella (guitar).
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