You know him best as Big Pussy, who got wired and whacked in “The Sopranos.” But long before Vincent Pastore played wiseguys, he owned the Crazy Horse Cafe in New Rochelle — an experience that inspired his first play, “Wild Children,” now playing off- Broadway.
For seven years back in the ’80s, Pastore had a knack for bringing in the top rock, pop and folk acts of the day — Hall & Oates, David Ruffin, Shawn Colvin, Buddy Miller, Roger McGuinn. All that, for a measly $5 cover charge.
“I was one of the first guys in Westchester to [book big names],” the 67-year-old boasts from his home on City Island. “And I was always able to pay the acts.”
It boiled down to connections, Pastore says: He and record company executive Tommy Mottola, who at the time managed Hall & Oates, grew up together. “Tommy did me a lot of favors,” he concedes.
Like the bar in the play, also named the Crazy Horse, the original had a Native American theme.
“I had wagon wheels on the ceilings and walls,” Pastore says. “Dried skulls, Indian pictures all over the place.”
He says that Frankie Donato — the bar owner and main character in “Wild Children” — is “pretty much me back in the ’80s.”
As for Donato’s dealings with musicians, drug dealers, gangsters and strippers, he says “some of the characters are real, some are made up.” Some of the story line follows real life — such as his picking up the bar for a song after it had been closed for more than a year. The rest is not so true.
“I kind of went in the ‘Sopranos’ direction with the gangsters to give it some flavor,” he admits.
Gangsters or not, that bar changed Pastore’s life. Two of his regulars were actors Matt and Kevin Dillon, and one night, all three watched the movie “The Pope of Greenwich Village.”
Matt ended up encouraging Pastore to become an actor. “He said to me, ‘You could do what those guys are doing,’ ” Pastore recalls. The brothers hooked him up with their manager, and before long Pastore was doing film and TV.
“Those kids gave me my first break,” he says fondly.
But his biggest break came when David Chase tapped him to play Sal “Big Pussy” Bonpensiero in an HBO series starring James Gandolfini.
Not that Pastore and the rest of “The Sopranos” cast thought it was going to be anything special.
“The pilot was kind of shaky,” the actor remembers. “But as the episodes went along, we had stuff to bite into. After the third episode aired, my phone started ringing off the hook. Now when I walk down the street, it’s like I’m this cult figure.”
He remembers getting a phone call from Chase after the first season: “He said, ‘People want to know where your character is. So Season 2 is going to be all about you. But the problem is, you’re a rat, and we’re gonna whack you.’ And I said, ‘Hey, David, do what you gotta do.’ ”
So: Was there ever going to be a “Sopranos” movie? And could there ever be one now, after Gandolfini’s death?
Pastore is quiet. “There was talk, there was talk,” he says finally. “But it’s over now. Nobody wants to do it anymore. Without Jimmy, it’s over. We’ve lost our leader.”
Their leader may be gone, but “Sopranos” veterans Lou Martini Jr. and Anthony J. Ribustello — the latter played Tony Soprano’s driver — are in the cast of “Wild Children,” while folks from Pastore’s rock-club past periodically show up in the audience.
“The other night, Eddie Brigati from the Rascals actually sang in the play during the jam session,” Pastore says. “He did ‘Groovin’, ’ and everybody went nuts!” Pastore’s next move: Broadway, where he’s in the new Woody Allen musical “Bullets Over Broadway.” He’s playing . . . a gangster.
Naturally. “I don’t think anyone,” he concedes, “would hire me to play a college professor.”
“Wild Children” runs through Dec. 22 at the Drilling CompaNY, 236 W. 78th St. 212-873-9050