Steve Azar
(Q)- Please state your name and birth date, along with place of birth.
Steve Azar- Steve Azar. Born on April 11, 1964. Greenville, Mississippi.
(Q)- The music on your new album sounds influenced by country-blues music that perhaps, has been a part of your Mississippi upbringing. And, that musical influence, is also found somewhat in the song lyrics to the music on your disc titled, “Waitin’ On Joe”. Agree?
Steve Azar- You’re right on it. It’s all over the songs man.
(Q)- Is making music a lifelong experience or a journeyman’s walk as with the country and blues music legends from Mississippi, with Steve Azar?
Steve Azar- Yeah! And, brother it takes a long time to make this journey. For me, it has been the exact road that I had to take. The road I had to take, had a lot of potholes in it, but I’m here now and that’s the way it was supposed to be. It’s the way the layout of the road was supposed to be for me. I’ve got a song for my next record called, “It’s A Long Long Way”, I’ll tell you that’s exactly what it is about. You’re going to love it. Man, you’re right on it brother.
(Q)- So please explain how the music and culture of the Mississippi Delta region found it’s way into the music that Steve Azar has on his new disc, “”Waitin’ On Joe”?
Steve Azar- The Mississippi River and the layout of the land is where I grew up. I grew up living for days one end on the Mississippi River. I mean, I lived on that river and I used to hang out on that river for days on end. I loved the way I felt hanging out on that river. And the way I lived made me write my songs.
(Q)- Was your life as a boy growing up in Mississippi, to you ever like the the literary character, Huck Finn, in “THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN”, by the famous American author MARK TWAIN,(Samuel L. Clemens)? Was there times you recall which were similar to Mark Twain’s character Huckleberry Finn, except in a modern time?
Steve Azar- In a way yes it was. (Like Huck Finn.) It has been a journey for me and I’m grateful to have made the journey to this point. So, you could say I was like “Huck Finn”‘ Yes, you could. The Mississippi River inspired me, it made me write songs. I met all sorts of people along the river and was inspired by the layout of the Mississippi Delta region. So that’s why my album cover is a tribute to the Mississippi River and the Mississippi Delta.
(Q)- Would you explain more about your own, “personal journey”, as it relates to the music and the song lyrics?
Steve Azar- I’ve seen things happen to me that would make some other (country singers) fall apart or lock themselves up. So, that’s why there is not one happy ending on one single song on my record. And, that’s because during the process of life, there’s always something wrong, there are no endings that are always happy. So it’s been a real personal journey. But when you can offer rays of hope to people through your song lyrics, then that’s great!
(Q)- The single has been accepted rather well at country radio. Why?
Steve Azar- I have never been negative about radio and radio has been good to me. When this first got all started and before my single came out, I went out for five months on the road, meeting radio people and sitting them down and playing for them. It was one on one a lot of the time. And forty weeks after that five months on the road promoting and playing my music for the folks at radio, the single, (“I Don’t Have To Be Me (‘Til Monday)”) is still on radio. So I know that radio has been great to me.
(Q)- Could you explain in more detail, why the hit single, “I Don’t Have To Be Me (‘Til Monday)”, continued to do so well? It is unprecedented for a “newcomer” in the country genre to have find such longevity with a debut single. What is the deal with the song?
Steve Azar- The deal is this. Everybody wants to feel good and there’s nothing wrong with feeling good. It’s that simple and the song is now at forty weeks at radio! Forty weeks and counting man! And it’s all because as radio and the fans got to know me and my song and I was willing to be patient, so it all worked out. Now that song is probably the lightest song on the record. I mean that it is probably the lightest song on the record. But, it really is not that light in that it was actually written about somebody who had a nervous breakdown. Now, there is a lot of people who are out here in this world and they work real hard and they’re taking this song real seriously.
(Q)- Could you explain that further?
Steve Azar- By that I mean kids are using this song as their theme song for their class graduation. Even five year olds are learning to sing every word of it! I’ve got friends of mine who are telling me that they hate me because their kids make them shut up whenever the song comes on in their car on the road or in their home.
(Q)- Why would they do that?
Steve Azar- Because the kids make their parents shut up and listen to them whenever the song comes on the radio! That cracks me up because I’ve also got seventy year old people telling me that they’re singing this song too!
(Q)- Do you have a phrase that sums up what creating and performing your own style of country-blues music does for you?
Steve Azar- Yes. If the music makes me feel alive, then that’s what this is all about.
(Q)- What about your next single? What is that about? Steve Azar- First of all my next single is going to be “Waitin’ On Joe”. Now I’ll tell you the real story behind that song.
(Q)- Ok.
Steve Azure- I hid that song from everybody and my brother Joe pulled it out and took it to the record company. First of all, I had an Uncle Joe also. And both of those people are in the (lyrics) to the song.
(Q)- What is the story behind “Waitin’ On Joe”, Steve?
Steve Azar- Joe (brother) and I came to town (Nashville) together, when I first came to town. It was like having the Devil come to town you know, two brothers coming to Nashville. Now, I was already making a living by playing shows across the country, we had ten guys on the payroll. Two, twenty-eight foot tractor trailers,traveling down the highway and a tour bus and we were doing it. By that I mean I was playing four hours a night. With eighty per cent of those songs original song written by myself. I had one thousand people coming out a night. Playing in college towns and to people who didn’t give a care. Now we were doing it all. Me and my brother Joe. Together. But Joe had one problem, he was late as can be, all of the time. You know what I mean?
(Q)- No place for being late whenever you’re touring. Is Joe still late with your gigs all the time whenever you are touring?
Steve Azar- No, no, no, no! He’s great! He’s the best at everything now. Tour manager, sound manager, business manager, he’s everything, Joe has become the jack of all trades in the music business. My bother Joe was running a rock tour last summer. He was running the Vince Neil tour. So I started writing a song about my brother Joe. And the joke ended up being on me because the song began to be about me, because the song started to become my biography. At the same time, there was a tragedy that came to me, while I was working on the song that is about the other Joe. My Uncle Joe. He was my mom’s little brother, he was the mayor of Clarksdale, Mississippi during the 1970’s. Now Uncle Joe had the promise to become one the next Governor Of Mississippi. Now at one point in Uncle Joe’s life, he was in the running to become the Governor. But he never reached his goal.
(Q)- Why?
Steve Azar-Uncle Joe passed away from cancer at the age of thirty-five. Now, that was my mom’s baby brother and she has never gotten over the fact that he passed away at thirty-five. They’ve always waited on a sign from him, both my mom and my grandma waited on a sign from him after he died to tell them that he was OK. Now, as I grew older (And watched both his mother and his grandmother waiting for a sign from the after life by Uncle Joe.) I realized the magnitude of their loss. Now, if the whole song is about my brother Joe and it ends with being about my Uncle Joe. So, it’s about anybody who is late all of the time is somebody who is always in a hurry and that is what could happen to them. So, you’d better be careful. Then, number two, there is no guarantee in our life that we’ll get our big chance to get into the game to do what we want to do for living out our dreams. Forget the dream, what we’re working at for our whole lives, we may never get a chance to do it. But we do it because we’re passionate about it and we care about it. So and this ties into the song and my Uncle Joe, he tried to become the Governor Of Mississippi, but he finally did die of cancer. He never reached his dream. And at thirty-five years old, that is awful young to die, with a little boy at home. The song is my biography.
(Q)- How did the song make it onto the disc?
Steve Azar- that’s something because I hid it in a drawer. I wrote it about two years ago (2000) and one day my brother Joe got a hold of it and he brought it to Keith Stegall (Mercury Records Nashville Executive.) So Keith called me and said, “What’s this song about?” I asked him, “Who brought it to you?. And he said, “Rafe Van Hoy must have brought it. Well I said, “He couldn’t have brought it to you, my brother Joe had to.” And, it ended up being Joe who brought it to him. Now, that’s the story of my next single.
(Q)- How is your music different from other newcomers to the Top Forty country recording artists?
Steve Azar- First of all radio has been real good to me. Why? Because I don’t sound like anybody else. I can’t even compare myself to anyone else. I made the record that I wanted to make and I’m real happy with the way it all turned out.
(Q)- Do you have a special feeling or a ritual you do each time you perform?
Steve Azar- Let me tell you what I do. I treat every gig like it’s my first and like it’s my last. I know that sounds cliched and I hate cliches, but that is how I feel right before I go on-stage every time. I’ve treated performing like that ever since I was performing as a little kid. I’m blessed to be here and that’s how I feel. I don’t reflect on it, I just go get it. You know? And I’m more like a warrior out here on the road. The more I’ve thought about it the more I feel like the underdog living in Nashville. The days of me being in the underdog role, well I don’t think I’ll always be in that underdog role.