PURIST: This started as a sort of birthday present to yourself when you were turning 60 last year. What a great gift.
Hank Azaria: Yes, I was feeling a certain way about turning 60, and I hadn’t thrown a big party for myself since I had turned 40. I’m not really a party guy, but I didn’t want to let the moment go. As a mimic, I hadn’t really taken on any kind of crazy vocal project in quite a while. And I just thought it would be fun to throw what I ended up calling a reverse surprise party and tell people I had a Springsteen tribute band coming—but not tell them that I was working to be the front man of it. We did that at the party, just to surprise people with it, and then it worked out well, so we kept doing it. I really love it. It brings me a lot of joy.
Why does the country need more of The Boss right now?
It’s pretty obvious the country needs more of anything good right now. And I really mean that for whatever side of the aisle one is on. I mean, almost less important than which side you’re coming from is the extremism itself and just the black-and-white nature of every conversation. And I know that Springsteen himself has always been really outspoken about what he believes, and that even Bruce’s music has become potentially divisive, given how outspoken Bruce has been. But at our little concerts anyway, it’s nothing but kind of a joy and celebration of the music. It also goes to charity—we’re raising money for my foundation, Four Through Nine—so it is a feel-good experience, which Bruce’s music has certainly always been to me.
You’re known as a vocal and impression genius. Did you know you could sing in character at this sustained level?
Yes and no. I’ve sung all throughout my career. I sing on The Simpsons; almost every week it seems like we’re singing some stupid song. But when Chief Wiggum sings, [breaks into character voice] nobody really cares how nice it sounds as long as it’s semi in key, semi in tune and funny. And even on Broadway in Monty Python’s Spamalot, I was there to do a lot of voices and I sang, but I was singing comedically. This is the first time that I really tried to take singing seriously.
How long did it take to perfect the voice?
I’m still perfecting it. I’m almost two years in and I’m still obsessed. With each song that I try to learn, I unlock a different corner of Bruce’s voice because I’m not just trying to sing as well as I can—I’m trying to sound like Bruce and sing as well as I can. I’ve gone up like three octaves since I started doing it. My voice is kind of deeper than Bruce’s, but some songs I do sing in his key now. It’s like a cool new challenge, like a video game. We’re always trying to get to the next level.
You stay in character throughout the show, but you’re telling your own stories, just in the voice of Bruce?
Pretty much. I’m also a comedian, so I like to roll with whatever the crowd’s giving me, and I’ll break. But for the most part, yes, I share these stories about what these songs mean to me. Before we perform “She’s the One,” I tell the story of how I met my wife and that it was love at first sight for me. As much as Bruce’s music influenced me as a young person, so did his storytelling in concert. He’s a very poetic and tremendous storyteller, so telling stories in Bruce’s speaking voice and idioms, he works in about his father and love and independence, sort of how those all hit me. It’s kind of a crazy one-man show with a great band. These songs mean so much to me—they’re all literally like treasures. wheeleroperahouse.com