Actor and comedian Hank Azaria tells Nestor why The Boss has him living glory days in Baltimore and why he’ll be singing “Born To Run” and many more Bruce Springsteen classics when he brings his charity show to Sound Stage on March 7th. Some Simpsons, some poker and a life of loving sports and mimicry and The River with a TV legend.
Hank Azaria, an actor and comedian, discusses his upcoming Bruce Springsteen tribute concert at Soundstage on March 7th. He shares his deep connection to Springsteen’s music, having discovered it at summer camp and being inspired by his live performances. Azaria formed a Springsteen tribute band to celebrate his 60th birthday, raising $30,000 for charity. The band, composed of professional musicians, aims to recreate the energy and storytelling of Springsteen’s concerts. Azaria also touches on his love for poker and his charitable work, particularly in education and social justice.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
Bruce Springsteen, Soundstage concert, charity gig, Summer camp, Tunnel of Love, Broadway show, creative process, music immersion, charity work, education focus, social justice, tribute band, live performances, fan experience, communal joy
SPEAKERS
Hank Azaria, Speaker 1, Nestor Aparicio
Nestor Aparicio 00:01
Welcome home. We are W, N, S, T. Am 1570 Towson, Baltimore. We are Baltimore positive, and I’m wearing my orange curio gear, and we have all sorts of purple things. And I will get to sports in this segment and others. But there’s a lot of ground to cover ahead here. In this segment, I’ve been promoting the fact that Hank Azaria is going to be coming on the program so many directions from Celebrity Poker and Phil Gordon and The Simpsons and growing pains and family ties. But more importantly than that, the music and the the energy of a Bruce Springsteen concert that I’ve enjoyed hundreds of nights all over the world will be coming to soundstage here next week, and it is a pleasure to have you on. Hank is there? I don’t know. Say actor, comedian. You don’t need to be anything. Yes, we just need to talk some Springsteen here. Just be two guys, one from Jersey, one from Baltimore. That loves the boss. So welcome on to the program. It’s great to have you aboard. Thanks
Hank Azaria 00:58
for having me. Wow, you covered a lot of ground. There some very deep cuts. Celebrity Poker Showdown with Phil Gordon. My goodness, my goodness, yeah, I got a Springsteen tribute, man. Now we’ll be at Baltimore sound stage on, I believe, Friday March. 7 motor bartender wants you to buy tickets right now, like, we’ll wait. Go, click on a thing and purchased the tickets there. So yeah, love Bruce, and this is crazy how I fell into this, but I’m really enjoying it. Well,
Nestor Aparicio 01:29
I did have to get off a piece earlier day. My wife shelling from the other office. She’s like, he’s on Kelly and I went in. You’re doing your glory days. You’re telling your stories, and maybe do this with Bruce one day, and like all the fun stuff, but this is a charity gig, and you know, we will the background on this. We all love Bruce. We’re probably at the same show together one night along life’s highway, because I’ve spent a lot of nights in the pit with Bruce. See these hands, have Carrie, Bruce’s aster and hungry heart, least a dozen times in the
Hank Azaria 01:57
last I saw that photo, I was right in that spot where he goes out in the little runway there, and you’re right there. I almost had a heart attack. You knew to go over there if you were in it. I had somebody tip me up because you might want to stand over there in a minute. Now, you’ve seen, I’ve only seen, like 25 shows. You said, like 200
Nestor Aparicio 02:15
what’s your background with Bruce? Like, I can tell you, when Bruce came into my life, it was your hungry hearts. And it wasn’t cool. My parents were into Bruce a little bit more than an 11 year old was. But then Tunnel of Love happened, and the live album, and my dear friend Ken Rosenthal, who’s the baseball Ken Rosenthal, that guy, I was his assistant in the late 80s at the sun, and he was a real jersey. He was a guy that knew the because be true, fell in love with dude. You got to go back. You got to get in the darkness. Sent me backward as a kid that was more into like Judas Priest, and you know that sort of thing at that time. You know,
Hank Azaria 02:52
Judas Priest is kind of old school now too. But you know, I’m older. I am more of probably your parents generation. I was about 11 or 12, when it was 1975 76 Born to Run was had just come out. I got introduced to it at summer camp up here in the Northeast, and fell in love then. And then I, you know, I was aware of darkness on the edge of town coming out.
Nestor Aparicio 03:15
And I was, what was her name, by the way, you said you fell in love at summer camp to a Bruce song.
Hank Azaria 03:19
I don’t love two Bruce songs. You didn’t do anything like that. No, no. I mean, no, there was no Sandy in my bag. There was Ellen Huberman. Was my first kiss at summer camp. I think that summer that I was 12, but, yeah, no. I mean, I fell in love with Bruce music is what I was getting at, you know, and I’ve remained in love with it ever since. Now I turned 60 last April, was having very mixed feelings about that. Thought it might be fun to throw a reverse surprise party where I told folks, most of my friends are spruce fans. I said, I’m going to have this great Springsteen tribute band come to the party. I did not tell them that I’ve been working for months to front the band, but I did, and I fell into this obsessive rabbit hole of trying to unlock, trying to sound exactly like Bruce and his songs as I could. And we now do about 20 songs, and we raised a lot of money for charity that night. I’m like, why not keep doing this? So that’s, that’s why we’re gonna be in Baltimore.
Nestor Aparicio 04:15
Well, did you, you must have seen the Broadway show? Yeah. I mean, I did. I did? Yeah, I went up the first time around, and then COVID happened, and the second time around, when he added the pieces about his mom, oh my god, I sat there and sobbed. I went back. A week later, I got back on the bus, went back up to New York to see, I mean, I’m, I’m the channeling of the voice and the experience of playing the music and being a part of it, um, there’s some joy in just doing it, right? Like, there’s this, I said to my wife, you you got money, you got this, you got that. You’ve done all this stuff. It’s just like, let’s have some fun. Let’s just have some fun while I’m still young enough and alive to do this, right? That’s
Hank Azaria 04:52
what his shows are, his music and his shows are really all about. It’s, it’s whatever it is, two and a half, three, four hours of just kind of letting. Go. And, you know, somebody asked me after our first or second live gig, like, do you feel like a rock star? And I said, you know, I feel like what I am, which is a Bruce fan who’s probably a little bit more gifted and mimicry than most folks, who’s just kind of sharing what we all do at Bruce shows, which is sing along and have whatever movie plays in our head, because his writing is so cinematic and poetic, and we all remember, like the first term we heard certain songs. You know, I tell the story of the night, FL in love at first sight with my wife, intro, and she’s the one. And, you know, I attach all these stories. I tell them as Bruce even know, a lot of them are about me. And I sort of tell stories about how he came up with certain songs. It’s kind of a performance art piece combined with a tribute. Man,
Nestor Aparicio 05:47
8um, where do you dream this stuff up? I mean, I just the creative part of you and your life and your experience. And, I mean, you’ve nerded out on The Simpsons for 2030, years. I, you know, just but this part of your, you know, real life has won a night off 25 times in your life. You chase Bruce Springsteen down somewhere you were la New York, somewhere in the world, working, whatever, even traveling to see Bruce, which my wife and I go to Australia twice to see Bruce two different times, and New Zealand and just all of that. Like, I’m, I’m a real I’m into that, and I’m, you know, read the book, but I’m not a fan. But, I mean, I’ve asked Bruce questions. I’ve been in his presence and taking a picture or whatever. But the the sit in and think through how you would convey this as an artist, to say, What’s 20 songs, thinking about it, the way Bruce thought about his stage show, to say, how am I going to stage this other so it, so you sell it, so not just people want to come and meet you and see the show down at sound stage on the seventh but that they do get immersive a little bit. They’re into the movie a couple minutes into the set, right? Yeah,
Hank Azaria 06:48
I hope so. I mean, I just feel his music very, very deeply, and have since I was a kid, they actually got me through some pretty tough times. I tell some of these stories in the course of the show. And now, you know, his talks, we call them not just his music, but the monologs he would give in concert, which, you know, back in the 70s and 80s, you had to go down a bootleg record stores and find, you know, find these recordings. Now you can just click a button and find them on Spotify or whatever. But you know, those talks meant as much to me as the music, and at a certain time in my life, they were the only encouragement I got to be a creative person and pursue my dreams. Really, he goes deep for me. I actually got to tell him that when I met one of the times I met him, and so I really was just trying to cheer myself up around turning 60, and this music does that for me. And then I got rather obsessed, and a lot of the stories I told were because, like, I knew half most of my friends are Bruce fans, but I knew some wouldn’t be, and I might need to give context for the songs or explain what they meant to me. So I started working up my own monologs around. Now, here’s what she’s the one means to me. Here’s what backstreet means to me. Backstreets means to me. So that’s how the sort of monologuing grew out of it, and then it just it took on a life of its own, honestly. And I just, I’ve been trying to raise money for charities for honestly, about 30 years now, and people said, Oh, should I give you gifts for your birthday? And I said, Oh, God no, but please do donate to my foundation, if you like. So we raised 30k that night. So I was like, Man, I should do this, like, once, twice a month, and I can feed the foundation and and have a lot of fun. And that’s what we’ve been doing. Hank
Nestor Aparicio 08:34
Azeri is our guest. Yes, he’s a comedian. Yes, he’s an actor. I was gonna, like, go all James Lipton on you and go like and then I realized you’ve been on James lifted. So I can’t even out, I can’t even do that. So I don’t even know where to begin, but the Bruce thing feels like a great beginning of why you’re coming and the charity work. Peel back the onion on the charity work. I did a thing called a couple Super Bowl a couple of weeks ago. It’s my thing that I do for a week, my little Jerry Lewis telethon thing, where I try to feature on this program the things that are good about the city, good about life, good things going on. What motivates you on a charitable dude, run around and do this. It’s fun, but it’s still, it’s work. And when you get up there and do it, voice has to be good. You want it to be perfect. It was perfect, don’t Kelly, I love glory days. You guys did a great job, man,
Hank Azaria 09:19
did we sound like Bruce? You’re a Bruce fan. Had we do it was fantastic,
Nestor Aparicio 09:24
man. I mean, I like, I have seen the other tribute bands that go around and do this. I think you’re trying to do something a little bit different in the Oh
Hank Azaria 09:34
no, we listen, we crush them. I mean, all due respect. But look, I’m a professional mimic. I really, I love perfecting this, and I’m, I continue to work at it. As far as the charity goes, it started with education for me about 3035, years ago. I just, it just kills me that kids who want an education don’t get it. And so I devote and to me, that’s sort of a bulletproof meaning, you know. How could you argue with helping kids helping create better futures? To me, so many of society’s problems get solved if kids get a good education, have a safe place to go to learn. And I’m also I’m a sober guy. I’m in recovery. I’ve been sober almost 19 years. So then I a lot of that is giving back, and part of staying healthy and happy is being of service and being giving back to the community and and then social justice means a lot to me as well. So that’s that’s primarily the focus of my foundation, and we’ll really give to any organization that falls under that heading. And yeah, you know that there are so many causes out there, as you well know, so many places that need so much help, and so you almost can’t go wrong. I tell folks that a lot pick whatever means anything to you and do whatever you can for whether it’s money or time or or anything. And it just makes me feel good to help out that way. Well, come
Nestor Aparicio 10:59
down and feel good about some Bruce Springsteen music. Hank is Aries played down with our friends at soundstage, also at the burchmere the prior night, legendary place just outside of DC. I went down, saw the fixed play down there a couple years ago. And so, you know, I’m listen, I’m all for local music and local things in the world of AI and things going away, finding a night and a reason to go out and celebrate. And celebrate. And I say this to my wife all the time. I’m an old concert guy, right? Like so my stones and, Lord knows, my Tom Pettys and bands that aren’t there anymore. For me, the opportunity to go out and just experience music and experience the communal joy of a Springsteen concert when it’s the real Springsteen or our cover band, not as good as your cover band, Hank but we’re coming out with you, which really isn’t a cover band. And I, I kind of want to peel back the onion on these songs a little bit, without coming to the show and saying some of these stories. Bruce would always, in the 70s, in that river period, talk about his family and his relationships and all those things. I guess at this point, if I were to do 20 songs, I have relationships with Bruce Springsteen songs, like deep, deep, deep relationships with those songs. And maybe nobody else would understand, drive all night, but I would, or stolen car, or point blank, or any of those kind of songs. Oh,
Hank Azaria 12:12
you’re a river guy. That was my first concert, 1980 that river tour. Yeah, you know, that’s what I am sharing part of what I’m saying now we are a Spring Street tribute band, meaning we are trying to sound like the kids in my band are so good Nestor, I swear they’re they selling these street band. And I try to reach their level, you know, as a vocalist with them. And so we’re trying to recreate. We go off of very specific live recordings, my favorite live recordings of Bruce songs. And there are many, many to choose from, as you know, on any given song. And try to recapture that energy. And I tell some stories that means something to me to go along with him, in the idiom of Bruce, you know, he connects so beautifully, as you mentioned, like about his mom during his live Broadway show, I tell some stories about my family and different things, and I didn’t know it would work. Like, is it weird me telling stories about myself as Bruce? But kind of my shtick as a performer is to adopt a voice and kind of fill it in and make it my own, and sort of create a character from there. And that’s part of what I’m doing with this
Nestor Aparicio 13:21
show, too. Well. You’re a real actor, right? You’re a stage actor. The whole thing all the way through this isn’t foreign to you, even though, for a lot of people, you’re that fun voice hidden behind things and the Mimic voice in the comedian side of this. But this isn’t, um, this isn’t out of your range, I would say, to write your own thing, right? And it’s not staged the same way every night, or scripted the way, because Bruce scripted it so he could win a Tony, right? It had to be the same every night, or it wasn’t Broadway. Or,
Hank Azaria 13:49
No, it’s not. It’s not as as buttoned down as is a Broadway show was not at all. But I tell a lot of this, you know, there are certain set pieces in the show, and we switch up the set, you know, not as much as Bruce. But, you know, we now, we’re, we’re going to have about 2530 songs by the end of this year. We can only play about a dozen in a night. So, you know, we’re going to switch it up a lot. But you know, for example, I, I tell you an example like, what I say is, you know, it is Bruce impression is, a lot of my impressions growing up came out of hero worship. You know, guys I idolized, I wanted to sound like him. Found that I could. So I did, including the one you’re listening to right now. Now, there were others like, for example, young Al Pacino, huge Al Pacino fan, not older Al, who sounded like this, but young Godfather out all day, afternoon. Al, now, fun fact, you take Al Pacino on one end and Bruce Springsteen on the other. Right in the middle there is motor bartender. He’s a mash up of those two voices right there. Nestor, so can
Nestor Aparicio 14:51
you tell me to kiss me as as Pacino and Dog Day Afternoon? Can you get
Speaker 1 14:57
a little X rated there? But Kiss me. Kiss me. I. Like to get kissed when I’m getting you know what?
Nestor Aparicio 15:03
I always lead you into that, you know. So do you have like in your set you’re doing the songs, I’m sure a lot of hits I saw glory days on the Kelly show and all that. What? What are your weird outliers? I mean, I’ve dropped a couple of weird be true beside I
Hank Azaria 15:19
know all these songs really well haven’t gotten to be true yet. We don’t, you know, we do Rosalita. We do growing up Promised Land, darkness prove it all night open with Candy’s room. Usually we do some Hungry Heart, which will, for sure, have to do it. God, actually, I think that went out of the set. I got to put that back in for Baltimore at the very
Nestor Aparicio 15:41
heavy are you? I mean, your ass fit my hands if I carry you through soundstage that night or no, let’s find
Hank Azaria 15:47
out. Let’s find out. Give it a try. Oh, I don’t pretty lean. I’m pretty lean.
Nestor Aparicio 15:53
Hank is Harry is here. He will be at soundstage. Get out and see him. He loves Bruce, and it’s an all time Bruce love in here. So what else do you do? Like i You’re so known for Simpsons, and I would say that I wasn’t the biggest Simpsons guy, but everybody in my world was, and I knew enough of the voices and the bartender and all that stuff, but I knew you through Celebrity Poker in that I have this, well, I have a really weird long time, and I’m not a poker player at all, but I have a long time relationship with Phil Gordon, okay, my show at the Super Bowl 25 years ago, and all the stuff that he was traveling the world as a sports guy, which I know in the top of the palms, and all the stuff that you did, but that was, um, that was my entree to you, a little bit in the comedy it said, because you’re a hell of a poker player, as I remember it. Hank,
Hank Azaria 16:35
yeah, no, I’ve poker to my hobby for many, many years. Phil actually introduced Phil to my buddy who ran that show, Celebrity Poker Showdown, and Phil became the expert analyst on that show, and Phil played in our game a bunch of times. He was very kind to him. He wrote a great book on poker, and he gave me a lot of personal lessons, especially at tournament poker. Phil’s really gifted. I love poker. It’s a, it’s a, it’s a really fun hobby, and it’s a way to gamble without getting crazy. Gambling. You can sit there the whole night with whatever stake you’re comfortable with and just kind of read people and schmooze and have fun. Now they do the online stuff, which is much more impersonal I prefer, like I’m playing tonight. In fact, at my house, I’m hosting a game, weekly Game. I love sitting there, and it’s a nice way to relax, you know?
Nestor Aparicio 17:21
Well, the other thing is, and I, you know, I did take note of this and the old, nasty Nestor guy in me, if you were on my national show 20 years ago, what did this? Sports, sports, sports. Jet Schmidt. And I’m thinking to myself, I’m in Baltimore. We’ve won football a couple times. You’ve got our own scandals. Baseball, we’ve been on the struggle. Yes, he’s my cousin, and that’s why I’m in Baltimore, but the Mets in the Jets thing for you. You know, when your sports teams suck, it really like you look for other things to do that are more fun, poker impersonations, mimicking, right? I
Hank Azaria 17:57
mean, yeah, but I’ll tell you as a Mets jets Knicks guy, and things are looking up for the Mets and the Knicks, but it’s been a rough 2025 year, things are still not looking very good for the Jets. But you get into you begin to your season becomes analyzing what went wrong with your team, which there always is a lot to look at, you know. So I just gotten used to that, in fact, that, you know, every once in a while, the Mets and Knicks do okay. Like, like, we went to the World Series in 2015 and, and I’m almost not comfortable with it, you know, it’s like, it’s very odd feeling when the Mets do well. But I think we should get used to it, because Steve Cohen and he’s got them on the right track,
Nestor Aparicio 18:40
Juan Soto, you know, yeah, we didn’t have the jam to sign him here. What can I say as far as the Jets go? Can we just talk seriously about the Jets? Because Joe Douglas is a friend of mine, has been a full on a quarter of a century. You know, when he was a Turk with the Ravens back in the day and the Flacco discover and all that stuff. I love Joe, but when it was delivered that Aaron Rodgers was going to save the Jets, I wouldn’t have bought that as a fan. I didn’t buy it as a media guy. I didn’t, I just, I think it’s really hard to overcome bad ownership. I mean, you mentioned going already money, good. We have a new owner on the baseball side here. Bad ownership. You can’t, you can’t, do
Hank Azaria 19:19
you guys suffered. Your baseball team suffered with that for a long time, and that’s our problem too. You know, with the Jets, it really, really is. And at that point when they got Rogers, it was kind of like they had sort of nothing else to do. I guess it was kind of worth a shot. By the time the season rolled around, and then he was out after five plays. But, you know, Woody Johnson has said the right thing for the first time ever. I like the Aaron Glenn hire, and we’ll see. I mean, he, he seems to have gotten religion about taking a four steps back and letting football people really be, really run the team. So we’ll. See if that sticks. Hank
Nestor Aparicio 20:01
Azeri is here. He will be at soundstage on the seventh, on the sixth. He’ll be that at Birchmere. He’s out on the road with the we call it the Springsteen project. How long you think you’re gonna Are you really you’re having a good time with this, right?
Hank Azaria 20:13
Like, no, I’m happiest doing I couldn’t believe how happy it made me. I did it to cheer myself up around turning 60 for a night, you know, but I really took hold, and now I love working on it. I love perfecting new songs. I love trying to unlock little corners of Bruce’s voice that I haven’t quite got yet as a vocal geek, which is what I am, it’s like endless hours of fun for me, and then performing and playing this music with such great musicians is a real kick. It’s very addictive. All
Nestor Aparicio 20:45
right, so look, I have more time with you than Kelly did, so I want to get Tell me about your musicians. I You bragged about them twice. Where do they come from? I’m going to be wondering this when I’m sitting down there next Saturday night. Watch you say, where do we get all these guys? What School of Rock.
Hank Azaria 21:00
So kids mice, they are kids. They’re 12 to 17 years old. Now that’s an exaggeration. That’s how young they seem to me. They’re not quite that young. But my son, Hal, is actually 15 years old. He was a very gifted piano player. My wife’s family are all talented musicians, and his jazz piano teacher was a lovely guy named Adam cromello, and I knew that he was in a Genesis cover band, so when I had this crazy idea, he was my first call. And I usually expect to call like nine people before you hit on anybody with the time or inclination to help you out. And I said, Look, Adam, I got this nutty idea that I don’t even know will work. I’m working up some Springsteen songs for my birthday in a few months. Can you help me find the right key? Can you create some piano karaoke for me to practice with, and then, if I’m anywhere near good enough, can you put together a band, you know? And he said, Sure. And so we work for a while, and then he is a wonderful professional musician, and he composes for TV and film and guys, he went to college, they’re all perfect. They played, they played on Broadway, a bunch of in a band called St Lucia, all professional musicians. And just I showed up one day at rehearsal, and there’s this full blown band led by Adam, and he’s also the musical director. And right from the get go, they were incredible. I mean, they, you can’t tell the difference between them and the and the E Street Band and and they love it. We’re having a lot of fun. And, you know, I didn’t discover until two months into playing with them. They didn’t know this music. They were all so young. They didn’t grow up with this music. I introduced Bruce’s music like to all of them, except for our bass player, whose dad loved Bruce so and they have a lot of the joy of this, for me is they have discovered this music, and they love playing it, and they’re great at it.
Nestor Aparicio 22:53
Well, I love hearing it, and I saw you do it earlier on the Kelly show, so I know you’re great at it. Thanks for being generous with your time and coming on talking little sports. I didn’t want to be mean to you about the sports thing with the general I’m used to it. You got, you got the Yankee thing going on. Thanks for your time. I’m looking forward to getting together and enjoying our communal experience with a night with Are you coming
Hank Azaria 23:16
on on the seventh to Baltimore? I wouldn’t be anywhere. I’m going to be there. I’m gonna be down. See you there. Bring your friends. Comes if you’re a Bruce fan, check us out. I promise you, we’re the best Springsteen tribute band you’ve ever heard. Zadie
Nestor Aparicio 23:30
Do you sing the thunder rod with the screen door slams? Mary strat, go. Come on. Which ways it’s I swayed? Okay? I’m just checking man, because I think Either is
Hank Azaria 23:39
acceptable, much like like nuclear and nuclear Either is acceptable, but he did write it to be sways. Sways, rhymes with plays. Well, you
Nestor Aparicio 23:49
know, we could sit here. We got a whole hour of just talking about Bruce. We could do, I’m sure. Thank Thank you very much, and thanks for the gift of all the smiles you’ve given a lot of people over the years. And I, I didn’t bring up the family ties and growing pains thing, but I to me, that was the most impressive thing on the whole resume.
Hank Azaria 24:03
I would just say that. All right, yeah, low bar there. But I’m glad you enjoyed that. Thank you. I was a child
Nestor Aparicio 24:07
of 80 sitcoms. I am Nestor. We are W N, S T good at C Hank do the Bruce thing down at Santa’s. And my thanks to everybody on Hank’s team and our friends, Mike and everybody soundstage for always being so kind to us. We’re Baltimore positive. Stay with us.
