Hank Azaria and Michael Shannon are both actors (very different kinds of actors) and they are both frontmen for tribute bands (paying homage to very different frontmen).
Azaria, the protean performer best known as the voice of “Simpsons” characters like Moe the Bartender, put together the EZ Street Band, a Bruce Springsteen cover act. For the last year, he has been fine-tuning his rasp; he sings as the Boss, whom he has idolized since he was growing up in Queens. “A lot of my mimicry as a young man came out of hero worship,” he said.
Shannon, the Oscar-nominated character actor turned leading man, has been handling Michael Stipe’s vocals in a long-running R.E.M. covers project with the veteran guitarist Jason Narducy and other indie-rock stalwarts. “The whole band is just blown away by how hard he works at this,” said Narducy, who also plays with Superchunk and Bob Mould.
Making their way through R.E.M.’s discography, Narducy and Shannon attempt to recreate each album’s sound. They began in 2023 with “Murmur” (1983) and, starting Feb. 11, will tour with “Lifes Rich Pageant” (1986).
R.E.M.’s members, including Stipe, have joined them onstage. But Shannon, a native of Lexington, Ky., who fronted and released one album with a Brooklyn indie trio, Corporal, has his own style. “It’s almost like he’s balancing something compelling with something that’s agitating as a performer,” Narducy said, “and it keeps eyes on him.”
Azaria, whose next show is Friday, wants the live Springsteen experience, complete with audience singalongs and personal anecdotes — he tells his own stories, but in Springsteen’s voice. “It just sounded better and more poetic,” he said. (Proceeds from his performances go to his foundation, 4 Through 9, with funding going to education and other initiatives.)
Shannon, 51, and Azaria, 61, who once jointly did a Zoom play reading but had never met in person, came together recently to talk about their musical sidelines. Over coffee in Azaria’s Upper West Side apartment, they sat in the living room in their socks, Azaria’s terrier mix Truman between them on the couch. Azaria asked questions about Shannon’s artistry; when he broke into the Springsteen voice, Shannon grinned. They discussed nerves, meeting their idols and the unlikely trajectory and appeal of their new gigs.
These are edited excerpts from the conversation.
I’m interested in your choice to turn these private obsessions into public performance. How did you get there?
HANK AZARIA I’ve been imitating Bruce since I was a teenager. I had a difficult relationship with my father as well, and it actually really comforted me a lot to hear Bruce’s music about that, and the stories he’d tell about it.
I was turning 60 and feeling kind of bummed about it. It felt sad to ignore, but I also didn’t want to just throw a party. I was like, I know; I’ll invite everyone, a reunion — high school, college, camp, Broadway — and tell them I had a Springsteen tribute band coming. But didn’t tell them I’d been working to front it.
I just really did it as a very personal thing, to cheer myself up.
MICHAEL SHANNON Did it work?
AZARIA Absolutely. It was one of the happiest nights of my life. Which is why I didn’t want to stop.
SHANNON It’s never been my ambition to be a touring musician. [The R.E.M. bassist] Mike Mills actually played bass on an album that Jason made. So doing the first “Murmur” show, Mike Mills came to see it.
AZARIA Oh, wow. Did that freak you out?
SHANNON He was very sweet. Jason asked him, “Do you want to participate?” And he said, “No, I’m sure you guys have been working really hard, and I just want to enjoy it; I’ll see you afterward.” Then about six songs into it, he was up onstage. He just kept coming up, all night long, and singing. And I’m sure that has something to do with why we’re still doing it. When word got out, people started inquiring.
AZARIA That’s amazing. I met Max Weinberg [the E Street Band drummer] at “Conan O’Brien” [where he was the bandleader] years before. So I invited him to that party, and he came and did two or three songs. He told me the secret of musicians is they’re all dying to be asked to jump in.
I was so nervous the day of, by noon, I would have given anything to get out of it. I actually threw up from nerves. Never before, or since. And then once it started, it was really fun. Maybe I sensed that part of me was taking this very seriously and it meant a lot to me, but I didn’t realize it yet.
SHANNON A lot of times the first question people ask is, “Isn’t that fun?” And it’s really serious.
AZARIA What’s your routine around it?
SHANNON I obsess over it. If I’m playing President Garfield, like I did recently, then I just read, read, read everything I can get my hands on. Doing this R.E.M. show, I’m just constantly listening to the music, watching concerts they’ve done, appearances. I just bombard myself with it.
The first show, I was terrified, not because Mike Mills was there, but just because the audience is, and they have really high expectations. “Murmur” is not a record that’s easy to play. There’s a lot of magic in it. That’s why these people are geniuses and in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, and I’m not.
Do you have a different connection to this music, or do you identify with the artists differently, now that you’ve stood in their shoes?
SHANNON I’ve always thought that one of the reasons R.E.M. is such a beloved band is because of how deeply human they are. They’re making music about being a person, and how hard that is.
AZARIA We do “Backstreets,” and Bruce wrote that when he was like, 22, about a teenage heartbreak. When I got my heart broken as a teenager, I ate a lot of ice cream and learned how to drink whiskey; Bruce writes [expletive] “Backstreets.” In trying to learn that growl of his, that you’ll hear especially live — that rock ’n’ roll scream — I started to cry one day after doing it, because I was like, oh, that’s the sound of teenage anger and sadness. I felt it: That can only be expressed that way. And I understood the song a little deeper.
SHANNON When I was starting to listen to R.E.M., I was a young teenager in complete despair, completely lost. It wasn’t just like, “I didn’t get the shoes I wanted for Christmas.” It was heavy stuff. And I would walk around my hometown with my Walkman, listening to R.E.M. It was how I soothed myself.
AZARIA Yeah, I can relate.
I have a feeling we’re very different performers. As a mimic, I started outside in. When I was first learning to act, I was like, well, how would De Niro do this? A lot of that was because I had very low self-esteem and didn’t really believe in myself.
So, mimicking Bruce, I had come up with all these stories for my party, including the night that I met my wife; totally love at first sight for me.
I ran it by my wife: Should I say these as me, or as Bruce? She was like, “You should tell them as yourself.” And then I told it as Bruce. And she’s like, “You know … you should tell that as Bruce.” It’s more comfortable for me to speak about myself as Bruce than it is to just walk up there and tell a story about myself.
SHANNON I played Elvis in a movie, “Elvis & Nixon,” when Elvis goes to the White House. They came to me about doing it, and I said, oh, hell no. They were persistent, and I went down to Memphis, and I met with Jerry Schilling, who was probably one of Elvis’s closest friends. Jerry wanted me to do the movie. He said, “There are a lot of people on Earth who try to look like my friend, and sound like my friend. There’s hardly anybody that tries to understand my friend. And you can do that.”
It’s kind of a similar thing with this. Michael is one of the most captivating frontmen. For me, the puzzle is not necessarily, can I sound like him? It’s, what is he up to? Why did he do this, write all these songs?
AZARIA So my instinct was correct. You’re much more of an inside-out actor and performer. And I tend to come from the other end.
SHANNON The audience is probably much more into you being as close to the thing as possible. I think that’s exciting, if you can do that.
AZARIA Because I’m known as a mimic and a comedian, I was deathly afraid that Bruce would think this was parody of some kind. It was meant to be a loving — beyond a homage, like an expression of how much it had affected me, and a celebration of music. I was glad to hear that they know that now.
You both have stage experience, and Tony nominations. How does touring compare to eight shows a week on Broadway?
AZARIA I had to work my way up to doing two nights in a row. Singing like Bruce, part of the vocal training was to make that sound and not destroy myself. And then I’ve got to go on vocal rest. If it’s back to back, I’ve got to mostly not talk.
SHANNON Yeah, it’s a weird life. You’re in a van, being silent like a monk. I have the goofiest notebooks at home, when I’m having conversations with people but not talking.
AZARIA How long will you play?
SHANNON In four different cities, we’ve done three hours sometimes.
AZARIA That hurts my throat, even him saying that. Four in a row! The fourth one must’ve been a little intense.
SHANNON I thought I was going to cry before I went on. I thought, I can’t do it — and then it was time to walk out onstage and I was like, oh just go do it. Thankfully it was the last show. And someone who had seen quite a few said that it was their favorite of the whole tour.
These are obviously passion projects for you. Are they meaningful as career moves in any way?
SHANNON No. If anything, it’s slightly irresponsible in terms of my day job. When I’m on tour, I’m not available. I don’t think it’s going to lead to more lucrative opportunities. And the idea that sometimes people float past me that I would do some sort of R.E.M. biopic is, I think, insane. That’s never going to happen.
AZARIA I’m really fortunate that I don’t have to do a lot of things. When I do get offered things, I go, would I rather do that or sing with the band? And unless it’s an extraordinarily great job, I’d kind of rather do the band.
SHANNON I concur. I’ve loved doing it very deeply. We go to Athens and play at the 40 Watt Club, and that’s when R.E.M. as a whole usually shows up. And before the show, Michael walks into the green room, and he’s like, well, you’re bringing joy to the world. That’s a nice way of putting it.
AZARIA It’s a communal experience. People ask me, “Do you feel like a rock star?” No. I feel like what I am, which is a Bruce superfan. At every Bruce show, everybody’s singing along with every word. I just feel like one of those people who grabbed the mic.
Melena Ryzik is a roving culture reporter at The Times, covering the personalities, projects and ideas that drive the creative world.
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