Photo: Leah Bouchier-Hayes

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“This all came out of trying to cheer myself up when I was turning 60,” Hank Azaria says of his Bruce Springsteen tribute show, which debuted at New York’s Le Poisson Rouge on August 1. “I’m a runner and Bruce had made his way back into my running playlist. I already mimic his speaking voice and I started singing while I ran. So I was like, ‘Maybe I’ll surprise people with playing some songs on my birthday.’”

While he started with this lighthearted sentiment, the actor (Brockmire, Ray Donovan, The Simpsons) put in a few months of steady work prior to his sold-out gig. “The idea got away from me because I wanted so badly to be able to capture Bruce’s singing voice,” he acknowledges. “I’ve sung a lot in my career, but always in character and always just carrying a tune in a comedic way. This was a side door into really learning to sing, which I’m still learning.”

That initial 80-minute performance from Hank Azaria & The EZ Street Band generated such a positive response—along with $30K for Azaria’s Four Through Nine Foundation, which funds education, social justice and recovery causes— that he added additional dates extending into the fall.

When did you initially become a Springsteen fan?

The summer when I was 11, everybody was playing Born to Run. I remember asking, “What’s that?” And the people at camp said, “What do you mean? That’s Bruce.” I became a huge fan of his that summer, along with ELO. Later on, Darkness on the Edge of Town was the first release of his that I was aware of in real time and really loved.

By the time I first saw him live on the River tour, I’d also already discovered bootlegs—live recordings. Now they’re easy to get on Spotify but, back then, you had to seek them out in record stores. I’d go down to 8th Street in the Village and look for obscure bootlegs. I got completely obsessed.

Was he the first artist who helped you appreciate the power of live music?

My first concert was in 1976. I was 12 and we saw Jethro Tull at Madison Square Garden. My dad had gotten us tickets, and along with two friends who were my age, we got on a train from Queens and went to MSG. My son is 15 now, and when he turned 12, I was like, “Wait a minute. When I was his age, three of us went alone into the city to Madison Square Garden.” It’s a comment on how times have changed. Parents these days wouldn’t dream of allowing that. I still wouldn’t let my son go alone to a concert like that at MSG. But I was a big Tull fan and I loved it. After that, I saw The Who, Tom Petty and, of course, Springsteen.

Can you point to a particular moment or lyric that helped you figure out how to sing like him?

I do a pretty good talking Bruce impression, so I started there, but I sing a little lower than him, which meant I had to find the right keys. Even then, it took me months and months.

Then one day, I unlocked the lower register of “Darkness on the Edge of Town.” In trying to get the low notes in “Darkness,” I accidentally discovered how to breathe as a singer. When I sang it for my wife, she was like, “That actually sounded good.” I was like, “Why are you shocked?” That’s when she told me that until that point, she’d been trying to work up the nerve to tell me I shouldn’t do it.

But I was doing it line-by-line and I got really obsessed. I’d spend a few weeks on a couplet, just not being able to get it. I stayed at it, though. When I was finally able to sing “Glory Days,” “She’s the One” and “Backstreets” as Bruce, that unlocked the whole canon for me.

Was there a specific song that took on new meaning for you as you began performing it?

I would say “Darkness on the Edge of Town.” A lot of the show is theatrical. I talk as Bruce the whole time. Sometimes I tell stories of how songs got created. Sometimes I’ll talk about how Bruce introduced a song and explain why. But often, I’ll say what the song means to me or when I first heard it.

I’ve been sober for 18 years now. To me, the lyrics to “Darkness,” and really the whole album, are about the kind of loneliness that comes when you hit an alcoholic bottom or any kind of bottom—a depression bottom or a divorce bottom. It’s that time in your life when you feel completely alone, even in town, even with other people. I don’t know how Bruce understood that kind of pain when he wrote that album in his 20s, but it really spoke to me as I learned to sing those songs.

How did you arrive at the decision to tell your own stories in Bruce’s voice?

I wasn’t sure about it because it sounded like a strange idea on paper.

I was just used to imitating him. Growing up, the talks he gave on the live recordings—we called them his talks—often meant as much to me as the songs themselves. They’re interesting and inspirational, as he shares his personal life.

I talk in the show about how his music impacted me, especially when I was growing up. A lot of his message—not just in his music but also in his talks—is that you can follow your dreams. That meant a lot to me.

When I finally met Bruce— I met him backstage after he came to see Spamalot on Broadway [in 2005]—I got to tell him, “I wouldn’t be standing here backstage chatting with you at the Shubert if not for you and your music.”

In my gig as an actor, I take on other voices and create characters that I think are believable and grounded. So talking as other people kind of frees me up to say what I really feel. Ultimately, I just gave it a try and, somehow, it seemed to work—even when I was telling a story in that Bruce cadence about how I met my wife, which led up to “She’s the One.”

What, if anything, surprised you about that initial performance?

The band is wonderful. However, only our bass player really grew up with this music. I told them, and my wife, who’s not a huge Springsteen fan: “You’re going to see when we put this in front of real Bruce fans that everyone’s going to sing every word.” But they didn’t believe me—to the point where I wasn’t totally sure myself.

It was our first real gig. I didn’t know who was going to be there—for all I knew, a lot of Simpsons fans were going to show up. But sure enough, out of the 750 people in that room, probably 650 were pure Bruce fans who were belting every word.

Later, people asked, “What was it like? Did you feel like a rock star up there?” The truth is, I felt like a member of the audience who got to jump on stage. It was one of the most joyous nights of my life.