Elton John is a big fan of Stephen Sanchez: He invited the “Until I Found You” singer to perform with him at the U.K.’s prestigious Glastonbury Festival. He also gave Stephen some good advice about performing live, which Stephen plans to put into practice as he kicks off his new tour on October 13.
The tour is in support of Angel Face, Stephen’s debut album, which tells the story of a love triangle between a 1960s singer named The Troubadour Sanchez, a woman named Evangeline and a mob boss named Hunter. That’s why he plans to play the album in its entirety, he says.
“This is very different music … and it is a fear of mine to break the spell of this story,” he tells ABC Audio. “So we will definitely be playing the record front to back.”
As for Elton’s advice, Stephen says the Rocket Man attended a show on his previous tour, came backstage and told Stephen’s backup musicians, “You guys need to sing live vocals.”
“I’m the only one really singing … we usually leave it up to the [pre-recorded] tracks [for the backing vocals],” Stephen explains. “But I think for this [tour], it makes so much sense to have them sing live background vocals.”
“I think that brings us closer together as a band,” he adds, “Because Elton expressed that all the guys that he’s [toured] with have all sang background vocals with him. And so I think that’s a really amazing piece of advice because there’s not a lot of that these days.”
Stephen plans to capture this new approach to performing by recording a live album on the tour.
“We visualized a story and created a mini-movie in a way,” he says, adding that it makes sense to capture it live.
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