'You people are starting it, so we hope you do it right,' said Steve Steinberg, the founder and the only remaining original member of the a cappella quartet Men Out Loud.
Steinberg, Santo Ragno, Joseph Pearce and Rob McElroy return to the Valley to perform during this year's Arizona Central Pride festival, April 18 at Margaret T. Hance Deck Park, two blocks south of McDowell Road.
Also scheduled to perform this year are Holly Heaven and the Issue and CeCe Peniston.
'We had such a ball last year,' Steinberg said. 'But we are so glad you changed the dates and are earlier this year. We suffered a little meltdown last year.'
This year's parade and festival--"A Gateway to Change"-- was moved to April in response to numerous requests, because temperatures in June are just too hot.
The heat this year could be caused by the quartet of beefy men, who will be wearing 'our nasty little outfits' and mixing with the crowd before taking to the stage. The four try to mingle before every performance. Last year, they sang before 17 pride festivals nationwide.
In Ottawa, a group of young people told one of the singers how great it was to see a bunch of guys out and proud and singing.
'We get that a lot,' Steinberg said. 'What I've seen as entertainment at a lot of the festivals is an awful lot of lesbian folk singers and an awful lot of drag. You don't see that many masculine gay images, and we wanted to fill that void.'
'If you look at us, we look like your buddy at work,' he said.
But if the harmonious, hunky men impress audiences, Steinberg says it is he who has to pinch himself.
'We are going from city to city to the biggest gay party in that city and helping people there celebrate their pride,' Steinberg said. 'I really applaud people who want to express themselves this way.'
With a keen sense of diplomacy, Steinberg would not say which festivals are the best. Instead, he said they are varied from huge events in New York and San Francisco to 'backyard barbecue-like' affairs in cities like Wichita, KA.
Men Out Loud has been around for four years. It was formed after the 1994 Northridge earthquake, when Steinberg and two friends began singing together as a distraction.
Those two friends had sung with Steinberg previously in the UCLA Glee Club. As a trio, it realized another singer was needed, so Steinberg placed a classified ad in a publication and the quartet was born, calling itself Vicki Lester.
Steinberg said the name-- borrowed from the Judy Garland character in A Star Is Born-- was too obscure, so the group dumped it.
During its first public performance-- a harmony sweepstakes sponsored by a Mormon group-- Men Out Loud was named a finalist.
Steinberg recalls that before introducing the quartet, the emcee walked over and questioned whether it really wanted to be introduced as an 'all gay' group.
'We didn't win,' Steinberg said, but it didn't matter, because a judge's girlfriend had brought a friend along with her, who had some ties with Warner Bros. Records. That woman, Vivienne Crawford, was impressed and introduced Men Out Loud to record executive Danny Goldberg.
But even before a record could be finished, personnel problems began to arise. The singer hired through the ad was let go, resulting in the recording's producer filling in. The volative record company business also was changing. Goldberg became president of Mercury Records, and the arm of Warner Bros. for which Men Out Loud recorded-- Reprise-- did not place a high priority on the group.
Crawford again called Goldberg, who bought out the quartet's contract. By this time, however, Steinberg had replaced all three singers who were on the original recording. His two UCLA friends had decided to return to their traditional lives.
Before Mercury could release the album, Steinberg convinced
Goldberg to allow a few days for some touch ups. Instead, the newly configured
Men Out Loud re-recorded the entire album-- in just ten days."