Review Fix Exclusive: Demi The Daredevil’s Jeff Azar Talks Origin and Goals

Review Fix chats with Demi The Daredevil’s Jeff Azar, who discusses the band’s origin, goals and creative process.

Review Fix: How did the band get together?

Jeff Azar: The band’s line-up has been through a whirlwind. We initially got together in high school, unannounced, unapologetically, and righteously. We were some guys playing some punk inspired music amid a whole post-hardcore scene and were made fun of dearly for that. But none of those bands lasted.

Review Fix: What’s your creative process like?

Azar: The creative process too has been through a lot of changes! Now a lot of the song in its entirety is programmed on pro tools alone by someone. Then it’s pieced together and produced, etc… Tom Waits once said you gotta scrape up your knees when writing, and I think that’s what I do, I wanna wrestle with the song and get crazy with it and obsessive and potentially destructive (hopefully not) when finishing something up. Once you record that’s it, you can’t go back.

Review Fix: What’s your standout song? How was it written?

Azar: Change Me. Well, the new stand out is Change Me. The old stand out is Speakeasy Love. Change Me was written in two studio apartments and a teepee. It was Frankenstein together over a period of time because I kept improving it slowly but surely. it’s a simple progression so there are a lot of other things I needed to do to make it interesting.

Review Fix: What are your goals for 2017?

Azar: Tour the US to play shows for our fans. We are playing for a high school in Georgia and fans in Virginia have created a petition for us to play—- it’s mainly the playing for preexisting fans as much as possible. Our producer John is also working with a music publisher to get a song licensed somewhere. Hope that happens.

Review Fix: How do you want your music to affect people?

Azar: Each song I want to be like a different pill to take to spark a different emotion. That’s the goal as a songwriter, it’s making stuff people can go escape to. But I suppose, more importantly, I want people to feel pride in being different and in their crazy emotions and problems because when we start owning our own thoughts we are bound to attract negative attention. I want to offer consolation and community so we all know we aren’t alone.

Review Fix: What’s next?

Azar: Finishing more songs. Playing more shows. Answering questions like this. Messaging continuing and new fans. Getting soberer. A gig on Wall Street in July. And hopefully, license Change Me for a commercial!

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About Patrick Hickey Jr. 14230 Articles
Patrick Hickey Jr. is a full-time Assistant Professor of Communication & Performing Arts and Director of the Journalism program at Kingsborough Community College and is the chairman of the City University of New York Journalism Council. He is the Founder and Editor-In-Chief of ReviewFix.com. He's also a former News Editor at NBC Local Integrated Media and National Video Games Writer at Examiner.com where his work was mentioned in National Ad campaigns by Disney, Nintendo and EA Sports. Hickey was also the Editor-In-Chief of two College Newspapers before he received his BA in Journalism from Brooklyn College. Hickey's work has been published in The New York Daily News, The New York Times, Complex, The Hockey Writers, Yahoo!, Broadway World, Examiner, NYSportScene Magazine, ProHockeyNews.com, GothamBaseball.com, The Syracuse Post-Standard, Scout.com and the official sites of the Brooklyn Aces and New York Islanders. His first book, The Minds Behind the Games: Interviews With Cult And Classic Video Game Developers was released in April 2018 and is chock full of interviews with legendary developers. His second book in the series, The Minds Behind Adventures Games, was released in December 2019. His third book, The Minds Behind Sports Games, was released in September 2020. His fourth book, The Minds Behind Shooter Games, was released in March 2021. The Minds Behind Sega Genesis Games and The Minds Behind PlayStation Games were released in 2022 and The Minds Behind PlayStation 2 was published in January 2023. Hickey is also a contracted comic book writer, currently penning his original series, "Condrey," as well as "The Job," "Brooklyn Bleeds" "Dem Gulls" and "KROOM" for Legacy Comix, where he serves as founder, owner and Editor-in-Chief. Hickey Jr. is also a voice actor, having starred in the 2018 indie hit and 2019 Switch, PS4 and Xbox One release, The Padre (also serving as English language Story Editor), from Shotgun With Glitters. The sequel, The Padre: One Shell Straight to Hell was released in February 2021- Hickey also served as a Story Editor and Lead Voiceover performer. He has also done narration and trailers for several other titles including The Kaiju Offensive, Relentless Rex and Roniu’s Tale. Hickey is also the lead voiceover performer on Mega Cat Studios’ upcoming title WrestleQuest, responsible for nearly 90 characters in the game, as well as Skybound's Renfield: Bring Your Own Blood, where he voices both Dracula and Renfield, as well as several other characters. He also stars in Ziggurat Interactive’s World Championship Boxing Manager 2, where he performs the VO of nearly every male character in the game. He also worked on the Atari VCS’s BPM Boy.

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