Philadelphia Weekly:It’s a hot summer night on South Street but it’s cool and dark inside Tritone bar, where the lineup is a rowdy variety showcase of GLBTQ acts. Musician Steph Hayes hangs out offstage, waiting to be introduced. It’s a bit of sly showmanship, really—everyone in this bawdy crowd already knows Steph.
In the years since first breaking out in the early 1990s with seminal Philly band Stargazer Lily, Hayes has graced almost every local stage and countless others across the country while playing in different projects: There’s the solo stuff, sometimes with back-up band the Good Problems, plucking bass with Chris Schutz and the Tourists, plus a regular gig singing back-up alongside Stargazer Lily co-founder Sue Rosetti for slide-guitar impresario Slo-Mo.
Socially, a relaxed rock-star swagger and a chiseled porcelain face has long made Hayes a heartthrob to lesbians in this town.
But while almost everyone in Philadelphia knows Steph Hayes, it’s just now becoming common knowledge that for years, Hayes struggled with a secret burden.
The drum rolls theatrically. With all the gusto of a commenter calling a boxing match, the host announces, for one of the first times ever in public, the artist formerly known as Steph Hayes.
“Introducing Mr. Stephan Hayes!” the host trills.
As Hayes starts to play, the physical changes from seven months of hormone replacement therapy are noticeable: The shape of his face has changed; its skin is rough. He’s broader and more muscular from a regimen of push-ups to build up pectoral muscles. In more ways than one, Stephan Hayes (pronouced Steph-in) is a new man.
The 37-year-old singer straps on his signature Guild acoustic with the blue-star-studded guitar strap and rips through catalogue favorite “Big, Big Dreams.”
