Cape native makes name in contemporary classical music

Stephen Limbaugh's "Pants" is on fire.

His most recent album -- titled "Pants" -- hit No. 16 on Billboard's classical charts last month, a feat he says was thrilling.

In 2004, the Cape Girardeau native moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career in music, and he says the album's success is especially sweet after the years of labor that went into it.

"I remember [the day I moved to L.A.]. That was the day that my career started, you know?" he said. "So when I saw it on the charts, I was just looking up at the sky, like, 'Finally. Thank you.'"

Naturally exuberant, Limbaugh said that in the few weeks after the album's debut, sales were, "awesome, awesome, awesome." Sales were especially gratifying, Limbaugh said, since he not only performed all the pieces on the album; he composed them as well.

"I actually grew up playing classical music as a kid. That was always kind of my first love musically," he said, explaining why he chose to record a classical album after having dabbled in rock bands for a number of years.

"After that, I wanted to get back to my roots musically," he said. "I'm just more drawn to [classical music], I guess you could say. "

But he also was betting there would be a commercial viability to the particular brand of music he creates, and it's paying off.

"All the pieces have been written over the last decade. It draws upon all my experiences, whether that's playing in rock bands or dating life in L.A. or struggles in the music industry that I've had," said Limbaugh, who is the son of U.S. District Judge Stephen Limbaugh. "Composition was just something that I was just naturally drawn to. When I was 13, 14, I didn't have the skill set to make decent work, but even then, I was drawn to it."

He said composition as a creative endeavor is an entirely different experience than simply performing a piece, and in doing both, he's able to assume total control over the music.

Franz Liszt's Hungarian rhapsodies appropriated certain thematic elements of eastern European folk culture, Limbaugh said, and in much the same way, his vision in "Pants" was to draw from contemporary millennial culture and render it through a classical lens.

"I wanted to take the melodic ideas that we hear in modern day film, pop music or even underground indie music and put it in a classical format," he said.

All while wearing psychedelic pants.

"It's reboot of Liberace," he said, explaining the quasi-ironic, over-the-top persona he's built up around himself over the last decade. And the Day-Glo trousers, the faux-cocksure posturing, the cat-GIF-littered website, stephenlimbaugh.com?

"It's part of the gag. It's intentionally confusing," he explained. "It's all a part of my branding. They're horrendous actually, but part of it is trying to make classical music more accessible to a younger audience by ... being a human being."

Limbaugh hopes to build on the success of his first classical solo venture with another he's already begun writing, so fans should expect another hybrid take on old and new.

And, one would imagine, another flamboyant pair of pants.

tgraef@semissourian.com

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