Bar Chat - Featuring: Jeff Steitzer

Andy, Chris, Josh, and Rob join Matt for our inaugural "Bar Chat" episode as we welcome special guest: Jeff Steitzer! Jeff's unforgettable booming announcements set the tone for multiplayer combat throughout the Halo video game series. Jeff candidly shares his journey from the vibrant stages of the theater scene to the recording booth, all while being initially unaware of the seismic impact his voice would have on gamers worldwide.

Listen as we chat about the blend of gaming and theater work in Jeff's career, and how conventions have become a cherished avenue for him to connect with fans. Whether you're a gamer who reveres his voice or want to learn more about his journey, this episode promises a delightful mix of nostalgia, industry insights, and personal anecdotes that underscore Jeff’s fascinating career.

In honor of our interview with Jeff, we’ve whipped up the perfect concoction for a toast to him — the "Sticky Grenade," inspired by Halo:

Ingredients:

• 1/8oz Grenadine
• 1/2oz Blue Curacao
• 1/4 Silver Tequila
• 1/4 Lemon Juice

Instructions:

1. Pour just a few drops of grenadine into the bottom of a shot glass.
2. Add the blue curacao carefully over the grenadine.
3. Layer the silver tequila on top. Use the back of a spoon, ensuring it sits above the curacao.
4. Top with a light splash of lemon juice.

The result is a vibrant colored shot with a sweet start and a strong finish!

Chapters

• 0:00 Intro
• 2:14 Welcome Jeff Steitzer!
• 3:52 The Sticky Grenade
• 4:29 Jeff's voice, questions, stories and anecdotes
• 10:03 The recording that didn't make the game
• 11:36 Theater Led to the Sound Booth
• 21:42 Where that Famous Annoucer Voice Came From
• 24:54 Podcast Info

Transcript

Matt: 1:00

10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

Rob: 1:13

We have liftoff. Welcome to Matt and Friends Drink the Universe.

Matt: 1:23

Hello, matt and Friends Drink the Universe listeners. Welcome, matt and friends Drink the Universe listeners. Welcome to our very first Bar Chat. Bar Chat is our newest episode theme. The idea of this new theme is to foster relaxed atmosphere, to engage in casual conversational interviews with interesting individuals as well as businesses like wineries, breweries and distilleries. Think of this as the evolution of our In Local Brews format. Our guest is the best possible lead-up to our upcoming video game trivia episode, which will release on March 4th 2025. I'm very excited today to share with you our conversation with the legendary voice of God, multiplayer announcer for the Halo series of video games, mr Jeff Stitzer. Jeff is an amazing person, even created some very special sound drops you will hear during the video game trivia episode. Thank you very much, jeff, for the interview, for your time and for the sound drops. Without further ado, let's get to it.

Chris: 2:18

There he is, the man himself.

Matt: 2:22

I'm Matt. By the way, it is so nice to meet you after we've been emailing for a couple weeks here. I really appreciate the sound drops that you did. They are absolutely amazing. Oh, great, great, great, great. I'm glad I feel like we grew up listening to you without formally meeting you. I bet you hear that a lot.

Jeff Steitzer: 2:38

I do, and it always is a little bit. I never quite know what to make of that because of course I wasn't aware that people were out there listening or playing. Or it's the weirdest thing, because you know, whenever you do a job as a voice actor basically you're contracted to do the job you go to a studio although not so much these days and then you just record for however long it took. You would end up, you know, going away and saying thanks and thinking no more about it. And in fact, in the case of this game and I've said this on a number of occasions I did not know that we had fans. I didn't know the game had been a success. Nobody told me.

Andy: 3:26

That's insane.

Jeff Steitzer: 3:38

The only way I knew. No, no, they did not. I didn't actually know until my agent called me a couple of years after we'd done the first one and said, hey, guess what they want you for the sequel to Halo? And I said, oh, so it did. Okay, huh, she said, I guess. We were clueless, sadly.

Matt: 3:52

What we can introduce. Since this is a drinking podcast, I came up with a little shot here called the Sticky Grenade, and since I spent most of 2007 and 2008 trying to hear your voice say Killianaire in many different game modes, sticky grenades were always my favorite. So we have a little shot here. I will put that recipe up online, but cheers to you, sir, cheers, cheers, cheers.

Josh: 4:16

Cheers. Thanks for joining us.

Jeff Steitzer: 4:17

Thank you very much. Did you ever hear Killianaire?

Matt: 4:22

I think I heard it twice total. Maybe, if I was lucky, one was in the griffball mode, which was just glorified soccer Indeed griffball.

Jeff Steitzer: 4:32

So that would be the one he did the thing he did.

Chris: 4:38

What's funny, jeff, is your voice. You have your own voice, but occasionally you'll say a word and I just hear the character voice come through Really. So it'll be like a full sentence and just one of the words just kind of triggers the memory, oh yeah, and you're like, oh, I know what that voice is.

Jeff Steitzer: 4:54

Oh, that's hysterical.

Chris: 4:55

Yeah.

Jeff Steitzer: 4:56

You know, I don't listen to myself very much outside of recording, so I'm not all that. I never know what I sound like and I never sound to me like anything special at all. So it's obviously a lot of people disagree, and I'm glad they do, because otherwise I'd be, you know, probably bagging at some local grocery store instead of sitting and talking to you guys, I had a question.

Andy: 5:22

I wanted to ask you if I can get that right off the bat. I'm not going to ask specific monies, but I was curious. Video games I I assume voiceover work would be very different from other work do. Do video games? Do residuals as um like no?

Jeff Steitzer: 5:39

well, no, I take that back. No, uh, when we did halo, they most certainly did not do residuals. And an interesting thing I found out just a couple of years ago from Marty O'Donnell we were doing a convention in Phoenix and he said I tried to get Microsoft to give all of you guys you and Jen and Steve a percentage of the money that was made, and they were like no.

Chris: 6:06

Microsoft said sorry.

Jeff Steitzer: 6:08

Apparently Steve said but you know it's okay, because now we're going out and doing conventions and making money that way. He said those are our residuals. And I was like, well, that's all well and good for you, steve. You know, but those aren't correct or positive, I wouldn't mind making my residuals while sitting on the couch and not going anywhere at all. I should take that back. I love conventions and I love meeting people.

Rob: 6:34

It is the coolest part.

Jeff Steitzer: 6:36

I love it, I really do.

Rob: 6:40

I had a question as well. I'm off screen here, but there's my hand.

Jeff Steitzer: 6:47

Should I do that too? Yeah, yeah, I like that, I like that I was just curious.

Rob: 6:51

If you have a particular character that you've connected with the most in in your career, like, do you have a favorite voiceover that you've done or a character that you've portrayed?

Jeff Steitzer: 7:02

um well, this, this, this is going to be it, partly because I've done so much of it over such a long period of time. I've done other things. I don't even remember often what I did.

Rob: 7:17

Okay.

Jeff Steitzer: 7:17

You know there are a couple of games out there that I did, one called the Operative no One Lives Forever and it had a sequel, and I evidently played different characters in the two games. I don't remember what I did at all at all. Other things I do kind of remember I did a bunch of things for the kids years ago Pajama Sam and Freddy, fish and Spy. Fox maybe Was that it, and I have no memory at all of what we did.

Jeff Steitzer: 7:50

It was a circus thing and I think I played an animal, but it was like oh, okay, If you say so. And then a follow-up to that, is there a character that you would love to voice that you maybe haven't had the opportunity to do at this point? Who? Uh, I have to say no, and I'll tell you why. It has always been my position that if you start to pin your hopes on getting to do something 99.9 times out of 100, you're going to be disappointed. You know you're not going to get that job. Yeah, that's fair.

Jeff Steitzer: 8:30

So it's like when I, as a theater actor, a stage actor, which I've done a lot of I used to go in for auditions and you know, what you're always told is, first of all, enjoy the audition, because for that period of time you get to play the character. Nobody else in that room is playing it, just you. And then, after you leave, forget about it. Just forget about it because you're not going to get that role. And again, more often than not, you're not, and when you do, it's like, oh my god, oh great, you know, yeah. So that's kind of why I don't. I was asked that when I was doing a summer at a shakes Shakespeare festival. It's like what roles do you want to play?

Jeff Steitzer: 9:06

and it's like I don't think that way, I just don't think that way oh, that's fair, you know, because if I don't get to play it, then I'll feel disappointed, and you know, there are always reasons why you don't get to do certain things, sure?

Rob: 9:19

so I would have liked to hear Jeff Stites or Batman. I'm just saying you, you know I don't even know.

Jeff Steitzer: 9:25

You know this is terrible. I never watched Batman, oh my God. I'm aware of it and I'm certainly aware of the actor, kevin Conroy, yes, who played Batman, mostly because I thought for years he was somebody else entirely. There's another actor, I believe, named Kevin Conroy, who's a stage actor, and I always thought it was that guy and, of course, it's not at all, and it's one of those things, you know. You listen to him and you go oh well, you know, that's why he got the job. He's perfect. Oh, absolutely, you know. I'm more amazed by someone like Mark Hamill, you know.

Chris: 10:00

That was the next one. Yeah, yeah yeah.

Matt: 10:03

So the question that I have is, since we tend to be a comedy-centric podcast, you've done so many Halo games. Do you have a good funny story from any of the recordings that you've done, or anything like?

Jeff Steitzer: 10:14

that Well? Yeah, a couple. But the problem is, in some instances they're predicated on doing certain phrases and then being told we couldn't.

Andy: 10:25

Oh, we've got to get some of those.

Matt: 10:27

Can you share some of those, well well the one I can certainly tell.

Jeff Steitzer: 10:29

I'm sure I tell this story quite a bit. Um, we were doing one of the games. Uh, the idea that the writer had was that if you were to shoot one of your own team members, you would hear me. And this was predicated on a real life incident many, many years ago. Dick cheney, on a real life incident many, many years ago. Dick Cheney shot somebody in you know one of his fellow hunters in the face. So if you did something like that in the game, you would have heard me saying Cheney mania.

Josh: 11:01

Oh that's such a shame that they cut that out.

Jeff Steitzer: 11:04

I know. I mean I've said I've told this story enough that you know. I'm sure there are thousands of samples of this going out all over the place. But that's certainly what we thought, because when we recorded it, I you know it was one of those things that happens every once in a while where something makes the folks in the other room laugh and then they're like let it's, like, come on, you're just having fun. But that was one where we all had a hard time keeping a straight face. We thought it was pretty hysterical.

Matt: 11:32

That's fantastic.

Jeff Steitzer: 11:33

Yeah, there have been a few instances like that.

Josh: 11:37

Jeff, I've got a question for you, so I did read that you spent some time doing well. I think it sounds like you cut your teeth, maybe in stage. Oh yeah, and so I even saw that you were on Broadway. I'm a big, big, big Broadway fan over here as well. Cool, do you have a thing that you liked more? Did you like stage acting more? Did you like voice acting more?

Jeff Steitzer: 11:56

That's a very good question. Here's what I like about voice acting. It's the same thing I like about film and TV and any voice recording stuff, audio books. You only have to get it right once.

Josh: 12:13

Not every time.

Jeff Steitzer: 12:15

Almost invariably. You're paid often quite a bit more money to do voice work or TV or film than you are the theater. That's always been true. The one example where that wasn't true was when I was doing first Inherit the Wind on Broadway and then Mary Poppins for a year and a half on Broadway because that paid really well. That paid really really well. But for the most part you don't get paid that well and you're doing eight shows a week and you're. You know the regional theater has an insane schedule Sure, where you end up doing five shows in a weekend. So you do a Friday night, two on Saturday, two on Sunday. That's often what you've got. That's a lot.

Jeff Steitzer: 13:01

You know if you're playing any kind of a large role. That's hard, and it means that on monday, your only day off, you tend to be, you know, sort of on a couch collapse because you're so damn tired. Sure, yeah, what I like about voice work as well is that your audience are the people of the other room the engineer, the writer, maybe a producer from 343 or something and if you get laughing then it's instant gratification. Sure, that's fair.

Jeff Steitzer: 13:32

Which is great fun. But on the other hand, as a voice actor, I consider myself a gun for hire, in the sense that what do you need? I will try to give that to you and will keep crying until I give it to you, or give you something equally good, and then we're done. But when you're on stage, you're in control. I mean, you've rehearsed what you're going to do. But when you're standing in front of you know god, in the case of pop and you know, there were like 2,000 people I there was another theater here locally this got close to 3000 people, you know, and you can make them laugh as a group or be quiet as a group. There's tremendous satisfaction in pulling together an audience like that. And you don't get that, you know, certainly on a film. I mean, people might, you know, laugh afterwards after you've done something. But it's just not the same.

Josh: 14:32

Yeah, I mean you're talking to a room full of people who have some sort of musical background and all have been on a field performing in marching bands or on a stage performing Sure many times. You know nothing more than mostly most of us high school and collegiate level, but you know musicals and plays.

Jeff Steitzer: 14:49

That counts.

Josh: 14:50

But we for sure understand that feeling of getting a crowd to stand and cheer for you and what a wild rush, that is.

Rob: 14:58

It is Jeff did you ever do any musical theater, or was it all just straight plays?

Jeff Steitzer: 15:04

No, no, no, A lot of musical theater.

Josh: 15:05

I think Poppins was a musical right.

Jeff Steitzer: 15:13

Mary Poppins was a musical. Yeah, I didn't have a lot of singing. Thank God I didn't have a lot of stage time, which made it all the more ironic that it was the best paying stage job I ever had and I did the least amount of work. I mean, it was really what we call country club acting, because I spent more time, you know, reading or napping than I did on stage. When I was on stage I was jumping back and forth between the two characters I played In other instances.

Jeff Steitzer: 15:34

Yeah, I've done a lot of stuff. In Seattle there's a theater company which sort of which is where I live focuses on musical theater company called the Fifth Avenue, also one called the Village. So there are two places where I work quite a bit and I've done a lot of musicals. I've done how to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. I've done Kiss Me Kate. I did that twice actually here in town and then I also did it in Hartford, which at the time was being run by a guy named Darko Treznik who won a Tony for the Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder, which is based on the same material as Kind Hearts and Coronets. He also did Anastasia.

Jeff Steitzer: 16:15

What else did I do? Funny thing happened on the way to the Forum. Oh yeah, I played Cynics. That was an interesting situation. That was in Seattle and we were getting it. It was our dress parade. So we're all getting into our you know, our long johns and our you know togas and stuff and unfortunately I was in a dressing room that had a carpet and when we weren't in there, apparently they were sewing and stuff in there. So I was getting ready and I turned suddenly and I drove a nail about this long into my foot.

Rob: 16:50

And it.

Jeff Steitzer: 16:51

The needle, not a nail a needle and the needle broke off. So now there's a needle in my foot, and so the stage manager came up and she tried to get it out. She's poking around trying to get the needle out.

Chris: 17:04

She can't get it.

Jeff Steitzer: 17:06

So they take me to the emergency room and they go in there and a couple of people there try and they're poking around. They can't get it out. Then there's somebody else who's supposed to be better, so they have to call him. He's on a Zoom call and he's looking at the x-rays while he's trying to tell you know, show other people how to get rid of it, couldn't get it out.

Jeff Steitzer: 17:26

So I had to go back and I thought that's it. I can't do the show. But when I got back to the theater they said we, we want it. You want you to stay in the show you know we don't want you to leave.

Jeff Steitzer: 17:36

The show must go on I'm doing a lot of running around in the show and I'm dancing in the show and singing in the show, and they said we think we've got a solution. What we're going to do is going to take a wheelchair and we are going to decorate it so it looks like a chariot and then we are going to have one of the proteans push you around throughout the show. So it was great, because everybody else by the end of you know, everybody ought to have a maid was huffing and puffing and I'm just like, I'm just sitting in a chair.

Rob: 18:06

Yeah.

Jeff Steitzer: 18:09

It was spectacular. So that, and God what else. Singing in the Rain I did and some new musicals I did. I've done a lot. Musical theater was how I got into the theater in the first place.

Josh: 18:25

Yeah, I was going to ask so. Did theater lead to the voice acting? Is that how that? Oh, yeah, oh yeah, absolutely.

Jeff Steitzer: 18:31

What had happened was when I was growing up and this is not unusual, I don't think for a lot of people who grew up in the 1950s and 60s like I did families, because it was popular music of the time, used to have LPs of musical theater and Julie Andrews, you had the Sound of Music with Mary Martin, you had, you know, whatever it might be. We had Wildcat with Lucille Ball, which, perversely, is one of my favorite shows Shouldn't be, but I love it. And I had a teacher in the fourth grade who did semi-professional. She was semi-professional, she did theater in a lot of the theaters in San Diego and one of the last things I did before I left town I was supposed to be auditioning for what was either going to be the Wizard of Oz as a child actor now 10 years old the Wizard of Oz or Peter Pan. Missed out on both of those, but I did get to see my teacher in a production of the Pajama Game where she was prancing around as may.

Jeff Steitzer: 19:38

She wasa very stocky woman who was chasing this guy around great number and, uh, afterwards she had me come backstage and I got to meet the man who was playing the lead, who, as it happens, was the guy who created the role and did it in the movie john Rea it. So that was incredibly cool and we were sitting and talking. At one point he said you know, I've got a little girl just about your age. And I was like, oh really. And years later I realized that, in addition to being, you know, talking to somebody I knew from albums that we had in the house he had done, and he, um, uh, uh, annie, get your Gun with Mary Martin on tour and they made a record of it and we had that. Uh, he was also the father of Bonnie Raitt the singer.

Jeff Steitzer: 20:24

That was the little girl who was about my age, oh wow.

Jeff Steitzer: 20:28

What a connection so that's how it got started, yeah. And then years later, you know it sort of I didn't do much with it. And then I got into junior high, got into a play, started doing a lot of plays, went all the way through high school and college and went out to, came out to Seattle and got an audition for an ensemble in a company here and was asked to join. And it was while I was doing that that a lot of the local folks who did commercials here, who came to see the work of this particular company because we were pretty wild and wacky, we were, you know, rock and roll theater they were offering us work. Just, I mean no auditions, it's just like what are you? Are you free to come and do a commercial? I was like, yeah, okay, and that's how it all started.

Josh: 21:16

Yeah, we'll show up for the paycheck, right.

Jeff Steitzer: 21:18

Absolutely. I mean considering that we were making no money. We were making $60 a week in the theater company oh my goodness. Now, yeah, figure that out by a month but of course rent was $150, you know, in Seattle you said At that point yeah, wow, we're talking about 1975, jeff, I appreciate you so much.

Matt: 21:44

I wanted to ask you one more question before we close. Where did that announcer voice come from for the game? Yes, how did that halo announcer voice where? How'd that come well?

Jeff Steitzer: 21:53

I can tell you. Can tell you, I originally auditioned, as did every man in Seattle, for Master Chief. That's the copy they had. Plus, there was a little bit of an alien that we read, as I recall, and then we also had to scream as if we were being massacred at the end of the audition. At the end too. They didn't want you to do it at the beginning because they didn't want, you know, shoot your wad. So I did that, and you know it's a long story not worth going into.

Jeff Steitzer: 22:19

But I was told initially that I was going to be master chief and I was kind of like oh okay, great, but remember, I don't know what a master chief is you know right so all my friends were going in recording, including Jen Taylor who I had known and locally, and David Scully who was Sergeant Johnson, all those folks, they were all doing their work and I hadn't been called. So I called my agent, which I had by that time For years, I didn't Just kept getting work and I said what's going on? So he said I'll check and see. She came back and said well, turns out Marty O'Donnell, you know, doesn't know you. So apparently he got kind of got cold feet. That's what she said. He disputes, that that's what she said. And so he decided to work with somebody he knew in Chicago. She said but the good news is they want you to be the announcer. And I was like, oh, an announcer, cause you know, an announcer is kind of a craft music hall kind of thing.

Jeff Steitzer: 23:17

Back in those days I mean.

Jeff Steitzer: 23:18

I thought what's that going to be? But I thought, okay, great. So, you know, because works, work. So I went in for my first day and Marty met me and, you know, introduced me around. I got to see all the stuff that was being worked on. I saw a halo ring. I had no idea what I was looking at, but it was pretty cool and we went in to record.

Jeff Steitzer: 23:39

He said, ok, so what are we going to do for the voice of this guy? What do you? What is, what should he sound like? And I said I don't know, what do you, what are you looking for? And he said, well, you did you audition for chief, right? And I said, yeah, which was kind of a, you know, there was sort of clint eastwood kind of thing that everybody was doing and you know said, okay, we can start with a little of that. He said can you do monster truck rally, monster truck rally? I said, yes, I think I can. He said, great. And he said and didn't you do an alien? And I, I did do an alien. It was sort of like this or something. Whatever he said, mushed it all together and after about 20 minutes we'd come up with something. He said I think we got it and I was like, okay, great, and that was the voice. Wow, that's exactly how it happened.

Matt: 24:34

Can I ask you for a Killianaire before you go?

Jeff Steitzer: 24:37

Of course, killianaire.

Rob: 24:41

Yeah.

Matt: 24:42

Thank you very much.

Rob: 24:43

You're very welcome. Wow, wow, wow, what a pleasure, jeff.

Matt: 24:47

Thank you so much for joining us my pleasure.

Jeff Steitzer: 24:49

I really appreciate it. Thank you guys so much for asking. I appreciate it.

Chris: 24:57

This podcast is a production of unfiltered studios. If you would like to know more about joining unfiltered studios, please visit our website at unfpodcom for more information.

Matt: 25:05

The boozy quote for this episode will be a little riff on a famous line from Halo chief what are you doing in this bar, sir? Finishing this flight? On social media, please like, follow and push all the buttons for us. That's Matt and Friends DTU at Facebook, instagram Threads and TikTok For more information about the podcast, as well as links to our merch store, social media and all the places you can listen to us. Visit our website mattandfriendsdtucom. That's mattandfriendsdtucom. Thank you again for listening to Matt and Friends Drink the Universe.