Features
VOL. 21 NO. 21, August 7-13, 2000
Profile
Making music balances
controller’s life
By Lori Pugh
IBJ Reporter

IBJ File Photo/Robin Jerstad

Steve and Fayrene Fouty perform at a wedding reception in Indianapolis’ Riley Towers.

Cranking numbers by day and guitar chords by night is how Steve Fouty reconciles his left and right brains.

Fouty, the controller for Indianapolis start-up Mezzia Inc., and his wife, Fayrene, typically hit the road on summer weekends performing spiritual songs they’ve written, as well as covers of several rock and country tunes.

The weekend gigs take Steve far away from the spreadsheets and figures that occupy his weekdays and provide the Libra with the balance he seeks in his life.

“I’m not the musician [who] doesn’t show up on time and I’m not the accountant [who] works 14 hours a day and work is everything,” he said.

Steve compares his and Fayrene’s musical style to that of The Judds, the renowned mother-daughter country music duo.

“They put a lot of spirituality in their music and we do, too,” said Steve, who provides harmonies and plays the keyboard and guitar, while Fayrene serves as the couple’s country/blues voice talent. A laptop computer plays most of the background music for the couple’s regular performances at weddings, conventions, parties and concerts.

Although the Foutys began performing together in 1987 as part of a traveling evangelist team, their songs do not focus on religion. Instead, most of them have to do with love and relationships.

Typically, Fayrene comes up with the song concept, Steve refines it into words, and Fayrene edits his final version. Right now, Fayrene is toying with the idea of a song explaining a couple’s outlook on love and life based on their choice of seats on an airplane. Fayrene and Steve call the man, occupying a place near the window, the “window man,” because he is still looking around for love and is not yet settled. The woman, called the “aisle woman,” already knows what she wants.

“That will be a hit,” Fayrene said confidently.

In the winter, Steve and Fayrene hibernate in their studio where they’re working on two new CDs. They’ve already produced a cassette, “Love Yourself,” which explores reggae, rhythm and blues, and tribal music, as well as a CD titled “Rhythm of Life.”

Though an earlier attempt to make a go of a full-time performing career in Nashville, Tenn., didn’t quite work out, the Foutys still dream of hitting it big someday.

Their most recent brush with fame came with “Chase Away the Blues,” a song on their “Rhythm of Life” recording. The song ranked in the top 10 downloads in the blues/vocals category for a while on mp3.com’s Web site.