Steph Payne (Photo by Enlightened Entertainment)

Steph Payne

From the Military to the Ministry to the Main Stage

BY STACEY GUALANDI / PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY OF STEPH PAYNE

After a recent performance in front of a packed audience, singer/songwriter Steph Payne was beaming. She still couldn’t believe what happened when she finished her set. “A man in the audience gave me a $5,000 cash tip!”

Mind you, Payne’s sultry singing, glamorous good looks, and compelling charisma (or rizz as we say now) are worth that and more, but for her, this was a sign the main stage is where she’s meant to be.

“Right now, I’m following my dream,” said the award-winning artist. “I’m finally pursuing what I’ve always wanted to do.”

In just four short years, the Pasadena transplant has made a name for herself in Sin City as audiences keep boarding the “Steph Payne Express.” But if you’re new to her act, this passionate performer is equal parts sass, soul, and smooth jazz, with a side of gospel.

“I do a lot of things off the cuff, and I sing many different genres of music,” said Payne. “I think my motive is to make people walk away entertained, fulfilled, and feeling better than when they came in. If I can accomplish that, then I’ve done my job.”

On any given night, Payne is fully engaged on each end of the Strip, whether at the much-in-demand Delilah Supper Club inside Wynn Las Vegas, the iconic Bootlegger Bistro, or her new steady gig at Venetian’s Villa Azur. When she’s not in front of an audience, Payne is live on the air as the host of “Saturday Classics” on 91.5 KUNV FM Radio.

“I’m just in a place where I’m having fun doing what I love,” said Payne, 42. “A lot of people in this business have been doing it since they were kids. I did everything else first.”

Payne grew up in the church in Los Angeles. She came from a mixed-race, hardworking family: her grandmother was Scandinavian, her mom was “mostly white,” and her dad is Black.

“Growing up, the Black side of my family was Baptist, and the white side was Charismatic (Church). I grew up listening to different people speak, so I’m not one or the other,” said Payne. “I’m somewhere in between.”

Her mom was a police officer, and her dad—who played drums—went from managing rundown apartment buildings to being the union chairman for LA rail car and bus drivers. “I’ve always loved and looked up to my parents and wanted to be like them.”

Payne said while she never got to meet her grandfather, actor Jimmy Payne—who appeared in the film “The Arrangement” with Kirk Douglas and in a recurring villain role on the 60s series “Get Smart”—she credits him for her talent.

“I feel it in my blood, and a lot of it comes naturally,” said Payne. “I don’t rehearse much of what I do; it just comes to me.”

(Payne says she is so proud of what he accomplished as a Black entertainer and boasts that his picture is hanging above hers inside Battista’s Hole in the Wall near the Flamingo!)

Music was all around her growing up. Payne sang in glee club, and the church choir, and her parents always made instruments available to her, but they “never forced me to play.”

Payne said they were strict, however, so at 12, to escape the “family regime,” she went to work parking cars at the Rose Bowl. “I just wanted to be independent,” said Payne. “When you’re that age, you think you’ve got it down.”

By the time Payne entered junior college, she was a skilled athlete, excelling on the basketball court, not in class. A cousin she looked up to suggested she needed discipline, so why not check out the U.S. Air Force?

“So, that’s what I did,” said Payne. “I walked into the recruiting office one day…they were out to lunch at three o’clock in the afternoon, so the Army recruiter came out and said, ‘Well, why don’t you listen to what we have to offer while you wait?’ I signed up, walked out, and never talked to the Air Force.”

It was 2000, and a 19-year-old Payne began her six-year service in the military.

“Bootcamp was scary,” said Payne. “That initial part of going in, they treat you like cattle, [but] it teaches you mental discipline. There are some very traumatic emotional things that you go through during that training, and you have to supersede your emotions and just stay in control and use your brain.”

Payne luckily didn’t see combat in Iraq, but she did serve during the attack on the Twin Towers and throughout the war under two presidents.

“I was military intelligence, so most of my work was operational versus tactical,” said Payne. “I got really good at my job, so I just started leveling up within the intelligence circle.”

She earned top-secret clearance as an analyst working in national security and surveillance. When asked what secrets she could share, Payne said she could tell me, but then she’d…well, you know.

She credits her tour of duty in the Army with giving her thick skin, a trait that now serves her well as a performer.

“You really have to think past what your emotions tell you,” said Payne. “It helps me not to care about certain things that other performers care about in entertainment and not to take things personally.”

Perhaps it makes perfect sense that Payne would transition from her post to the pulpit after having spent her formative years in church.

“I’ve always been some kind of servant, whether being a soldier in the Army or doing ministry.”

Payne was a successful speaker in California congregations for nearly a decade.

“I think that the military honed those characteristics in me: the leadership part, the public speaking part, the being able to keep an audience entertained part,” said Payne. “That’s a big part of preaching and speaking in the church, too, ’cause people will fall asleep on you.”

She learned a lot studying religions, especially the power of positive thinking, but ultimately, the stress and sacrifice in ministry forced Payne to move on.

“There was a point in time when I grew out of that stage in my life, and I wanted to pursue other things.”

At the same time, Payne was busy raising fraternal twin girls, now 15, and starting to create and record original gospel music in Los Angeles. Some of her early gospel “she-roes” include the Clark Sisters.

“Gospel singers are the best singers in the world. They’re not all classically trained; it’s just a gift.”

But life would take another unexpected turn when her then-husband moved Payne and the girls to Las Vegas to be near family in 2019. Her grandmother was diagnosed with dementia, and they were looking for a better lifestyle.

“I didn’t come here to sing,” admitted Payne of the move to Vegas.

But it was only a matter of time before her long-held-yet-not-fully-realized dream to be in showbiz became a reality.

“It just called to me, so I started singing at open mics,” said Payne. “Then I joined a couple of bands, worked the lounge circuit off the Strip, and eventually started my own band…I actually opened my first show in a major casino!”

While a whole new scene opened up in Las Vegas for Payne, it was like the military all over again. “Vegas has its own boot camp,” joked Payne. “The entertainment community here is very close-knit and very protective. You have to break through and prove yourself, but I appreciate that you have to work hard in this town to make a name for yourself.”

It was her intelligence background, said Payne, that helped her analyze the market to see what worked and what didn’t for artists who’ve been performing in Las Vegas for decades.

“I’m okay with taking the long road…rather than using shortcuts; that’s what gets people in trouble in entertainment,” said Payne. “I think I could have gotten to this point if I had done this all my life, but I think I am better off having the career path I had. I’m not surprised that I’m here, but I’m extremely grateful.”

But having a music career can take its toll on a marriage. The constant push-pull of performing eventually came between Payne and her husband, and their marriage ended.

“I think with the divorce, that was a sacrifice of my family unit,” said Payne. “It’s the music business that ruined it, so when I hear people say, ‘Oh, you did this so fast!’ it wasn’t without sacrifice.”

Payne gets teary when the subject turns to her two daughters, who live part-time with her in Las Vegas. She says her number one goal has always been to be a role model for them now and long after she’s gone.

“I want to be someone my girls can be proud of,” said Payne. “I just always want to leave my mark and be a positive example for my kids that they can do better.”

Payne is no doubt leaving her mark. She recently won an Emmy Award for “Legends Unite for St. Jude,” a musical television production with Skip Martin (of the Dazz Band) and David Cook.

In 2023, she crushed her number one goal to not only perform her Soul Fusion show on Myron’s stage at The Smith Center in downtown Las Vegas but also to sing her original song “Hide Out” for the first time.

“If I start to feel pigeonholed, I’ll do something completely off the map,” said Payne. “When I did Soul Fusion, I felt like I had reached the pinnacle in Las Vegas… now it’s time to go higher.”

Payne is also back in her home studio recording more original music, a smooth jazz project with legendary musical director (and Barry Manilow keyboardist) Joey Melotti.

And for those who missed it, she’ll return to Myron’s on February 20th for a new iteration of her Soul Fusion show.

“If there is one word to describe me, it’s ‘chameleon,’” said Payne. “I always do something people don’t expect me to do, and I feel like I can change when I want.”

With her present and future looking so bright, I had to ask who would play her in an eventual biopic. Payne has narrowed it down to two: Vampire Diaries actress-singer-songwriter Kat Graham, or Loki and Morning Show actress Gugu Mbatha-Raw. We shall wait and see!

For now, Payne hopes her path from the military to the ministry to the main stage proves that it’s never too late to pursue a dream.

“There’s a lot of different facets that you have to deal with as a woman and as a woman of color,” added Payne. “Just know who you are and stand strong in that. Be professional, always. Don’t take anything personally. Don’t get discouraged. Brush it off, let it go, and know you can do whatever you want.”

Look who’s giving a big tip now!