Five questions with Steve Poltz: He’s back in San Diego, with a Lifetime Achievement Award coming his way

If you’ve noticed a recent uptick in local appearances by quintessential San Diego singer-songwriter Steve Poltz, who relocated to Nashville in 2016, it’s not because he’s been visiting a lot more often. 

Poltz and his wife, Sharon, recently moved back to town — just in time for Steve to receive the Country Dick Montana Lifetime Achievement Award at the 35th Annual San Diego Music Awards.

It’s not the first time Poltz has received a big SDMA honor. In 2000, the awards named him San Diego’s Most Influential Artist of the 1990s. From co-writing Jewel’s 1996 pop smash “You Were Meant For Me,” to national touring and recording with offbeat music-and-comedy group the Rugburns, to more than a dozen albums under his own name, Poltz has been one of the most accomplished San Diego musicians of his generation.

Talking with Poltz is like getting an informal history lesson covering 30 years of San Diego music. He waxes poetic about long-gone venues such as Drowsy Maggie’s, Mandolin Wind, Java Joe’s, the Pink Panther and the Old Time Cafe. He talks about befriending late, great San Diego luminaries such as Buddy Blue, Mojo Nixon and Country Dick Montana in his younger days. He shares hilarious day-job memories of “learning microphone control” by calling out orders at Round Table Pizza in La Mesa and working as a “nipple salesman” for AMS Plastics in El Cajon.

Born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, in 1960, Poltz moved with his family to Pasadena and then Palm Springs before heading to San Diego for college in 1978. We spoke with him by phone recently while he was on tour in Canada to support his new album JoyRide, heading west across the Great White North before flying south to San Diego in time for the Music Awards on Wednesday at Humphreys by the Bay.

1. How long have you been back in San Diego, and what led you to move back after 10 years in Nashville?

I always said I was going to “retire” in San Diego, because it’s just so easy to live there. I didn’t really want to leave Nashville, but my wife really wanted to get back, and I had said that I would. So we ended up moving back in October. We live right by North Torrey Pines State Beach. I said to my wife, Sharon, that I wasn’t going to move back unless I lived walking-distance to the beach. That was my one parameter. She really wanted to get back. She did not like the weather in Nashville, but she loved the community and all the friends. I could have stayed there another 10 years, but she wanted to get back. And you know what they say: Happy wife, happy no knife in your neck.

Not that I didn’t want to go back to San Diego, because I love it. I just didn’t think everything would happen so fast. I said that I have to live at the beach because I lived at Windansea in La Jolla for 30 years, right on the ocean in a little apartment. So I’m kind of spoiled. We got really lucky and found a little townhouse. With my folk-music savings, I was able to buy a tiny little place, but it’s at the beach and that’s all I cared about. We sold a place (in Nashville) that was four bedrooms, three baths on half an acre, next to all these great musicians. It was really fun for me to live there, because everybody loved co-writing.

But the moment I got back to San Diego and I went for a walk on the beach, I was so happy to feel my toes in the sand and the sun. We just leave our windows open — no bugs fly in. I can’t believe I have this little place and I don’t ever want to move again. I have such a crazy, peripatetic lifestyle, where I’m constantly bouncing from airport to rental car to hotel to another rental car to another flight. So being back in San Diego, it’s so livable. My beloved Padres are there, I’ve got a lot of friends, and I love the proximity to Mexico. There’s so many things I love about San Diego.

2. What was the reason for moving to Nashville 10 years ago?

You know, I never wanted to move. But I play a lot of festivals and a lot of times, my wife is with me. She’d say, “Everybody lives in Nashville.” We’d be hanging backstage and running (into) different Nashville people, like Buddy Miller or whoever. And my wife said, “I think you should live in Nashville.” We actually got in a fight about it. I say the dumbest things when I get angry. And I said to her, “I’m not leaving San Diego. I AM San Diego!” She looked at me with this incredulous look, like, “What did you say?” And I realized how embarrassing it sounded. I couldn’t believe I said that.

So we went out there, and she said, “I think we should buy a house together.” So we did, and that was the best move I ever made, because we bought that house at the right time. It doubled in value, and that was how I was able to get this place we have now in San Diego. I owe it to her and me moving to Nashville. Everything just fell into place there. It was almost stupid. When I got there, everybody wanted to write songs with me. It was very easy. So it went from me saying, “I AM San Diego, I’m never moving from here,” to me then saying to her when she said she wanted to move back, “I don’t want to move.” She said to me, “I didn’t know when I married you that I was marrying someone who grew roots wherever he was.” And that really made me laugh, because I kind of do. I think it’s because I’ve been nonstop on the road since the early 90s, so I like having that one little place where I can hang my hat.

3. You’re a Canadian by birth, but your family moved to Southern California when you were still living with your parents. How did you end up in San Diego?

I graduated from Palm Springs High School in 1978, and then I moved to San Diego. I went to San Diego State and to Mesa College and to Grossmont College. I studied classical guitar at Grossmont College because they had a classical guitar program led by this guy named Miles Moynier. I really got along with him well. We would play classical guitar duets, which I was really into. He was playing gigs in Mexican restaurants in San Diego. One of them was a restaurant in La Mesa called Por Favor. Another was El Amigo in El Cajon.

One day he said, “Hey, man, I double-booked myself, so I recommended you to play at Por Favor.” They fed me before the gig, and I would get to eat after. They gave me 30 bucks. I’d sit in the corner and play; I’d sight-read all these classical guitar pieces. And then Miles was like, “I’m too busy teaching, why don’t you take over my gigs?” So I was playing four nights a week at Por Favor and three nights a week at El Amigo, four-to-five-hour classical guitar gigs every night. I would leave there and I would be so at peace, because the songs were all instrumentals that would put me in this zen state.

4. You later attended University of San Diego and got your degree in political science there. What were you doing musically at that time?

That’s when the Rugburns started. We actually started as a classical guitar duo, me and Rob Driscoll, because he also played classical guitar. We would play classical guitar duets for change in Balboa Park. We started playing a place called Drowsy Maggie’s that was in North Park. I met this guy named Larry Brown, who was an encyclopedia of cool stuff. He ran the open-mic night at Drowsy Maggie’s. Larry took a liking to me and he would play me songs. He never wrote a song, but he knew all these songs and he was a great flatpicker. He would go, “You ever heard of Townes Van Zandt?” And I’d be like, “No.” And he’d sing “White Freight Liner Blues.” Then he’d say, “This is a Paul Westerberg song,” and he would sing “If Only You Were Lonely.”

5. Finally, what does it mean to you to get the Country Dick Montana Lifetime Achievement Award from the San Diego Music Awards?

Well, first of all, I feel like I’m too young. I’m only 66 but I still feel like I’m 20. But I’m thrilled because it’s named after Country Dick Montana. He was one of my teachers and so the fact that it has his name attached to it, I’m tickled pink by that. I love that.

I don’t really like awards for the most part, because they’re kind of embarrassing. It’s not false modesty, I promise you. I just don’t want too much attention. And I think there’s probably a lot better people they could have picked for this award. I don’t know how I stumbled into this. I got into it because I just love the joy of music and I love the discovery of music.