The story so far:
About 20 years ago, I was in a hallway in a music college, in my first year of a music composition program, when the composition professor happened to be waiting in the same hallway.
I showed him a printout of a simple Nine Inch Nails-flavored piece I was working on. I did not realize that he had a profound distaste for popular music; he briefly looked at it, dropped it on the floor, and said,
“stop making music.”
I didn’t take his advice, but I did stop telling anyone I was making it, until a few years ago. I was listening to Taylor Swift—as one does—specifically to The Archer, from the album Lover. I really liked the song, but it just … ends. I thought,
“What?! I could write a better ending!”
Some part of my mind responded: “Yeah? Well, prove it.” I had been writing unfinished demos for 2 decades, all the while telling myself I could write a great album, if I ever got around to it. If I waited another 20 without finishing anything … how much time would I have left? So I started taking production more seriously, bought some gear, and learned some things. And then, almost to prove my own point in the darkest possible way,
everyone started dying.
Four years later, I’ve lost a lot of family, pets, and more besides; but I am also still here, and am doing pretty well all things considered. I wrote an album titled, NOTHING IS EASY and it was only in retrospect that I realized how much it was about grief and finding purpose in the time I have left. I decided it was time to come out of my self-imposed musical isolation. It was time to finish the album I always said I could make, and find my people to make more, better music after that was finished …
– Steve
Release Schedule:
- September 9
Heavy Metal Mama
3-track single - October
It Might Be Fine (But I Just Don’t Know)
3-track single - November
Nothing Is Easy
8-track album
- December
Untitled EP of cover songs - January
All-Nighter
Single - February
Shadow Over Johnny Ringo’s Grave
Single