Three Music Thingz with Super Steve (Steve Delamater)
We are so back with another rendition of Three Music Thingz, the blogseries where I ask musicians for three thingz that are essential to their music-making.
Today we have Super Steve! That's the six-piece nerd rock band led by L.A.'s own Steve Delamater. They've got a fresh album out called Don't Rush The Punchline and it's a wild ride, taking you from from a day of pounding the pavement selling Girl Scout cookies "as a full-grown man to other adults my age" (that one's "Minimum Wage," and it rips) to a haunted sailboat ride into a shark-filled ocean. There's a lot of comedy here...and, dare I say it...even more heart.
My favorite track is "The Middle," a power pop song about human efficiency (getting your 10,000 steps, doing the dishes) going to head to head with human entropy (anxiety and depression). "Another beautiful day where you get to decide just what falls through the cracks," Delamater sings; the song has a very catchy chorus and a surprise death metal breakdown on the bridge. I did feel personally targeted by the line "No one cares about your parallel parking method / Or your eclectic taste in music" because I pride myself on both but that's how you know a song is good—when it gets your ass.
The band is really cooking on this one, like Escoffier kitchen brigade style, sauciers and rôtisseurs and what not. Great punchy production from I Enjoy Music fave Sun Kin, and participation from members of great bands like Cheekface, Pacing, and Fierce Invalids; Delamater is a goofily charismatic learder of it all. And guess what? He shared his Three Music Thingz with the blog. Read them now...
Lists
Mitch Hedberg had a joke about how he writes down all his ideas... unless the pen is too far away. In which case he has to convince himself that the joke isn't funny. Personally, I refuse to be convinced otherwise. I write down EVERYTHING. Every Jeopardy-caliber before and after. Every saccharine thought about love and sadness. Every single bad idea. A lot of people think that they're not creative. They are. They just don't write down their thoughts. And I wish more people did.
Peter Pan
During my childhood summers in the 90s, I spent Sunday afternoons watching movies on KTLA. I recall a bizarre mix of Steve Martin and Arnold Schwarzenegger films on heavy rotation (not sure why I was allowed to watch these). My favorite film in the Sunday lineup was Dustin Hoffman's undisputed greatest film performance, Hook. It remains my favorite film to this day. The story of a boy who grew up despite a vow that he never would. And then he attempts to rediscover the magic. The movie explores themes of loss, hope, fear, joy, and courage. All ideas I try to dissect in the writing process. All the feels that make life worth living.
Surrender to the Process
When I made home demos in my early 20s, I could easily spend an entire day mapping out arrangements, recording individual parts onto my Zoom PS-04, and then mixing tracks in Audacity (WITHOUT A MOUSE). I got lost in the process. Working with my friend and producer Kabir (aka Sun Kin) I soon discovered that he had the same MO. We spent countless hours pitch shifting vocals, repeating jokes until they became lyrics, finding the perfect sound effect of a baby crying, turning an acoustic jingle into a full blown rodeo, figuring out the wrong way to record a 3-piece horn section, and recording guiro tracks only to realize that it didn't serve the music. There was no ego. We were consumed by a process that we loved. In the words of Lt. Commander Data, the effort yields its own rewards.
Thank you Steve! Listen to Don't Rush The Punchline, out now. The Bandcamp embed is on the fritz but the link to that is here.
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