Steve Stevens      
Biography

 
Steve was born in Brooklyn on May 5^th 1959
to parents Ruth & Edward Schneider, brother to Eric.
He describes his childhood as normal & happy.

His first schools were the Public School 104 in Far Rockaway &
Junior High School 180 in Rockaway Beach.
He then progressed to the High School of the Performing Arts (of Flashdance fame) but it was here he decided that ‘instinct’ & ‘experience’ would be a better education for him than ‘schooling’& didn’t complete the course..

His father bought himself a guitar when Steve was about 7 & Steve says he was drawn immediately to it. He found he had a natural aptitude for it & would practice sometimes for 4 or 5 hours every day.

He attended a music day camp for 3 summers at The Usdan Center For the Arts.

    ( http://www.Usdan.com/ )  where Maria Carey also attended.

Steve says he loved this place & he soon discovered his love for Flamenco guitar.

One of his first guitar teachers was a flamenco guitarist & whilst he was at the Performing Arts School, one of the students was Mario Escodero Jr. and his father Sr., was the guitarist for the Jose Greco Dance Company.

Around this time Steve became aware of Paco De Lucia & was also a John McLaughlin fan & his love of the nylon string grew.

Steve grew up in New York & in his neighbourhood, Rockaway Beach,
 nearly everyone played guitar.

Steve recalls many happy memories of warm carefree evenings, sitting on the beach with his pals, jamming into the night & whilst still only a teenager he was playing live in just about every club in Long Island & the outer boroughs of New York.
He played a number of times with Twisted Sister on this circuit. across New York
 up to four times a week.

Things could have been very different however…

When he was about 13, Steve spent a short time working in a young ladies bra factory (Teenform bras) a company owned by the drummer's father.
Steve suffered a severe accident there in which his right hand was
 sucked into a conveyor belt.
After being rushed to the hospital he was fired,
which Steve says was fine with him…
as he was just happy to walk away with his hand!
The machinery pulled the entire skin off of the bottom of his right hand
 & he was in a bandage for the next month.
 He knew anyway that his heart would always be in his music.

 The first step along this road was in 1979 when Steve played in a band called
 One Hand Clap & it was here that he hooked up with Ray Melnik.
 

They played Long Island clubs almost six nights a week
for about a year and gained quite a following.
Steve eventually moved on to join the Fine Malibus in New York City.

  The Fine Malibus all lived and rehearsed in a 3000 square foot loft on west 30th street.
There were band members, girlfriends and road crew.
Here Steve was forever wiring his gadgets, sound boards and effects units, playing different sounds into the pickups of his guitar and wiring unusual lights and things to his

 effects board.        
They played clubs all across Long Island. 

They caught the attention of Jimmy Miller who originally produced some of the first Rolling Stones albums and he arranged for them to record an album at Nassau, Bahamas - Compass Point studios, which was funded by Chris Blackwell of Island Records. They spent 2 months there in 1981 and even played a local club at night.
 They wrote & recorded an album of the same name with Island Records
but it was never released.
Steve began to feel restless & decided to move on.
He started placing ads in the Village Voice looking for other musicians.

 On the other side of the Atlantic at this time,
something else very significant was taking place.
Billy Idol had decided to split from his band Generation X
& move to America in a bid to launch a solo career.
Bill Aucoin introduced them to each other in 1981 & their differences,
both visual & background soon proved to work in a complimentary way.
It was not too long before these combined talents
were unleashed on the rest of the world.



Steve initially agreed to help Billy find a band & help with the auditions.
Steve says he never had an audition himself, it just kind of ‘happened’ & ‘assumed’
 that he would fill the guitarists slot.

 Billy Idol (the self titled album) was released in 1982
& Steve recalls how the songs came together using their individual experiences & talents. Some of the songs were  written in the basement of Steve’s parents home; Billy would come around with some lyrics & Steve would work some loops & grooves around them & the combined magic very quickly culminated into the legendry songs still played & loved across the world today.

 Rebel Yell followed in 1983 & Steve says still today that it is one of the albums he is most proud of. The band embarked on a gruelling 2 year world wide tour & massive acclaim grew for Steve in his own right.

 Whiplash Smile took a while to produce. Steve is quoted as saying he was not totally happy with the new direction the album was taking, in particular the use of the electronics, (a drum machine & synthesisers) leaving no requirement for other musicians. Steve said he felt this affected the overall feel of the material, preferring to have other live musicians to work off.
None the less Whiplash was released in 1986 & quickly went double platinum.

During this time Steve was offered a contract with Warner Brothers & decided he would like to take the opportunity to work on some solo material.

Atomic Playboys with Perry McCarthy on vocals hit the street in 1989
& Steve toured across America to promote it.

 It was during this time that Steve decided he wanted to really concentrate
on the MUSIC in his life.
 The early 80’s had been a wild & crazy time & Steve wanted his music to be the main focus from now on.

Steve went on to work with many artists on many different types of projects:
Juno Reactor with Ben Watkins, Faudel, Gregg Bissonette,
Chris Squire & Billy Sherwood.
He released two emotive albums with Terry Bozzio & Tony Levin
 & wrote, recorded & performed with the Japanese artist Kyosuke Himuro.

He wrote the Soundtrack for the award winning movie Top Gun
 for which he received a grammy.
He worked also with Vas, Steve Lukather, Adam Bomb, Robert Palmer,
 Harold Faltermeyer, Joni Mitchell, The Thompson Twins, Ric Ocasek,
Simon F, Peter Criss, Jerusalem Slim, McQueen Street, Michael Jackson
 & wrote, recorded & toured extensively with Vince Neil.

          

(See Discography page for complete listings)

Eventually he came to feel that the fans weren’t actually LISTENING to him,
or at least not to the content of what he was playing.
He decided he needed to find a way to demonstrate his real musical expression.

He spent an evening  watching a performance by Paco DeLucia & watched as the fans sat GRIPPED in appreciation of what they were hearing.
Steve wanted to reach his audiences in the same way
& thoughts of his flamenco love began to flower.

The Flamenco A Go Go album was released in 1999 & Steve describes this as his other proudest achievement & has clearly put his heart & sole into it.
It is a perfect example of Steve’s exceptional talent, as a musician, writer,
technician & producer.
Steve says he enjoyed this project immensely & felt he had been able to express himself musically in a way that fans would really want to LISTEN to.
It reflects many of Steve’s deep emotions & experiences.

It was 12 years since Steve had parted from his friend & writing companion Billy Idol & he began to wonder what they could do together as a team again, now that they had both had some years to follow their own directions.
He went to see him play one evening & approached him after the show.
Their strong friendship bond had survived the years & they fell easily back into their writing partnership. The results of which, they demonstrated to their fans in a series of tours across America & Australia throughout 1999 to 2002.

It included a live Storytellers show for VH1
& a feature in the Billy Idol: Behind the Music production, also for VH1

Such was the response that they decided to put together some material for a new CD.

 Steve is constantly active in many projects, but his main focus at the moment is completing the new album with Billy & a possible tour to promote it.
He commuted between New York & LA for some time for work issues & decided to move to LA permanently in 1994. Steve says he greatly misses his home town New York, but is settled now in LA. He has spent several years building his own home studio at his luxury apartment & a lot of his work is done here. You can see a picture of this (The Purple Room) on the Latest News Page.

During his limited free time Steve likes to dine with friends, relax watching a good movie (especially comedies) hike, workout & read. He also has a great affection for cats, although he doesn’t have any at the moment.
For more information you can read Steve’s ‘Personal & Professional Q’s’

on the INTERVIEW link.