Hip young bands embracing steel guitar...the future?

Joel McCoy · Post by **Joel McCoy** » 19 Jun 2014 10:46 am

I know it's been discussed multiple times on this forum how the steel guitar is either perceived as an old man's instrument or an instrument used primarily in older music and I wanted to tell you guy's about a new group that's touring out there called "Steelisim". These guy's are young and are plugged into the hipster (I am NOT a Hipster btw..to fat for skinny jeans..) music scene. They opened for another TERRIFIC new band called "St Paul and the Broken Bones" who hail from Birmingham AL. Technically, they are not dazzling, but just imagine how many 20 something's are getting turned on to the awesomeness of the Steel Guitar through these guys! I'm sure they are not the only ones but I wanted to share anyway. Anybody care to list some more bands they know of that are doing the same?

scott murray · Post by **scott murray** » 19 Jun 2014 12:02 pm

my band Raising Caine played the huge Bonnaroo festival last week. i'm pretty sure we were the only band on the entire bill with a steel guitar.

Joel McCoy · Post by **Joel McCoy** » 19 Jun 2014 12:19 pm

Hey Scott, way to go playing Bonnaroo! That must have been fun! I tried to find your band online but there are a couple of bands called raising cane...you got a link to your stuff? I'd love to check it out...

Joel McCoy · Post by **Joel McCoy** » 19 Jun 2014 12:21 pm

ok, i was spelling it wrong...D'oh!

Joel McCoy · Post by **Joel McCoy** » 19 Jun 2014 12:29 pm

Nice playing man! Nice 'Bud too! What amp are you using? I see a Twin in the Isis vids...but it looks like it's the guitar players amp..?

Jon Light · Post by **Jon Light** » 19 Jun 2014 1:36 pm

@Scott---I believe you had Amos Lee there with Andrew Jay Keenan on steel. Not important. Just filling in details.

Don't sweat all the negative talk on the forum, Joel. There are a lot of people here who sit at their computers and complain about the steel when there is one, just killing time waiting for dinner or death or the cialis to kick in or something.

Joel McCoy · Post by **Joel McCoy** » 19 Jun 2014 4:03 pm

Yeah, the sad thing is that a lot of young cats are probably turned off from getting further into the instrument because there is this dis-approving cluck clucking that comes from some directions. In order for something to grow it has to have space. It's kinda like all the hatred that gets thrown at Jerry Garcia about his steel playing. Sure he wasn't a legendary figure of the instrument, and played simple lines BUT...he was ALWAYS tasteful (at least on record) and probably turned a bunch of people on to the steel guitar who otherwise would have never even known what it was. People hated it when Jimmy Smith started to play Jazz on a B3, and then ten to fifteen years later the same people hated it when Ken Hensley and Jon Lord pushed their C3's into amounts of distortion that threatened to tear their Leslie's apart. In order to stay relevant, I think you need to push boundaries.

Mike Neer · Post by **Mike Neer** » 19 Jun 2014 6:32 pm

When it comes down to it, most people here, while sometimes a little critical and even myopic, are willing to really help out younger players. The talk is just talk. Steel players are a different breed, and I haven't quite figured it out yet. But nevermind, young people are going to do what they will with the instrument.

Joel McCoy · Post by **Joel McCoy** » 19 Jun 2014 7:46 pm

Hey Mike, no doubt that the over-whelming majority of guys here are beyond generous with their lifetime of knowledge concerning the instrument. And you're right, there is no other forum like this one as far as real hard information and technique of steel guitar playing. I can't even last long enough at the 6 string forums to create a profile because of the dumb questions and fan boi stone-walling of anything but what they think is the best..."I'm thinking of buying a so and so amp or guitar..(response..) Jimi didn't play that, it's not a Marshall so it sucks and so do you.." that kind of stuff. I just feel that with all the concerned talk of the future of the PSG, we should find ways to make it cool for kids to play, because it is! and that means finding ways for it to show up in music THEY are more likely to listen to. It's the rare kid who will develop a rabid affinity for Johnny Paycheck records..

Jim Cohen · Post by **Jim Cohen** » 19 Jun 2014 7:55 pm

Steelism is a group comprised of Jeremy Fetzer and Spencer Cullum, the latter of whom is a Forumite here...

Curt Trisko · Post by **Curt Trisko** » 19 Jun 2014 8:30 pm

Joel McCoy wrote:It's the rare kid who will develop a rabid affinity for Johnny Paycheck records..

Haha, Johnny Paycheck is probably the first artist that got me listening to country music and steel guitar. Don't sell him short. One of his songs was just put in the GTA V video game, which means more kids will hear him now than they will Hank Williams or George Jones:

http://youtu.be/HI9ISFDa5fI

scott murray · Post by **scott murray** » 19 Jun 2014 10:40 pm

Joel-
I'm currently using a Westbury amp, a solid-state apparently made by Univox in the late 60s... it's certainly not the best amp I've ever used, but there is something I like about it.

Jon-
thanks for the correction. good to know. funny thing, Amos Lee showed up at my buddy's open mic here in Asheville on Mon. no steel player though.

steel guitar is alive and well, it's just a bit harder to find these days. people still love the sound of it, and are generally fascinated by how it functions. it's an authentic and classic ingredient in American music that can't be replicated or replaced.

and old Johnny Paycheck records are the shiiit!!!

Bud Angelotti · Post by **Bud Angelotti** » 20 Jun 2014 2:25 am

Mike said

young people are going to do what they will with the instrument.

IMHOP, - This is the most logical view of the subject I've read so far. Right on Mike.

Jana Lockaby · Post by **Jana Lockaby** » 20 Jun 2014 3:57 am

Some young guys out of Austin, The wheeler Brothers, have a guy playing lap steel. He caught my attention. Not your traditional steel guitar, I liked his sound, and what he was doing.

Abe Levy · Post by **Abe Levy** » 20 Jun 2014 10:50 am

For what it's worth, my band The Sunset Drifters is all steel all the time. No lead guitar just steel. We play around Los Angeles - mostly silverlAke and Hollywood 3-4 times a month. You can check us out at www.thesunsetdrifters.com
You can get our ep on iTunes etc, and we're recording our first LP next month.

Seems like there's quite a bit of steel in the alt country, roots and Americana scene. Seems like I meet a player almost every time we play. Young guys mostly.

Daniel Policarpo · Post by **Daniel Policarpo** » 21 Jun 2014 1:50 pm

Abe Levy wrote:
Seems like there's quite a bit of steel in the alt country, roots and Americana scene. Seems like I meet a player almost every time we play. Young guys mostly.

I was talking to a guy who I used to play shows with in Chicago, electronic music with hand built gadgets hooked up to computers, wands and light sabers. I mentioned I had moved on to honky tonk music and the pedal steel and he was totally enthusiastic. of course he asked "can you put a fuzz on that?.

He mentioned a couple guys who had also moved on to pedal steel and some kids who were getting a lot of work around the alt country scene there. 20 years ago you couldn't find a pedal steel in Cook County.
From what I hear, there are young players out there and they read the forum, they mostly just don't participate. Who knows what'll happen after the alt-country scene trends down. After we pass on, there will be somebody pickin through our closets. Maybe it'll be a picker.

Abe Levy · Post by **Abe Levy** » 21 Jun 2014 6:24 pm

I really think there will always be some kids picking it up. It will ebb and flow, but there's just sooooo much good music that they will discover and be influenced by that relies on the steel for it's sound. I don't think it's going anywhere. If it does, I hope I'm around to see the drop in prices of vintage steels!!

Bob Simons · Post by **Bob Simons** » 21 Jun 2014 7:09 pm

I've seen a lot of steel guitar in the Kansas City music scene and mercifully, it is NOT traditional country.

I hope this doesn't come as a shock to you fellas, but the people I have spoken to:

1) Are more interested in music than dexterity

2) They are applying pedal steel to a variety of genres

3) Not one of them has ever heard of this Forum nor do they give a ****** what you think as crusty defenders of the endless wash of mediocre, dated music of past decades.

This is not to say that there isn't a measure of great tunes and moving performances, but it is history and many of you sound laughably like every generation of the past which seems to think in its dotage that their special music should be special to their children. ITS NOT! FOR GOOD REASON! It is folk music and you are the folk, not them.

Curt Trisko · Post by **Curt Trisko** » 21 Jun 2014 7:32 pm

Abe Levy wrote:I really think there will always be some kids picking it up. It will ebb and flow, but there's just sooooo much good music that they will discover and be influenced by that relies on the steel for it's sound. I don't think it's going anywhere. If it does, I hope I'm around to see the drop in prices of vintage steels!!

Instead of steel going away, what's probably more of a concern is that new players today won't have the technical mastery of the older generations. There's a lot you can do with normal competency with the steel, but in my opinion there's a huge, categorical difference between that and the players that play masterfully. Probably more than any instrument I can think of off the top of my head. Pedal steel is made to be played well.

And I also can't wait until the gorgeous steels I see on this website start hitting the market at estate sales.

Mike Neer · Post by **Mike Neer** » 21 Jun 2014 7:45 pm

Curt Trisko wrote: Instead of steel going away, what's probably more of a concern is that new players today won't have the technical mastery of the older generations. There's a lot you can do with normal competency with the steel, but in my opinion there's a huge, categorical difference between that and the players that play masterfully. Probably more than any instrument I can think of off the top of my head. Pedal steel is made to be played well.

And I also can't wait until the gorgeous steels I see on this website start hitting the market at estate sales.

I don't believe this true. Players will be proficient on the instrument because much of the groundwork has been laid down by previous generations. They already know what is possible. They will shoot higher. Many will be more sophisticated in some ways, especially harmonically, because there is so much information available to them now. They can go to YouTube and listen to music instantly after they read about it. They can buy it, transcribe it and disseminate it in the same evening, and then discuss it with people.

Curt Trisko · Post by **Curt Trisko** » 21 Jun 2014 8:02 pm

Mike Neer wrote:
Curt Trisko wrote: Instead of steel going away, what's probably more of a concern is that new players today won't have the technical mastery of the older generations. There's a lot you can do with normal competency with the steel, but in my opinion there's a huge, categorical difference between that and the players that play masterfully. Probably more than any instrument I can think of off the top of my head. Pedal steel is made to be played well.

And I also can't wait until the gorgeous steels I see on this website start hitting the market at estate sales.
I don't believe this true. Players will be proficient on the instrument because much of the groundwork has been laid down by previous generations. They already know what is possible. They will shoot higher. Many will be more sophisticated in some ways, especially harmonically, because there is so much information available to them now. They can go to YouTube and listen to music instantly after they read about it. They can buy it, transcribe it and disseminate it in the same evening, and then discuss it with people.

I agree, but there has to be something to be said for the technical mastery that players of the past (and present) developed by touring or doing studio work full-time, year after year.

Joachim Kettner · Post by **Joachim Kettner** » 22 Jun 2014 7:25 am

Instead of steel going away, what's probably more of a concern is that new players today won't have the technical mastery of the older generations

I fully agree with you Curt, a few weeks ago I was listening to Son Volt, they had some nice steel on that record, that fit the songs very well and privately they might be able to play some hard to do execute stuff like "Roll in my sweet baby's arms" at the right tempo. But I doubt it.

Ray Jenkins · Post by **Ray Jenkins** » 22 Jun 2014 8:44 am

Great posting,let's keep trying to keep the kids that are playing steel,out front,no matter what style of music they choose to play.

Brett Day · Post by **Brett Day** » 22 Jun 2014 6:13 pm

I started playing steel when I was eighteen-I'm thirty-two now and when I first started playing, I was listening to a lot of Hank Williams-"Cold Cold Heart" was the first Hank Sr. song I learned on steel. Now, I find myself playing a lot of the songs I hear at shows, like "Crazy Arms", "Sweet Memories", and then playing a George Strait song, like "The Chair". I also like to experiment with some songs that aren't country to see how they sound with steel.

Jon Alexander · Post by **Jon Alexander** » 22 Jun 2014 6:42 pm

Talented artists like to hear their music in different contexts.If they use steel it is to embellish,compliment,etc. that muse. They are not constrained by "traditional" perceptions of how pedal steel was utilized in the past.Scott's statement that people love the sound of it and are fascinated with its function is very real.I would only add that this cuts across age,ethnicity, and genres.As for the future,players are going to do what they will.Nobody saw Robert Randolph coming any more than they foresaw Hendrix.Good musicians will be in demand as long as people are interested in good music.