PipemanRadio Interviews Singer-Songwriter Steve Postell About New Album

0:04 Hey, you love len to censure. Wow crazy you. Wake up America. It's time for the Adventures of Pipe Man on W four C why dot com. West Poon Beach is number one internet radio station. Here's your host, the White Man. I'm looking at Scot. M hm m h. Feeling kind of small.

0:44 I'm looking at my life. Makes some sense of it all. This is the pipe Man here on the Adventure's Pipe Man W four c Y Radio. And I'm here with our next guest, who is an amazing songwriter, musician and just you know, like has some of the greatest sounds I've heard. So let's welcome to his show. Steve Postel, How are. You good to be here? Good to meet you. And that's a very nice introduction. Thank you. Well, thanks a lot. Well, you know, we're just going to be walking through these blues, right, That's what I do every day. There you go, So tell us about the new album. It dropped this month and it's got you know, not only such great music on it, but you brought along a lot of great musicians that are people you've played with and are friends of yours throughout your career.

1:49 Well, that's one of the advantages of getting old. Is you know a lot of people. Yeah, this was a a little different than other records I've made in that in the time I was able to take to make it, and that was not a plan going fote going into it. But what happened was I started making the record and was pretty well into it when COVID really put its grips into everyone's plans. And so for the first time in my life since I was eighteen, there was going to be no gigs, and for someone like me, it was not a household name. There's really no reason to put out a record if I can't go play, because that's how people hear about the record and so on.

2:40 So I decided to hold on to it and keep working on it. And then as it got more evolved and maybe was and the COVID thing was lightening up than the immediate family, which is this other band I'm in, which I'm sure we'll talk about with Leland Sklarr and Ruskunklawate like telling Danny Korchmar, we did a record which we had started during COVID and we released that. So that was like, Okay, I'm gonna hold on to my record. I don't want to compete with my own band, and then finally, I mean family's in between records. The timing was right, I'm going back on tour a lot so And so the advantage of that was was not only did I technically take my time, which means mixing it over and over again and adding parts, I was able to get all my friends on it because there was no scheduling it. Oh you're free in a month, no problem, that kind of thing. And I was able to actually write a couple of new songs that like when I wrote with Glenn Phillips Told the Wet Brocket, which would never have been on it if I had released it when I originally worked on it.

3:45 That's pretty amazing, you know. I have said for a while too, like COVID, there's a lot of negative things about COVID, But I think one of the positive things about COVID is like musicians got a chance to jump off the hamster wheel and creating again, and like have the the actual time to create and and think and you know, not be rushing from one project to another. It definitely slowed things down, and and I think that's true. We we did a lot of work with remotely with the immediate family where we would all we made videos where we would all film ourselves in our own studio and then the editor would put it together, and and and yeah, it was. It was. There was a way in which, literally the first time in my life, I had no gigs my adult life, and there was a I don't want that to happen again, but it was refreshing for a little while.

4:48 You Know. It's interesting too because I look back on that time, and you know, during it, I hated that there was no live music, and you know, I was doing all these festivals. At all sudden we're all canceled. And but now looking back on it, I'm like, it was kind of nice to get a little bit of a rest, you know, and just sit back and like evaluate everything instead of keep being on the run on the run. And now I think people, both the musicians, the songwriters, the listeners, the attendees of live concerts all have a different perspective now where it's appreciated more.

5:32 I think, oh, no question about it. When I went back, finally went back on tour, I felt that energy from the audiences. I really felt like, oh, we're so glad to be back doing this again. I really had that, a real visceral sense of the audience being grateful not just for the music, but just for being able to be there. You know, a lot of things happened in my industry or industry during the beginning of one of them, which was an interesting byproduct. There were more guitar sales than there'd been in twenty years during the first two years of COVID Wow, and it brought the guitar industry kind of back because people were sitting home, well, I'll learned the guitar. I guess, you know.

6:15 I could see that though, because like if you're an adult and you haven't you're not a guitarist. You don't really have time to learn the guitar because you got so many other things going on. So now yet finally have some downtime, and it's like probably people that always wanted to play guitar and they never had the time to do it. It clearly happened. I mean the statistics are in, you know, and I mean clothing sales probably went down. I wore pajamas for a year and a half. Right, And so tell us about what the different songs on this new album and what made you decide which artists to be part of what song.

7:02 I feel like there's an old I don't know. It's one of these sayings that is attributed to different artists over the years, which is with sculptors, that the sculpture is inside of the block of wood and they just have to peel away the stuff till they find it. It's sort of a metaphor for what they're doing. And I feel like songs they tell me a lot. Even though I'm writing them, I'm kind of finding them. And then after I find them and write them, often they speak to me in the sense of, you know, what would be good on this song is so and So's voice. That happened with the song Buried Stone. I'd written it, I recorded the basic tracks, and as I was recording it, I started to say, you know, this feels like sort of a duet, like I should be communicating with a woman on this, And then I heard a voice in my head and whose voice is that?

8:01 Oh? It's Becca Brahma's voice in my head, and I called her and she did it and did a beautiful job. So it's kind of I try to listen to the song, if that makes any. Sense, That makes a lot of sense. That's actually pretty cool to hear because it's it just shows that it's not really random. It is something like you're really in tune with the music and like it's it just makes it an easy decision. Yeah, it's not just oh, who's in my rolodex? No, I mean the song that crossed me saying on I didn't plan to have them necessarily on the record. I played on his records and we've worked together, but then this song. I wrote this song and I was I heard I heard his voice. I went, oh, this is definitely a cross song.

8:47 Nice, you know, funny story. A lot of years ago when I was like, I think I was like fifteen years old, so probably, yeah, so a lot a lot of years ago. My dad he was in the hot tub business and we lived in California and he sold the spot and this dude that had this really cool cobra and that the guy took me for a drive and was like the real thing, and that was I don't even remember his name, but apparently he was the guitarist for David Crosby band then, which is like, you know, forty some odd years ago, right, So I thought it was cool. I think it's cool when I hear stuff like this because it just brings me back to a time because you know, for people like both of us, you know, music is like a lifetime When people say, well, they're not really into that anymore. To me, there's people like you and I that it's like it's music has been lifetime of I think therapy. You know, it's the thing that gives makes us feel great.

10:01 Yeah. I I never really ever really thought about that. I had an option to do something else. And unfortunately for me and for a lot of my friends who are all these great musicians that we all hang out and work together, it's it's no less fun. It's more fun because I know more. I right, you know, I mean it's a little more tiring sometimes, but it continues to be for me, a real source of life force joy. You know, it's and curiosity and exploration. It just never stops being that.

10:42 And speaking tiring. You have a spring tour, and you know, it's funny because my daughter always thinks, like when I go out and I cover all these music festivals one after another, weekend after weekend, She's like, I don't even know how you do that. I I I'm tired after half for the first day, and may I just don't get tired from it. Well, it's definitely tiring. I mean you have to and actually you know a lot more so as you get older. That's just the reality of it. And so a lot of what's what happens for me now on a tour I've learned how to do it is really preserving my energy.

11:22 That means I don't talk a lot on a tour. I'm not on the phone all day. I do still, I like still work out, but a little you know, more of a casual like a three mile walk instead of a three mile run. It's a lot about what I eat and preserving and trying to get enough sleep and and really paying attention so that my peak energy happens for those two hours that were on stage. Yeah, and so what does it feel like when you get on stage for people that haven't had that experience, because it's kind of I could get in the zone, right.

12:02 Yeah, there's a it's funny what Waddie what tell in our Me events said, I if you if you don't get nervous, you don't give a ship, right, So you're still there's still this it's not intense nervousness. But it's not stage right, but there's still like, you know, your adrenalines up, you're a little nervous. And for me, when once the first note happens, it's it's a yeah, I get in a unless something's really wrong, I just get in the zone. I'm not really I'm not really thinking about much, right, I'm not I'm noticing. I noticed, but I can see the audience. I can. But it's it's a really other worldly state. That's not uh, it's not an intellectual state. It's it's a very very present stagey.

12:57 It's interesting. It's years ago I was at a lecture by a Tibetan Buddhist priest and he was and he said he was talking about the state that the meditation they get in. He said, now musicians they know that they get in this state when they play it. And I was like, well, that's interesting. So it's it's a very very present. You know, if you're doing it long enough that it's that you're comfortable, and you have enough years in your belt under your belt, you can get you just kind of get an extremely present You're just you're just in that moment. You're not thinking about that moment.

13:37 You're not analyzing it and it's and then after the show you're like, Oh, that happened. That's cool. So it's something I love. I love the energy of it. And it yeah, and the crowd energy. It's kind of like a drug, right, Well, it's. A it's a it's a conversation to conversation with the audience. And and the audience is just as important as we are. Otherwise we wouldn't do it. Uh, and you and you can feel it's funny. You don't it's funny. We have these we're rehearsing right in an hour, we have ahearsal. We're rehearsing for this coming up tour. And I've been going over the tapes from the last tour live tapes, and I was a little shocked at the at the level of enthusiasm at the end of each song, you know, cheering and from the audience because you're just doing it.

14:36 You just I mean, I notice it, but not like oh wow, they're but listening back and they really like this music. That's cool, And that's part of that. Being in the zone. It's kind of like you don't notice certain things. I think it's really what gets rid of the nervousness too. So even for somebody like me, as you know gain on the radio or I'm also a speaker, when I get up on stage and I speak, Yeah, I'm nervous right before I get on stage, or I'm nervous right before I turn on the mic. But as soon as that might goes on, there's like the switch inside my head and it's almost like an out of body experience. Yeah, you get really dialed in and and then you're just you know, it's it's if you've done your work, like the Malcolm Malcolm Gladwell said the ten thousand hours, and for musicians it's probably one hundred thousand hours of practice.

15:32 You can count on that to to take take hold, take root in what you're doing, so that you've done that, You've done this million times and and and you feel the energy for sure, different energies of the audience, and actually sometimes it changes, Uh, you feed off of that and you actually play probably slightly it's subtle, but slightly differently differently for every audience because energy shifts a little bit. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense actually, So tell us a little bit about to Spring tour and uh, you know what, people can expect that from all your shows, your live shows.

16:19 Well, this particular tour, which which really is an offshoot of of before David Crosby passed away suddenly and sadly, we were preparing to go on tour with a new band and a new and sort of a set list he wanted to do, which was he wanted to go back to a little bit more of what CSN and CSNY had done in their sets as opposed to the more Crosby centric shows he'd done in the last few years. There's still were those songs in there, buddy. We were bringing back in CSNY stuff. And we didn't get to go on tour. We got to put the show together, we got to rehearse and and right in the middle of all of it, all of a sudden he was gone.

17:07 And that led to about six seven months later, his son James Raymond, his keyboard player, musical director of that band, with me and I did a tribute concert at the at the theater we were supposed to start the tour at to fulfill the you know, so the people who had bought tickets to the show. A wonderful concert. We had Sean Colvin and Richard Page and Colin Hay and Crystill's and and a Great Wonderful and the band that Crosby had chosen for that tour, and it went so well that I got approached, like, you know, people would love this one of you think about taking it on the road. So that's how that was the how it got sort of the the generated and and the inception of it was was Crosby's band leading into the tribute, leading into these tours and we're just doing a lot of those songs that we were going to do. Then it's it's sort of my my friend Jeff Pivar who played with David for twenty eight years, brilliant guitar player, and I sort of put together a set list of what we would want to hear if we if we could go and see Quasy Still in nash at their nation young at their peak, what would what would we want them to play? And that's kind of right, that's that's how we created the set list. So it's it's incredible.

18:33 It yeah, it's what a there aren't a lot of I mean, it's it's unique in that, I mean the Beatles that had you know, primarily John and Paul, and they wrote together and they wrote septately. This is four guys, four brilliant, iconic, visionary songwriters. That's the catalog. So it's it's pretty spectacular. And then it is pretty amazing when you take such superior songwriters and put them together and they can actually work together and create, you know, legendary music that lasts, you know, generation after generation.

19:17 Yeah, I mean, it doesn't always work, and of course we know it's no secret they had their issues over the years, but nobody can take away this music that they did. And if I can be a small part of keeping it alive and letting people hear it the way it's sort of supposed to be sound that I'm happy to do that. I love it. And how do people connect with you? Get to your website, get your new album, check out the tour dates, all that good stuff. Our house is what we call it. Our house tour is on Bands in Town. I think it's called Bands in Town slash our House. That's got all the dates on it. My Facebook page if you're on that has always has the tours in the the but the Band's in Town is the general Our House And then for my tours and and my new record and everything. You could either go to Quarto Valley Records dot com, which is the label, or my soon to be rebuilt website, which is a step hostel dot com. It's right now, you'll go to you'll you'll say, wait a minute, didn't you do that ten years ago? So it needs it needs my attention, and it's gonna and when I get off this tour, the first thing I'm going to do is revamp my website.

20:39 Well, there you go. And if you were to leave the listeners with some final words, uh, you know that we haven't covered array that's coming up, or they need to know what would it be. Well a couple of things. I would say. Please support live music as much as you can. It's it's a you know, as I tour around the country and I play these beautiful theaters that were art houses, opera houses, old movie houses, I just my fingers across, like people have to keep going to these places they or they'll die. Yeah, And it's a beautiful way to experience music. It's not with little headphone, little earbuds in it's it's a real visceral experience. It's to me an unmatched way to see music.

21:29 So I I think that's what I'd ask people is go do it once in a while, just just get off your couch and and and go see some live music. You know, I'm in the studio right here a lot, and I love the process, but there's nothing like going on and playing live. And after this tour, there'll be more immediate family shows, there'll be more Steepostelle shows. So love to see you anytime. Yeah, And you're absolutely correct, because you know when you got I've gone to those theater shows and it's like it's just a different experience. It's a really if you have an experience, that you have to do it, and anybody that has already is definitely going to for sure.

22:17 It's different on so many even just even just sonically, even just the sound bouncing off these old walls instead of through two speakers, it's it's and then real people interacting. And that's the other thing is so many the modern shows that half the music you're hearing is actually pre recorded and tuned. This is real guys and women playing in the moment. You know, there's no bells and whistles. No, we're not playing to a click we're just playing and that's to me the way music should be presented and heard.

22:58 Oh I agree a million. I mean, oh my god, what a concept actually playing the music. Yeah, exactly. Well, you are definitely amazing songwriter, amazing musician. Everybody has to check out. The new album is badass, walking Walking through these Blues, and if there's a show near you, you gotta catch it because you're right, there's nothing better than a live show. And you know what, you gotta get out there and just experience life. And there's no better way to do it but with music. So thank you for giving that to us, and thanks for being on the Adventures of Pipe Main.

23:39 Very happy to be here. Thanks so much. Have a great day YouTube. Brother good Man, thank you for listening to the Adventures of Pipe Man. I'm w for CUI Radio. H