Maxing on civic media. We are local music. That is the steep water band and their song shift and on the phone with me right now.
Mr. Jeff Massey from the steep water band. Jeff good evening. Happy Saturday to you and walk in the Maxing.
Well, thank you. How are you doing, man? I'm doing well. It's great to talk to you again.
Are you coming long time friends of the Maxing radio show Jeff? We appreciate that.
Right on, yeah. We appreciate it.
Hey, man. We just played the song shift. That's from your latest album. It came out to what
earlier in 24 or 20 late 23 years like that. Tell us about that.
Just on the, yeah, just on the tail end of COVID that that came out. Yeah. Yeah, ship. That's the
that's one of my favorite tunes on that record. And it's usually a regular staple in our
live set too. So that's a good one. It's a rocker. It's it is a rocker. You know,
Jeff, I always find band names and how they are picked rather interesting. I love the stories behind
them. I saw a little nugget while I was doing my homework tonight that the band names,
steep water band was actually taken from a cargo ship that you saw in Lake Michigan.
Correct. Yeah. Tell me about that story. Well, me and my, but we were, we were thinking about
band names and we had been going back and forth, being a friend of mine. We were driving over the
Bishop Ford Expressway from Indiana, Chicago. And when you look over, there's all those cargo
vessels there. And it said warning, steep water. And we were kind of half out of it. It was
early in the morning. He's like, how about steep water band? I'm like, yeah, that sounds pretty
cool. And as soon as I told the rest of the, you know, the rest of the guys, the band are like,
that's perfect. And you know, when we thought steep water, I was thinking high water like
danger high water, but steep water is actually that really dirty water. Like if you steep vegetables,
if you steep something, the water that comes out after the fact. So it represents like a really
dirty water. So I kind of, I kind of thought, well, we kind of have a dirty rock and roll sound
steep water. It's very fitting. So everybody liked it. And that's been the name ever since.
I like it. Was there any names that obviously got the accent that was a close second up?
Maybe dream water. So something with water. You know,
we're on a water theme for whatever reason. Yeah. There might have been, I don't remember,
but in any other picks, we're so like, we're so not into them. I don't even remember what they
would have been. Now, you guys are in the studio working on some new music for 2025. And as a
fan of the steep water band Jeff, I got to tell you I'm pretty excited about it. What are you guys
working on? And do you have just a guess in when we might be able to get a taste?
Well, I mean, we're hoping we're hoping that we'll have a full length album later in the year.
But we're talking about maybe releasing some singles and some videos on the way out to the end of
the year. So I'm hoping, I mean, what is it now? It's February. I'm hoping, you know, by April,
we might have, you might have a little glimpse of what's going on. But yeah, we've been
tracking songs and we got four songs. It's about done. We're going to go into a whole other
batch of songs in Chicago here. So it's coming along real good. I'm excited to get these songs done
and get them in our lifestyle too. Nice. Where do you guys record down in Chicago?
Well, it's, every album's been different. The latter turn of the wheel and return of the wheel
was recorded in Miller Beach, Indiana, our drummer's brother Jim Winner's home studio. We did
last two there, which we love. He's got a great setup. This time we're recording
in Chicago down in Bronzeville in an old house that my buddy lives in. He's got this killer studio
in the basement. Nice. And we went over there just for fun to see how it would go and it's going
great. So now it's not just for fun. We're actually looking to release the material, you know.
We just went there to see how it was and we love it. So let's come out great. Jeff Massey from
The Steepwater Bans is on with us here on Maxine. Jeff, talk about the work as far as the writing
and matching the lyrics with riffs. What's that process like for you guys?
Well, it's, there's a couple different processes like sometimes I'll have
sometimes like a whole song and the lyrics and the title and everything would just kind of come at
once. You know, usually on like an acoustic guitar sitting on my couch and then I'll show it to
the guys and they'll throw their parts on it. You know, that's usually how we do it.
I don't usually come in and say now you play this and you play that because it's more of a
band vibe where everybody comes up with their own parts. And then the other way that songs happen is
you know, Eric or other guitar player writes a lot. So he'll give me a piece of music or he'll bring
or we'll jam on some of his riffs and then it's up to me to always put the lyrics and the melody on it.
So it could come from the band jamming or from me bringing in or any one of us bringing in ideas
and we just we always finish them together, you know. Do you guys get together a lot for like
you know, you know, writing together or it's the most of the writing done solo and then
bring what you have to the group to to work out the pieces. It's a little bit of both.
We don't get to we get together in spurts. I mean, we're always together because we play a lot
of gigs. Right. So we get together in spurts when we can, when we know we're going to record and
we kind of put the pressure on ourselves. So we've always got ideas that from sound checks and
you know that. But when it gets time to actually get down and recording, that's when we really
focus and we start getting in a room together and and trading ideas and then and all comes together.
We work well under I guess a little bit of
fun pressure, you know, knowing like, all right, we're recording. Let's go, you know.
Right. Right. Jeff, you guys are touring out, you're enough for a big tour.
Other than your favorite stop here in Madison, which I know it's your favorite,
what other cities are you excited to see on tour? I know you're going to fill you're going to
debut, I believe. Of course, a couple shows in Chicago. Yeah, well, I always love playing hometown
showing Chicago, you know, martyrs is a great place. We're getting ready to go out. Well,
towards the end of March, we're doing probably three weeks out east. Right. And we've been,
we've been spending a lot of time out east lately. So I really, you know, really enjoying New York.
By going to Maine, I think we're going like Delaware on this next run, which I don't think we've ever been
Massachusetts, you know, Pennsylvania. I mean, we like playing everywhere, you know, but I've
really been enjoying the east and realizing that, you know, there's a lot of music lovers out that
way. So looking forward to that run coming up. Plus, you get to go to cool cities like New York or
Philly. Grab yourself a Philly Philly cheese steak, Jeff. Yeah, Philly. We're playing Philly. Of course.
For sure. Of course, the show in Madison. I believe I don't have the calendar for me,
but I think it's the second show on the tour here in Madison at the Red Rooster on Seaford Road,
Saturday, February 15th. It's going to be a great show. We're looking forward to seeing you here
back in Madison, Jeff. Yeah, I like the Red Rooster. We played, we played there I think once before.
And that's a great little spot. So it really is. It's they do a great job focusing not only on
the local music scene, but they bring great, great bands like you guys across. Hey, Jeff,
I really appreciate your time tonight. Congratulations on the upcoming new album. I can't wait to hear
the music and look forward to seeing you at the Red Rooster on Saturday, February 15th.
Hey, that sounds good. Thanks for having me, man. Hey, we're going to play the song Found.
And tell me about the song as we go into it here.
Found. I mean, that that's another one of my favorites.
For maybe some of you guitar players know what I'm talking about, but that was an instrumental song
that I had laying around. And it was in a weird guitar tuning. And I recorded it as a demo.
You know, it's almost like this instrumental piece. And for some reason, I tuned the guitar back
to regular tuning and played it that way, even though I wrote it in an odd tuning. And then all the
lyrics and melody kind of came out like that. So it's funny how that happens sometimes.
Yeah, it's supposed to be like an instrumental piece, like a Jimmy Page type, you know, like,
I don't know, like a black mountainside or something. But then when I put it in regular tuning,
it totally changed the vibe and put some vocals on it. And there you go. Black mountainside,
I got to go back and listen to his uplist song now. But first we're going to hear Found. This
is the Steep Water Band. It's Max Inc on Civic Media. We are local music.
