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As a child, it is safe to say, from Steve's own account and everyone else who knew him, he was an accident waiting to happen. At six years old, while vacationing at Disney World in Florida, Steve fell off a railing and knocked his two front teeth out. When he was thirteen, he nearly twisted his leg all the way off during a skiing accident, but still feels victorious till this day for evading a cast. At 18, Steve proceeded to accidentally fall out of a truck going 35 miles per hour, cheating death once again, and as Steve happily adds, "No stitches!" Still going strong at 22, he almost took his leg off on a boat propeller while in Pittsburgh with a friend. And since he has been living in Los Angeles, he has already succeeded in smashing the windshield of his car with his head. Yikes!
Let's take a trip back into Steve's past and find out a little bit about how and when Steve discovered his passion to play music. When Glazer was 15, he snuck out of his parent's house and headed straight to a local music store where he had been eyeballing a guitar. It was that very day that he purchased his first guitar behind his parents back. "I had no idea how to play, but I loved how a guitar sounded through an amp", Steve says," I played six hours a day for the first two years." "I redirected all the energy that I had into playing the guitar", Steve remembers fondly, "It was love."
Steve's favorite guitarists are Jimi Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughn. "I would have to say that Hendrix and Vaughn are my biggest influences. I love anything with soul", Glazer tells us, "Like old Motown, Jackson 5, Stevie Wonder and James Brown."
Steve moved to Columbus, OH in 1988 to attend Ohio State University. He graduated in 1993, getting a degree in communications. He remained in Columbus for two more years, paying rent by giving guitar lessons and playing local gigs. "I was making a pretty good living in Columbus, but I felt that I needed to test bigger waters", he adds. That's when Steve packed up and headed to Los Angeles.
"Things started out great in L.A. for me", he says, "I was giving guitar lessons, I was playing at a lot of upscale venues and events, and was making great money being hired by plush hotels to sing and perform. As long as I was paying the rent, I was feeling pretty good. But, as good as things seemed to be, I wasn't doing what I originally came to L.A. to do, and that was to be a recording artist.", Steve continues, "I started doing session work at the big studios and soon I found myself in demand as a session player, as good as that felt, I still wasn't doing exactly what I wanted to be doing….making records of my own."
Steve continued along this path for the next year and during that time recorded a few of his own songs and started to gain interest from the majors. Things were going great , and then just as a few major labels were beginning their negotiations to sign Steve, the infrastructure of the whole entire music business collapsed. Labels were bought and sold and it seemed as though everyone Steve had relationships with at the labels were out of a job overnight, which left him back at ground zero.
"You know, everything happens for a reason, and as painful as it sometimes seems at the time, things usually have a way of turning themselves around." Steve says.
And if things weren't bad enough, all of a sudden he gets laid off from all four of the venues that he played on a weekly basis, in the same month. His income was now cut off and desperation seemed to be not that far around the corner.
It was time for Steve to do some quick thinking. "I was browsing music sites on the Internet one night, while contemplating my fate", Steve Laughs, "I was reading hundreds of musician ads and only came across one that peaked my attention. It was an ad placed by Shad's management company looking for a guitar player , and although Shad and I had not personally met, he was widely known and respected in the music community. So having nothing to lose, I contacted his management company. Shad was in the studio at the time, recording with producers Brian Reeves and Kevin Anderson, which was exciting since I knew of Brian's work with David Bowie and U2.
"Weeks went by and I had completely given up on any chance of a response, assuming that Shad must have found someone else suited for the band. It wasn't until about a month after I had sent in a tape, that I got the call.", Steve remembers, "I was getting ready to head out on a Friday night and as I was walking out the door the phone rang, it was Shad. He explained that he had meant to call me sooner but got caught up in the studio." As Shad recalls, "I dialed the phone praying that after taking so long to get back to Steve, he hadn't found another opportunity in the meantime."
As Shad's luck would have it Steve was available. The two hit it off immediately over the phone and met in person for the first time at Juliana's Coffee and Roasting House in Toluca Lake, California.
Steve recalls, "It was clear that Shad and I shared a lot of the same ideas and goals and he was someone that I wanted to work with and make music with."
"It wasn't long after Shad and I met, that I had the opportunity to finally meet his brother Shane. We also hit it off immediately," Steve adds.
"For the last few months Shad, Shane and I have been making great music together, and it has been my best experience yet. These guys are family to me.", Steve says, "I'm very excited about the future and of all the things to come".