[Editor's note: This feature previews Delicate Steve's concert at Slowdown on Sunday with Janka Nabay And The BuBu Gang, InDreama and Dustin Bushon. The show starts at 9 p.m. and costs $8. It's a Good Speakers event, and all of the profits from ticket sales are going to All as One, a non-profit organization helping youth in Sierra Leone.]
by Steven Ashford
Delicate Steve's buzzing guitar riffs emulated through several effect pedals are multi-layered with stacks of switchboards, drum machines and computer-generated musical programs that slowly secreted beyond the confines of Steve Marion’s New Jersey bedroom studio much like in Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze.
The musical discharge that originated from Marion’s more-than-modest homegrown studio quickly found its way to many “hip” music blogs — as well as segments on NPR — with the release of his highly acclaimed debut album, Wondervisions.
Since then, Marion has acquired a full band to enhance the live performance of Delicate Steve and has toured extensively throughout the country. This Sunday, Steve — along with his delicacies — will provide the Slowdown with a performance that will likely challenge his musical depth rather than mirror a “delicate” approach. More info on the show here.
I caught up with Marion to talk about the dynamics of recording an intensely intricate album in a bedroom studio, attempting new approaches on his upcoming album, his favorite pastimes on tour and his familiarity with Nebraska.
The creation of Delicate Steve’s debut LP Wondervisions came about merely as a self-produced, self-released experimental project that, in turn, translated into the initial hype surrounding where the band stands today.
“My little bedroom studio started out as a place where I would record my friends’ bands at, and Wondervisions started out as just a little project I was working on,” says Marion, in a casual, laid-back tone in the bus en route to Denver. “I borrowed a drum kit that didn’t have a snare and used equipment from my house I had laying around, like a Roland Juno synth and a Digitech whammy pedal, which turned into a one-month experiment just to see if I could finish something myself.”
As Marion was mixing sounds together, he realized about halfway through that he had stumbled upon a creation that was congruent to a well-rounded album.
“There was a certain point where I noticed that everything was coming together and the songs could be placed in a specific track order, where I would feel the need to write a new track to fit it into a certain spot on the list,” Marion says.
On May 15, Delicate Steve will release its follow-up album, Positive Force, on David Bryne’s Luaka Bop Records. To expand his musical understandings and capabilities while striving for a more polished sound, Marion attempted to work with a producer for the first time, but not without returning to the familiarity of his bedroom studio.
“I started in my room again, but with the idea of making a harder-hitting sound. About midway through, I was talking with guys who produced albums that I really liked,” Marion says. “For whatever reason — maybe it was the label's budget — plans fell through with the guy that I had intended to work with.”
Marion went back to his room to produce his new album. He also found someone willing to mix the record, but dissatisfied with the final product, he ultimately took controls of the mixing obligations.
“After all of that, it ended up being the same thing where I produced and self-mixed it,” Marion says. “It was another learning experience this time around, you know? Thinking I needed to do all this other stuff, but ultimately not being the case.”
There are new routes Marion takes to allow himself to expand his musical realm. For one, he wanted to lose the heavy floor tom presence in the first album by using a drum machine. And two, he sought incorporate more vocals, which are virtually nonexistent in Wondervisions.
As far as influences go, Marion feels inspired by focusing on the music that was to his liking when he was younger.
“I really got back into Smashing Pumpkins’ Mellon Collie, which turned out to be a big influence on the new album,” Marion says. “I got back into listening to Miles Davis… Beach Boys. Brian Wilson is a huge influence.”
That being said, it may be difficult to pinpoint a distinct sound to Delicate Steve. Sure, people can intelligently debate about the similarities it has to a certain artist. Or say that this part of that track obviously derives from the origins of so-and-so artist. But trying to call out the attachments to musical relations is redundant and boring.
So why not create something fictitious and run with it?
Author Chuck Klosterman wrote a frivolous biography for Delicate Steve in Spin Magazine, chock full of bizarre anecdotes claiming that, “Delicate Steve sounds exactly like My Bloody Valentine, minus the guitars,” or something like that. For Delicate Steve, that is far more than just a stretch, but Klosterman had never heard the band and he was hired by Luaka Bop to write something strange. Nonetheless, concert promoters blasted that bio to promote every Delicate Steve show for a long time, which is why bios, according to Marion, are just boring.
“At first, I was a little afraid of the idea and that I might come off sounding pretentious and not stating anything factual, like where I’m from,” Marion says. “But then I was like, ‘They’re right.’ It’s pretty boring to talk about where you’re from. That’s what every bio is like and nobody reads those and I feel happy they came up with the idea and it was spot-on.”
The guys in Delicate Steve do like to keep in touch with what is real, especially on tour. For them, finding time to be active and out doors tends keep their sanity in check when they have a day or two off from shows.
“We get into Denver tonight and the guys want to go to a skate park in the morning,” Marion says. “And I brought my little fold-up bike. Then tomorrow night we’re going to drive to Moab, Utah, to hang out all day at Arches National Park, which is a place we’ve stopped a couple times now.”
Crisscrossing the country, Marion has frequented Nebraska multiple times by now and has established good relationships along the way.
“I took a road trip about three or four years ago and we couch surfed at this girl’s house named Breanne Wilkinson, who I guess is a tap dancer — I’m not too familiar with Tilly & the Wall, but I guess she tap-danced on their record for a couple songs,” Marion says. “Then I remembered she took us to some house show, and I forgot the band, but Dereck Higgins was playing bass for them. I don’t know — oh, wait, someone just said Box Elders?”
It was definitely not Box Elders.
Nonetheless, Marion’s impression of Omaha made a big enough impact on him that he was close to calling it his new home.
“After that road trip, I got to thinking about how there wasn’t much going on in New Jersey musically, and I thought about moving and it was either going to be Omaha, Portland or Seattle,” Marion says. “But none of that happened and I just stayed in New Jersey.”
Steven is a Hear Nebraska contributor. He may come off as "delicate," but catch him around the Benson streets on a late, wet weekend night in the springtime, lock your doors and chain your windows because he's bound to yell at the top of his lungs, "IT SMELLS LIKE WORMS!" Reach him at stevena@hearnebraska.org.