Hey Phil,
Interesting you ask about Mark and Jefferey Steel. I know quite a bit about Jeffery because he moved to town about the same time I did. I have been around him quite a bit and we have done several shows together. We are both left handed and laugh at ourselves at how goofy we look even to each other. We even took a 16 hour bus trip to Mississippi to play a benefit show for Jimbeau Hinson's home town that had been ravaged by a tornado. We talked all the way there and most of the way back and I got a lot of insights into him. We also have seen each other a great deal in shows in Cincinatti, and the Frank Brown festival. he has used my guitar one night, stayed on into my time and broke a string on my guitar. And I am probably the only one you know who turned down a Jeffery Steel writing appointment, due to when he called me, I had a two person tour in from Wisconsin and I don't turn away business.
Jeffery Lavassea (his real name) grew up in a suburb of Los Angeles California in the 70's and 80's. His Father owned a steel manufacturing shop and that is why he took the stage name "STEEL." Was easier than pronouncing and spelling Lavassea. When he was in his early 20's he always wanted to play in bands so did that for years. He bumped around Sunset Strip and was always a fish out of water due to the real hard rock edge that those clubs had. While everyone else was playing Megadeath, Quiot Riot, Def Leapard, and all the heavy metal hair bands of the week, Jeffery was listening to Cash and Merle and all the country guys, Was really a big fan of the Outlaw country and what was coming out of Bakersfield in the 80's with Buck Owens and Dwight Yokum. But he couldn't get a steady gig for crap.
He ended up being part of the house band of the only real country music club in Orange County, THE PALIMINO CLUB. The drummer was named BILLY BLOCK. The band was called BOY HOWDY, and they played from like 8:00 to 2:00 and would back up the major acts that came through like Merle, Johnny Paycheck, Willie, Waylon,and all those people that would swing through trying to pick up a few thousand bucks on their way to somewhere else.
The band members were writing their own songs and recording while doing their sets, working day jobs, and whatever they could to pay the rent in one of the most expensive places to live in the US. They wrote a lot of stuff, but Jeff was not the main writer or singer. He was really just the bass player.
Finally, one of their songs, "SHE'D DO ANYTHING" started getting some local and regional airplay and they started getting their own headlining gigs. They started doing some limited touring on the West Coast on times they weren't playing the Palimino.
All of this took between 10 and 15 years I believe. Imagine that. 6 nights a week, 5-6 hours a night, playing cover gigs, watching bar fights, getting cussed out by managers, bar owners, etc. AND working day jobs, AND traveling on the days off,driving ten to fifteen hours, play an hour show, drive 10-15 hours back, to play that night or be onstage.
This is called PAYING YOUR DUES.
"SHE'D DO ANYTHING" went to the top ten, and they decided to move to Nashville. They wanted to be around people they felt comfortable with instead of the plastic people of LA. By the time they got here, the song was at number one. But instead of a huge tour and a major label, they started all over. They had no more major hits and the band broke up after around a year. They all started working day jobs, session stuff, backing up other artists. Same as everyone.
Jeffery did have a writing deal for a while, and that led to his own record deal. He would do three records for different lables, a couple of nobodies, the biggest one being MCA. He was on there with artists like George Strait, Tanya Tucker and Marie Osmond, and other mid level acts but no real breakouts. It would be a while before Strait would turn into who he is now, most artists were mid level.
Jeffery simply could not get "traction" in the industry. Everyone loved him, he was electric in what he did, was a legend here. But on the road he could get arrested. He did several tours, but just never got anything happening. He would release singles, do a radio tour, and never get above the mid 40's or 50s. He was about to give up completely.
About 8 years after moving here, he was paired up with a guy named BIG AL ANDERSON. Big Al was another legend. He was the guitar player for a college legendary band called NRBQ. They toured all over the country doing colleges, and were like THE GREATFUL DEAD, this huge cult band. I saw them twice, once at Tuscaloosa, (University of Alabama) where our band was playing a fraternity three doors down from theirs, and once in the big rock club in Birmingham. I had heard so much of these guys that I had to see them. Their bumper stickers were everywhere, on stop signs, on billboards, cars, guitar cases, and I though "man these guys must be amazing." You couldn't go anywhere on a college campus without someone saying "HEY MAN, WE'RE GOING TO SEE THE Q!!!!" Like a bunch of dead heads. Every place they played was sold out and people standing on top of each other.
I have rarely been more underwelemed by anyone. They were like this long winded jam band, with every song lasting about 15 minutes, endless solos, no real disernable melody, no really decent singers, just boring as hell. I kind of got the impression the entire world was on some kind of drug I missed out on. They were all enamored with them and I couldn't stand anything about them. I'm just not into the long solo thing, never was into the experiementing bands of the 70's and 80's and always had to have something to sing to. Imagine that. I'm a SINGER! So I would stay for 30 minutes (or one song, which ever came first) and would leave.
But Big Al was a legend, the Eric Clapton/Jimi Hendrix of the College set. And in those audiences who went to see him all those years, (about 20 of them), would end up being major session musicians, writers, producers, studio owners, label heads, publishing company owners in Nashville. So when Al decides to move from Conneticut to Nashville, it was sort of "CAN WE GIVE YOU THE KEY TO THE CITY MR. ANDERSON?" He was sought out to write with everybody, who revered him like a GOD. He was given a whole bunch of up front money and has one of the most lucrative writing deals in the history of the town. All for a guy who had never had a hit record. Again, go try to figure out this business. Jerry Garcia goes country.
ACTIVITY=PROXIMITY=OPPORTUNITIES.
One of the people Al liked was Jeffery Steel. He liked his voice, his bass playing, everything about him. The way Jefferey had kept going even when things didn't work. They both had similar lives in that they were well loved but no real hit records. Two legends.
They got together to write in a hotel room. The first song was taking about four hours to write and they were just hung up. They couldn't find a rhyme on this one particularl line and ground to a halt. they went through rhyming dictionaries, thesauruses, etc. couldn't find anything. they decided to go to lunch then Al says "Gottahavable."
Jeffery said, "Is that a word?" Al says, "It is now. Lets go to lunch." They did. Coming back an hour later and finished it.
Since both of them could get about anything heard by anybody, they shot it right over to a group that was recording at that time, DIAMOND RIO, and the first song, "UNBELIEVABLE" became a number one hit. From there, as the industry does, when success hit, the flood gates open. And Jeffery was ready with hundreds of songs. Everyone started cutting them and he got white hot. Al also had his share of cuts. I don't have any idea of how many he had, but he hit veins with people like Rascal Flatts, Faith Hill and Montgomery/Gentry. At one point, I heard an interview and he had had 86 major cuts, 20 something top tens and eleven number ones. Don't ask me about those, I just don't know. But if you go to his shows, you will hear him do about three hours of solid hit songs. He also does really funny things like throw in HUGE cover hits, like legendary songs, and you just think he wrote those too.
Over the past few years his hits have slacked off. His time has kind of past but he is producing new artists all the time and writing all the time. You get hot, you cool off. The circle of life.
Phil, I believe his "overnight success' took about 28 years.
MARK D.SANDERS, is another guy I know very distantly. We have done a couple benefit shows together and I have talked to him briefly on occassion at NSAI events. I don't know his entire story,but his was very similar in that he was in town about 15 years before things started happening.Then he got little cuts here and there, a few medium hits. Then he hit HUGE with a song of the year called I HOPE YOU DANCE, for Lee Anne Womack. That song was everywhere, and he was a star on top of the world. I remember one panel discussion he did, where someone asked him what he was doing differently now than he was doing then.
He said "Nothing. All my friends are now in positions to say "yes." What that meant was that all the people he moved into town with over the years, had advanced into hit writers, hit producers, label heads, publishing company owners. He was able to get material through all the gatekeepers, write with upcoming artists, and getting things where they need to be.
So there you go Phil. How to do this?
#1. Take about 20-25 years.
#2. Write with everyone you can. Get songs and your reputation out there in every way possible.
#3. Write A LOT OF SONGS WITH A LOT OF PEOPLE CONSTANTLY.
#4. Write with every ARTIST, POTENTIAL ARTIST, POSSIBLE PRODUCER, STAR OF TOMORROW YOU CAN.
#5. Do a LOT of free stuff, volunteering, having people in your home, bringing things to other people's games. Be a good friend.
#6. Hope that luck strikes what you do.
Because all of that is JUST TO GET IN THE GAME. No guarantee of success. There are many more people doing the exact same thing, but it never happens to them. They have to endure. They might have the greatest songs, be a tremendous entertainer, sing amazingly,seem to know everybody, and it still doesn't happen for whatever reason.
And you all know one of those.
MAB