Steepwater
One day Jeff Massey saw a cargo ship docked at a port on Lake Michigan. The ships name – Steepwater. It became the moniker for the band. Over the span of their 25-year career they’ve released a dozen album and you’ve heard their music on television (Friday Night Lights, NCIS, Better Call Saul, My Name is Earl), movies (Invincible, One for the Money), commercials (Nissan) and even on Chicago Cubs baseball broadcasts. Yet still, most will say, “who is Steepwater?”
While the band feels you should already know their songs, they know you really don’t. The band realizes that. Now, more than 25 years later, they continue to make their case. They’re not out to necessarily headline arenas and have their name lit up on marquees. They continue to move forward, in their words, “because we must.”
As noted on their website, “Something primal lurks in their music, but always wrestling with emotions and stories that are everyday-ready music at once strut-inducing sexy and brass knuckles honest; a sound evolved smartly through countless gigs, running the bulls wherever and wherever they’ve been welcomed since 1998.”
Guitarist Jeff Massey cut his teeth on classic rock, but then began going to blues clubs regularly and jam nights around the Chicago area. When Massey, along with bandmates bassist Tod Bowers and Joe Winters met, they formed a blues ensemble titled The Big Skinny Blues Band. The band lasted for about a year, as the keyboardist/singer left the group. The remaining trio decided that they had some good material, and wanted to continue playing.
Steepwater started out as a trio, fronted by Jeff Massey on guitar and lead vocals with Tod Bowers on bass and Joe Winters on drums. Like so many other bands, they would start out playing their own versions of classic Chicago-style electric blues playing inner city clubs such as Phyllis’ Musical Inn and the Double Door.
It wasn’t long before they started writing their own material and met singer-songwriter Michael Connelly, who collaborated with them on their debut five-song EP Goin’ Back Home. Steepwater would return the favor playing on Connelly’s project Bottles of Wine (Evangeline). Connelly would end up joining the band.
The band would be introduced to the Chicago blues community in 2000 as they opened the Chicago Blues Festival. Their popularity and notoriety would gain traction, and in 2001 would ink a recording/management/publishing deal with Funzalo Records and serve up their first full-length album Brother to the Snake as well as a live-in-the-studio project Live…Half in the Bag. In 2004, Funzalo would release their next album Dharmakaya, but a few months afterward, Connelly departed and the band’s relationship with Funzalo came to an end.
All through that period, Steepwater would return year-after-year to perform at the annual Chicago Blues Fest. By 2005 they would move up to a headlining slot. And over the next few years would be touring the country as part of various festivals aside the likes of Bad Company, ZZ Top and Govt. Mule to name a few. Becoming more worldly renowned, from 2006 onward their itinerary found them on tours of Europe as well as classic rock cruises in the Caribbean.
Steepwater truly cemented their musical stature in the industry starting in 2004 when Disney picked the track “Black Cat’s Path” from their album Dharmakaya as part of the soundtrack to the film Invincible and used in a Nissan commercial for their Titan pickup truck and “Dead Horse” from the same album used on the TV show My Name is Earl.
Additional placements of their music in film and television continued. In 2007, the television program Friday Night Lights used their song “Revelation Sunday” during a football game sequence. In 2010 the television series Deadliest Catch would include “Another Cold Letdown.” And that same year you would hear Steepwater on Chicago Cubs baseball broadcasts with “The Stars Look Good Tonight.” Other placements would follow on the CBS, CW, PBS, NBS and Discovery networks, among others.
In 2012, the track “Collision” was pulled from their 2006 album Revelation Sunday and included in the motion picture One for the Money.
It was also the year the band would expand, adding form Healing Sixes guitarist Eric Saylors to the fold.
Steepwater would release the 12th album Shake Your Faith in 2016. Critic Dennis Cook noted how the band’s sound had matured and solidified over nearly 20 years together, calling the album, “a stomping, seductive cry that real rock ‘n’ roll is alive and well in a band with the swagger, justified confidence, and badass tunes of a modern classic, a collection with all the heart and hips of 70s Stones and serious competition to contemporaries like The Black Keys, Ben Harper, and Jack White.”
And the band played on. In 2019, original bass player Tod Bowers would step out, still keeping his fingers in the music business producing the “Rock n roll Stew” radio program www.mixcloud.com/tod-michael-bowers. Joe Bishop has taken over the bass role.
The music and longevity of Steepwater is best described by critic Dennis Cook, “The abiding, resounding passion inside the band is never in question. Dive into their seemingly endless catalog of song just about anywhere, and the heart and muscle pumping array inside every track are palpable and present in a most pleasing way. Their sound is like a soundtrack for arm wrestling The Devil and then drinking shots with him ‘til sunrise after you’ve pinned him down. Their songs bridge the miles between lovers, throw lines to brothers and sisters in need of some understanding and a spark that makes them shuffle, eyes closed, shaking off the day’s heavy load, ready for another round because the right sound by the right band made them feel they had enough fight left in them. That’s the kind of band you’re dealing with here, and they’ll be doing this long after all the pretty boys, package acts and pretenders have left the stage.”
As a matter of fact, they’ve been doing it all summer and will be back in the area August 24 at Bulldog Park in Crown Point, Indiana; September 15 at the Lakeview East Festival of the Arts in Chicago; and September 28 at the Ignition Music Garage in Goshen, Indiana. To keep in touch with what they’re doing check out www.steepwater.com or www.facebook.com/thesteepwaterband.
Discography
1999 Going Back Home (SWB Music)
Their debut Going Back Home was a five-song EP mixing the classic blues of Muddy Waters and Elmore James with originals “Goin’ Back Home” and “House Burnin’.”
2001 Brother to the Snake (Funzalo GELM 4091)
2001 Live….Half in the Bag (Evangeline) UK
2004 Dharmakaya (Funzaol FNZ 90001)
2006 Revelation Sunday (Diamond Day DDR 1318)
2007 Songs from the 8th Day (Diamond Day
2008 Grace and Melody (Diamond Day DDR 2585)
2010 Live at the Double Door (Diamond Day DDR 7775)
2010 The Stars Look Good Tonight (Diamond Day DDR 3723) CD single
2011 Clava (Diamond Day DDR 7126)
2013 Wake Up and Walk Away b/w Memo from Turner (Diamond Day DDR 2422) 7” single
2013 Live & Humble (Diamond Day DDR 3165)
April 20, 2013 at The Ace Bar in Chicago
2014 Diamond Days – The Best of the Steepwater Band 2006-2014 (Diamond Day )
2016 Shake Your Faith (Diamond Day DDR 8181)
2020 Turn of the Wheel (Diamond Day 7985760016896)
2022 Return of the Wheel (Diamond Day )