Joel Steven

About Joel Steven

Joel Steven (born August 16, 1967) is an American guitarist, songwriter, singer and recording artist from Midland, Michigan. He is a multi-instrumentalist with proficiency in guitar, bass, drums, and vocals.
Although primarily a solo artist, Steven is also a founding member of the rock duo “What Man Was” with keyboardist Paul Grove, as well as the rock project War Lily with musician/producer Nathan Lowe. His Music has been featured on MTV's The Real World, Road Rules, Making the band, Made, as well as several indie films such as La Femme Americana.
Generally considered a rock musician, Steven’s song collections defy an easy label, ranging from folky acoustic ballads to hard rock/ metal, often contained on the same album. This contributed to a challenged career for Steven, often apart from the support of the main stream music business who relies on an easily defined cohesive sound for marketability.
Steven’s early years were spent primarily as a live performer in various Michigan rock bands. At the age of 16, Joel was noted as a high-energy rock guitarist, singer and dynamic stage performer. By 18, Joel was doing live shows across his home state of Michigan capturing the attention of his audiences with his electrifying stage presence and aggressive, bluesy guitar style often described as a cross between Jimmy Page and David Gilmore.
In 1986 Steven moved to Kalamazoo Michigan where in addition to performing, he sought to hone his skills as a songwriter. He attended Western Michigan University from 1986-1990 and graduated with a BA in Creative Writing. His love of imagery and poetic influence began to make its way into his original music.
While attending the University, Steven became known as a prolific songwriter. He formed two original bands to showcase his music. The hard rocking ‘Mana Rule’ (1990-1993) and ‘Eel pie Island’ (1993-1995) both of which became known for Joel’s unyielding stage performances and edgy improvisational guitar riffs.
Steven moved to California in 1995 and began to explore the realm of audio engineering. Forever fascinated by musical arrangements and how instruments and tones work together, Joel pursued a career as a live sound engineer. When he wasn’t performing live, he was mixing night club and concert sound for prominent national groups such as Charlie Daniels Band, Iron Butterfly, Dread Zeppelin and Suicidal Tendencies. “I absolutely loved mixing live sound. It taught me extremely valuable engineering skills that I would later come to cherish as I sought my lifelong dream of becoming a recording artist in my own studio”.
Following his dream Steven did just that. In 1999 he opened a small recording studio and established the indie label Octagon Records with the intention of writing and recording independent music that he believed In. This was the start of Joel’s career as an independent recording artist. Since then he has released four albums of original music, “North Coast”, “Fathomless” and "The Dark After Dawn" and "Imaginations VOL.1", as well as two albums of instrumental rock with the venerable keyboardist Paul Grove under the name “What Man Was” and another EP with producer Nathan Lowe called "War Lily". Steven now lives in Atlanta Georgia.