Seasick Steve, the American blues musician who performed to great acclaim on the main stage at Paléo on Wednesday night, still can’t quite believe his luck.
“It’s taken me 50 years to get here but now that I am making it as a musician, I still have to pinch myself to make sure I am not in a dream. I am very grateful for my success and I will never take it for granted. I always try to give 100% at each concert. There are some bands who think the audience should be lucky that they are playing for them. With me, it’s the other way round, I will never forget that it’s the audience who is my boss”.
At the press conference after Seasick’s Steve’s concert, Living in Nyon asked the bluesman about a comment he had made on stage earlier that night in which he apologised for not having a big light show or any special effects on stage. Is one of the secrets to his success that his music is pared down to the roots and that there is a simplicity in it ? “Yes I think it’s good to go back to basics and just have a guy with a few instruments singing on stage and not much else. It’s a busy world we live in, keeping things simple is good.
On stage Steve played a variety of instruments, many of them constructed out of a variety of car parts, from a guitar made out two old wheel hubcaps and an air filter, to a washboard with just one string. “Using these kind of instruments keep me on my toes, I never know if they are going to make it until the end of the concert! Plus, you can get some pretty amazing music out all sorts of stuff”. Also during the set, Steve invited a teenage girl from the crowd onto the stage with him and he then proceeded to sing to her. When asked if he often did this in his concerts, he replied, “Nearly every time, getting the chance to sing a romantic song to a lovely girl, helps roll back the years!”
In the BBC documentary “Bringing it all back home”, Seasick Steve is seen in one sequence watching a a train roll by somewhere in Tennessee and he comments to camera, “Do you hear the music in that train as it goes by? ” Living in Nyon asked him whether he often hears music in other forms of transport or in objects or in going about his daily life.
“I certainly do. I was once on a ferry boat and the sound of the engine turning over had a real rhythm to it. I was with some other musicians and we just started to jam to the thud and noise of the engine. The other folks on the boat looked on as if we were a bit strange but I do hear music in lots of places, my Max Factor tractor has a unique sound to it as well”.
At the end of the press conference, Seasick Steve took time to shake the hands of the press and to chat a bit more before heading off to play and jam with Jack Johnson who was playing on the Grande Scène that night. One of the press had asked him earlier if he had any advice for those starting out in the music industry. “Live your dream, go and do it, it make take you a while, but hang on in there. I’m still living mine and l still can’t believe it.”
All photos Catherine Nelson-Pollard. Below – Seasick Steve in conversation over a bottle of wine (” I don’t need a glass”)