Jeffrey Steele

The definitive interpretation of “What Hurts the Most,” the No. 1 country hit by Rascal Flatts, comes not from that group but from the song’s writer, Jeffrey Steele. Rascal Flatts wiped the song clean of anguish, but Mr. Steele, as seen in any number of YouTube clips, howls it like a torture victim. At Joe’s Pub on Wednesday night he hammered at a piano and sang it severely, killing the chatter in the room. In the context of his bruised vocal, even when his fingers fell on the wrong keys, it sounded right.

But as Mr. Steele, one of Nashville’s most prolific and visceral songwriters, surely knows, reclamation is generally a losing game, so he didn’t much bother with it during this show. Instead he happily treated his songs like what they inevitably become: other people’s property.

As such, this was a loose showcase, with Mr. Steele stopping songs midway, gleefully acting the ham, and spending as much time on back story as on performance. This one sat around unsold until a major country star had an unfortunate incident involving a horse and a jail (Tim McGraw’s “The Cowboy in Me”); this other one came about because “everyone talks about John Deeres” (Craig Morgan’s “International Harvester,” as in the agricultural equipment manufacturer — never let it be said hip-hop is the only genre obsessed with brand-name dropping).

Even Mr. Steele’s name had a story — after his father, a metalworker, died, he dropped LeVasseur and adopted Steele in his honor.

After a handful of hits with the group Boy Howdy in the early 1990s (one of them, “She’d Give Anything,” was magnificently reinterpreted by the soul sensualist Gerald Levert), Mr. Steele made a couple of abortive attempts at a solo career before turning seriously to songwriting.

Also a producer and a reliable dispenser of sound advice and bewildered expressions on country-music reality TV competitions like “Nashville Star” and “Gone Country,” Mr. Steele writes detail-rich and emotionally specific lyrics. Trace Adkins’s “I’m Tryin’ ” opens with a man recently divorced and deflated: “Send more money right away/Is pretty much all she has to say/When she calls these days.”

Most of the professionals who sing Mr. Steele’s songs can capture the depth of his sentiment, but not its complexity. Still, they accomplish what Mr. Steele cannot. His voice is compellingly scratchy at the edges, but somewhat hollow at the core, making for renditions with character, if not always punch.

After repeated requests Mr. Steele played “Drunk Girl,” a song famous from no one’s mouth but his own. In concept it’s a deliciously tacky comic stunt, a love song for a nameless spring-break fling:

We were Fred and Ginger on that old dance floor

Heard a couple of girls say, “Look at that whore

Her skirt’s too tight and her top’s too low”

Every boy in that place got a pretty good show

But we kept dancing anyway

Yet a funny thing happened when Mr. Steele applied his desperate rasp to the subject. His affections seemed perfectly sensible. This girl didn’t merit opprobrium; rather, she was unattainable, ineffable. From Mr. Steele it was a demonstration of brute skill rescuing even unappealing subject matter. And maybe someday, from someone else, it’ll be a far less interesting hit. - The New York Times

When Jeffrey Steele took the stage at the Viper Room in November, it was the first time in a dozen years that he was performing on the Sunset Strip. Between those two performances he had become a sought-after songwriter, albeit 2,000 miles away from his hometown and the clubs he worked, first in hard-rock bands and then as a country act.

His return to Hollywood was in part physical in that he was performing to celebrate the wide release of three of his albums that had been previously available only through his website and at the 40-50 shows he does each year, mostly near Nashville. On another level his trip to Hollywood was metaphorical: Steele's latest song, "I Thought I Lost You," is being sung by Miley Cyrus and John Travolta over the end credits in "Bolt."

For a native Californian whose songs -- "My Wish" and "What Hurts Most" by Rascal Flatts, "The Cowboy in Me" by Tim McGraw among them -- have been given 25 million spins on radio over the last 15 years, it's an introduction to a new world.

Cyrus, who co-wrote the tune, surprised Steele.

"I was amazed at her sense of where the story had to go within the song. I didn't know what to expect but was pleasantly surprised," Steele says.

A judge and mentor on the most recent season of "Nashville Star," Steele is working on an album with Sebastian Bach, the former Skid Row singer who won the televised "Gone Country" competition. It's a bit of a no-brainer for Steele, who grew up musically playing in hard-rock bands on the Sunset Strip in the 1970s and '80s before he turned to country, playing bass and singing in the popular SoCal band Boy Howdy.

The big difference, obviously, are the lessons learned trying to make a living as a country musician playing California and Nashville clubs.

"Music was a big part of it, but it was the people I was meeting, the stories I was hearing," he says of his early days in country music.

"I'm a guy who had a San Fernando Valley existence and I was getting pieces of life I hadn't experienced. ... I watched how they emoted, what they said, how they lit up. I wanted to capture the look on people's faces. I don't know what it was, but I wanted to write to those feelings. Years later I meet Al Anderson (with whom he would co-write 300 songs in two years) and a big door opened. Through what he taught me, I could get to those places. - Variety

There are about 1,800 acts coming to South By Southwest this year and, even without knowing the histories and credits of every one, it’s safe to say that Jeffrey Steele is the only member of the SXSW Class of 2009 who has co-written a song with Miley Cyrus (“I Thought I Lost You” from the animated film “Bolt”).

Steele, 47, is a Nashville songwriting phenom who has written nine #1 country singles and eight #2s in the past eight years. His hits include several for Rascal Flatts, including “What Hurts the Most,” plus “The Cowboy In Me” for Tim McGraw, “Big Deal” for LeAnn Rimes and “Brand New Girlfriend” by Steve Holy. Steele was named the BMI Songwriter of the Year in 2003 and 2007.

But that Jeffrey Steele won’t be taking the stage at the Ranch (708 W. Sixth St.) at 9 p.m. Saturday March 21. In concert, Steele is a soulful hard rocker, coming off more like Hank Williams Jr. than Sr. When he stomps out a number like “Swamp Thang,” with its Zeppelinesque riffage, it’s hard to believe that this guy has even heard of Rascal Flatts. As he showed at the ACL Fest a couple years ago, Steele is a southern version of vintage Bob Seger.

“Nothing pumps me up like playing live,” he says by phone from Nashville, where he’s currently producing the new band LoCash Cowboys. “It’s total joy.” Although a recent exclusive distribution deal with Best Buy gets Steele’s albums in those stores nationwide, and he’s built up a loyal following after his stint as a judge on “Nashville Star,” Steele doesn’t sell under his own name as well as the folks who record his songs. Still, he’s determined to make his mark as a performer and recording artist.

Songwriting success hasn’t changed the So Cal native, who started off in hard rock bands, fell in with the Lucinda Williams/ Jim Lauderdale crowd at the Palomino Club, then merged metal and country with his own songs. “I still have the curse of the working musician,” he says. “What songwriting does is afford me the luxury to go out on the road and play for people.”

His career is a bit like Willie Nelson’s in the ‘60s, writing hits for others, yet burning to make his own mark.

His pursuits have not been free of tragedy, as Steele lost his 13-year-old son Alex two years ago in an all terrain vehicle accident. Steele started a foundation under his son’s name, which pays for promising skateboarders, as Alex was, to receive more training and opportunities.

Steele came to Nashville in the early ‘80s as the singer and chief songwriter of Boy Howdy, which had a couple of hits during the Garth boom and then disbanded. “We did the same 10 songs every night, in the same order” he says. “I hated it.” Steele had issues with his voice and had to retrain it to sing again. In the meantime, he wrote songs and found a champion in producer Dann Huff (Keith Urban, Rascal Flatts, Faith Hill). Once the hits started coming, Steele didn’t have to pitch his songs, producers and artists came to him.

His biggest hit is probably “What Hurts the Most,” which was originally going to be cut by Aerosmith, then Faith Hill had it on hold for awhile.

“That song was on hold for eight years, then Rascal Flatts didn’t want to do it because they thought it was too depressing,” Steele says. “The producer had to talk them into it. If I had to sit around and think about stuff like that, or trying to write songs for certain people, I’d drive myself crazy. That’s why I write every song for myself first.”

And he’ll work in compositional mailbox money like “The Cowboy In Me” or “Hell, Yeah” (a hit for Montgomery Gentry) during his live set, but it doesn’t always go over so well.

“We just played in Chicago and someone came up after the set and said they liked all the rockin’ stuff,” Steele says. “And then they said, ‘but why did you play all those country covers.’” - Austin360.com

Steele is the perfect example of how country music allows its writers to get better as they mature and gain experience without allowing recording artists a second chance to demonstrate they can improve with age. Steele first hit Nashville as lead singer of Boy Howdy, an entertaining but forgettable California country band. He has since developed into one of the town’s most incisive and successful songwriters. His recent hits include such gems as Trace Adkins’ “I’m Trying,” Tim McGraw’s “The Cowboy in Me,” Joe Nichols’ “That Would Be Her” and Montgomery Gentry’s “My Town,” “Speed” and “Hell Yeah.” But those who’ve seen Steele perform in recent years and those who’ve heard his 2001 album Somethin’ in the Water on Sony Records know that he’s capable of rousing up as big a reaction as any of the stars who record his material. It’s too bad country fans outside of Nashville don’t get the chance to experience the charismatic performer responsible for some of their favorite songs. - Nashville Scene