Princess Katie & Racer Steve

A few years ago, you’d have been met with disbelief if you had told Katie O’Sullivan and Steve Borne that – as Princess Katie & Racer Steve – they would tour nationwide with their own kiddie rock band and would have recorded three highly-acclaimed CDs (Love, Cake & Monsters set for 2013 release): 2007’s Songs for the Coolest Kids, dubbed “a sparkling album that effortlessly lives up to its title” by Disney FamilyFun magazine, 2008’s Fast & Feisty, which inspired Cookie magazine to declare, “This is one kids’ band that really knows how to rock” and Tiny Cool a top 10 Sirius XM favorite!

Never mind the fact that they followed those milestones with a live concert DVD, Princess Katie & Racer Steve Live! Revved Up & Ready to Rock!, praised by L.A. Parent for “Katie’s Natalie Merchant-like vocals and Steve’s rocking guitar work.”

Most of the surprise would stem from the fact that this career as kiddie rock stars came about quite by accident. Katie’s ascent to tiaras began when the kid-loving improv actress asked her social worker cousin how hospitalized children fill their time. Recalls Katie, “She said they just kinda sat around, just lonely and scared. Well, I felt terrible to think of those poor kids. So I thought, I’ve done so much comedy, and Steve’s a musician. Why don’t we go and cheer up the kids?”

They headed for a costume shop, where they bought Steve a Spider-Man outfit and rented Katie “a huge SpongeBob SquarePants costume that I could barely navigate. I couldn’t see or anything. It was ridiculous.”

Luckily, Katie didn’t have to sing as SpongeBob. “At first, we just visited the hospitals to talk to the kids, not as performers,” Steve says. A few years in, they decided to step it up and perform some holiday songs for the kids. Unable to negotiate the guitar neck in his latex Shrek hands, Steve and Katie decided to create their own characters, and Princess Katie & Racer Steve were born.

Katie could see that kids needed songs to which they could relate. After consulting with her cousin about issues most important to kids, she became a songwriter. “I think Katie’s incredible,” says Steve, who began studying guitar at 12. “I have the experience and musical training, but I don’t think for a minute that I could come up with the songs and ideas that she does.”

And why not give them a real show? Now that Princess Katie & Racer Steve are entertaining kid all over the country, they’ve added a supporting cast: hip musical dudes with the monikers “Crash” on percussion and “Space” on bass. Their show has evolved into a true, interactive theatrical event. This is not a sit-down concert! Families are treated to colorful sets and props, skits and pratfalls served up with a sense of make-believe, along with irresistibly rocking music. Katie and Steve encourage fans to come to shows in costume; their audiences are filled with feisty young princesses and rocking racecar drivers.