Steven Gullett

Still the perpetually dissatisfied songwriter his fans have come to love and relate to, Steven Gullett says his third solo CD, Songs About Them & Me & You, is “More mellow and less melancholy.” The record features two of what he calls his most “light-hearted” songs, “Look What Music Did To Me” and “Southern Belle.” But it balances them out with songs about death and loss (“Angels Are Never Enough”) and fears of growing old alone (“Whatever Comes Closest”). And when he chose a cover, it was the melodic “Some Hearts,” one of the last demos Johnny Thunders recorded before he died. Steven Gullett continues to blur the lines between rock ‘n’ roll and acoustic music to create something uniquely his own.

- PunkFolk

Steven Gullett's songs are musical short stories. / Rock Insider: by Don Thrasher 11/14/2003

Songs About Them & Me and You is an apt title for the latest solo CD from Steven Gullett, a local songwriter with a growing reputation for crafting memorable, musical short stories about real-life troubles, insecurities and loss. His believable character studies and personal confessions set to simple acoustic-guitar accompaniment (with occasional electric guitar overdubs) are a perfect musical soundtrack for this age of reality TV and overt voyeurism.
Faking It All for You is a biographical sketch that captures the claustrophobia and hopelessness often prevalent in small towns where options are limited and disappointment is a top ten word. In Look What Music Did to Me, Gullett takes a humorous look at the good and bad aspects of being a hard-core music fan with a penchant for wearing flamboyant glam-punk clothing. Angels Are Never Enough is a powerful first-person account about coping with the untimely death of a loved one.
Gullett truly reveals his gift for storytelling in Whatever Comes Closest, a melancholy portrait of a glorified secretary whose biggest regret is never getting married. The epic tale traces the unhappy woman's life, from losing her innocence at 15 with four beers on her breath and her parents down the hall, through a hippy phase in college, to being a lonely, overweight woman in a house filled with sadness and a couple of cats. Gullett's attention to detail helps create well-rounded characters like this song's protagonist who "looks good from a distance, but up close slightly misses, like a first glance full of wishes on a falling star . . . She don't stand out in a crowd and she stares at her feet when she walks."
- Dayton Daily News

Steven Gullett new CD : by Leslie Benson / Dayton City Paper 11/13/2003

Unlike his previous solo records, Sad Like Marilyn and Cheap Reflections, his newest album, Songs About Them & Me & You, takes a serious glance at the direction of his life, meaning, and purpose and whips back with a fine answer - the performing and recording of acoustic music.

With refined vocals and social commentary Gullett offers us more of his catchy choruses and charcoaled, sentimental lyrics. With over a decade's worth of performing live shows, Gullett has turned 180 degrees from shocking audiences with razor-sharp glam punk songs to placing more value on intrinsic motivations and personal issues in his music.

Although he may sound similar to other folk singers of the era, Gullett is better described as an anti-folkster. He has traveled from the darkest gutters of basement rock bands to the core of his being - a lone man with a single acoustic guitar and a microphone lit up on a dim stage.
- Dayton City Paper

Steven Gullett - Songs About Them & Me & You : by Holly Quinn / Dayton Exposed 11/13/2003

I caught Gullett's solo show at Elbo's. I had not gone to do a review, but I immediately knew I wanted to interview him after only hearing him play for a few minutes. Gullett has a moody, updated folk sound with a punk edge that catches a crowd's attention.

Interviewing Gullett was different than other musicians I have talked to. He was a very shy guy, but you could tell that music is his lifeblood. When asked whom he would compare himself to, he said Paul Westerberg and John Easdale. When asked what he liked most about his solo project, he stated that he could "explore being a musician instead of a punk guy around town". Gullett is originally from Elyria, Ohio, and has been in Dayton since 1991.

A song of special note would be Southern Belle (about the famed Dayton bar), which I also got to see him play live. Gullett puts a lot of energy into this song, and really gets his crowd going.
- Dayton Exposed

AntiReviews: Steven Gullett - Sad Like Marilyn
ANTIMUSIC.COM * JULY 2003

I don't know who Steven Gullett is personally, but I'm comfortable enough in my sexuality to say that if I was a woman, then I would want to have his baby...Or maybe not. That sh*t hurts from what I hear.

Anyways, Sad Like Marilyn is an anti-folk (or folk/punk synthesis) gem that captures a profound sense of both introspection and cynicism at times. He does have the type of songwriting chops and lyrical inventiveness that would make Bob Dylan (one of his influences) proud.

The first song, "Low Expectations" is a candid warning against both putting too much confidence in and also no trust whatsoever in what people say and do as he relays with just the first few lines alone. "Pressure" is the first track that really wows you with Steven's lyrical ability to a charging and optimistic tempo. The first few lines of "Hopefully" also showcase his ability to tap into an almost universal feeling with the lines, "Do you regret all the things you liked when you were young?/Don't believe in garbage, don't believe the things you wanna touch" are words that can easily apply to all that pop-culture bullsh*t that you were taught to like even though secretly you either wondered if there might be more meaningful things or wanted to put a drill to your head and get it over with. "My Old Friend" is a song written about the late, great Gregg Spence, and even though I have absolutely no idea who he is, I feel still like the world lost someone important after listening to this. "I Bet You're a Legend Now" is a great song satirizing fame and the unfortunate inability to control it. It's a bit of a slam you could say towards those who intentionally chase fame and then complain about it. "In Debt" is the only all-electric-guitar song on the album, but a great electric riff still accompanies the acoustic riff on "The Futility Ball" and the final track, "One to Pray" shows that Steven isn't afraid to experiment with a synthesizer and even a brief, yet sublime, solo to go along with a solemn reflection on the question of the after-life.

Managing to be sentimental without being sappy, Steven Gullett easily, has the potential to grow enough to make a future album on par with Highway 61 Revisited, Blue, or Graceland.
- AntiMusic.com

DIARY OF A ROCK 'N' ROLL FIEND
Solo, So Alone:
by Jeff Dahl / Carbon 14 #23 / July 2003


-It seems that as bands break up, whoever might be sited as the driving or creative force will soldier on in some form or another as the rest of the band limps to the wayside of obscurity. Here are some cats that've left the band scene behind and have decided to walk the long, lonely solo path.-

Steven Gullett - One of the strongest singer/songwriters I've come across in a long, long time. He's got two great CDs out since the split-up of his glampunk band, The Mystery Addicts. Cheap Reflections is subtitled A Collection Of Demos; it's just an amazing set of 4 track recordings and the fact that he covers Peter Laughner, The Stones and Neil Young should tell you where he's coming from. What will take your breath away is that his originals measure up to these classic covers! The newest CD, Sad Like Marilyn, is another home recording with a bit more attention to production and it's even more brilliant. Unless you're passing through Dayton, Ohio you might never get to see him so I'd suggest you check out his website: www.stevengullett.com
- Carbon 14

ANTI-FOLKY
Steven Gullett drops his second solo disc
By Don Thrasher IMPACT WEEKLY FEB. 6 2003


The Mystery Addicts have broken up and co-founding member Steven Gullett doesn't really want to talk about it. True, the group disbanded once in the summer of 1999 only to reform by the spring of 2000, but this time it's for good. When the group called it quits after a show at Elbo's in November, the era of Dayton's hard rocking glam punks had finally come to an end. For Gullett what's past is past. Although it's only been a few months since the group's demise, he has clearly moved on. Today, Gullett is more concerned with his activities as a solo performer than dwelling on the accomplishments of his former band.

"I didn't quit The Mystery Addicts to play solo, " Gullett said. "It just wasn't what I wanted to do anymore. I might play with a band again but at the moment, this is what I'm doing. Everything is up in the air - there are no set plans."
While the singer/songwriter doesn't have concrete plans for the future, that doesn't mean he's been sulking at home making plans for a rock 'n' roll rebirth. On the contrary, he's doing the same thing he did before he joined The Mystery Addicts (and continued to do so sporadically during his tenure with the glam punk outfit), which is perform solo. "Doing it myself is the hard route to go," Gullett said. "Getting other people and playing out is the easy route. I enjoy both, and I'm always caught between which one I want to do more."

For now, it appears he is going it alone. In January, Gullett released Sad Like Marilyn, his second album in singer/songwriter mode. Like his debut, Cheap Reflections (released in May 2002), Sad Like Marilyn isn't so much sad bastard folk as introspective anti-folk (or acoustic music with a rock attitude). "Drunks, Junkies and Thieves," "Pressure" and other cuts betray Gullett's punk background, and that's a good thing.

On most tracks, Gullett's gruff rocker's voice is accompanied by a solitary acoustic guitar. On a few other songs, however, he sweetens the mix with subtle overdubs. On "One To Pray," the singer says goodbye to a deceased friend and punctuates the sentiment with a simple, melodic guitar line. A slide guitar overdub brightens the mood of "Low Expectations," a somber song about remaining centered and content by accepting the fact that people are human and will make mistakes, and on some occasions even disappoint you.

Like its predecessor, all of the songs on Sad Like Marilyn were recorded at home on four and eight track machines. While the results are a far cry from the crude and amateurish recordings of many lo-fi artists, these sessions still don't have the sheen of a proper, state-of-the-art studio. The recording quality is somewhere between those two extremes, which is the perfect setting for Gullett's anti-folk approach.

According to the singer, he likes the immediacy of working alone at home because he isn't held up by studio time and bandmates' busy schedules. "Normally you write songs and it's a long time before they're released," he said. "With this new CD there are three songs that were written in the two months since the band broke up. It's nice to put something out when it's fresh like that."

Some of the songs on Sad Like Marilyn are new offerings, but there are a few tracks with older born on dates. "Hopefully" was written in 1996, "The Futility Ball" was written in 1997 and "In Debt" was written in 1999. "I Bet You're A Legend Now" was a part of Gullett's acoustic sets in the mid-'90s.
"I played 'I Bet You're A Legend Now' on and off from 1994 until I put it away a couple of years ago," Gullett said. "I pulled it out recently and thought, 'It's a cool song,' so I started playing it again."

While the recent demise of the Mystery Addicts hasn't directly affected Gullett's songwriting, it has made it easier to focus. However, like before, he doesn't dwell on the process. Gullett prefers instead to write the material in a fit of creativity and let the song dictate how he performs it. "

A lot of times I just write and whatever comes out, comes out," he said. "Some times it works as a band song and other times it works better with just me and the guitar. Other songs work both ways, it just depends.

While Gullett doesn't see himself as part of some local movement, he is glad to have like-minded performers to share the stage with. For now at least there are no plans for full-on rock. Gullett is content to take the stage alone, a singer and his guitar. "I'm enjoying playing solo," Gullett said. "ya know, you make all the decisions yourself. And, it's completely self-contained, so there is nobody to blame but myself. It's fun to do things like the CD design.

No matter what difficulties lie ahead, it's safe to say Steven Gullett is one anti-folky who won't let all the obstacles and bullshit slow him down. And for that, we should all be glad.
- Impact Weekly

By DIMITRI MONROE * DETROIT METRO TIMES * AUGUST 21, 2002

Steven Gullett is the apparently tortured blackheart behind Dayton’s best punk band, the Mystery Addicts. This solo album (mainly a collection of demos) is hot on the heels of last year’s critically acclaimed Mystery Addicts full-length, Unluck and Shame. Steven is among the most promisingly literate songwriters amid the wave of subterranean rock ’n’ rollers, penning vitriolic lyrics about failure, despair, and self-loathing. Gullett is masterful at detailing his own misery.

With all its nagging portents of gloom and futility, Cheap Reflections probably hits me too close to the bone. In “The Payoff,” Gullett laments the harrowing disappointment of insanely pursuing an ever-receding, unreasonable dream: “If this is it, it’s all you get/have you made your millions yet?/have you made your peace with that?”

Gullett continues to outgrow his once ubiquitous influences to find his own voice as a writer — choosing his own words, recalling his own experiences, conveying his own truth.
- DETROIT METRO TIMES

KEEP YOUR VOICE - The Mystery Addicts' Steven Gullett releases solo effort, Cheap Reflections
By SARA FARR * IMPACT WEEKLEY * MAY 9, 2002

ONE THING you learn as you get older is that nothing's ever what it seems. To be cliché', there's always "more to the story," more than meets the eye. Such is the case with Steven Gullett's first solo record, Cheap Reflections: A Collection of Demos.

Gullett's regular gig is co-songwriter/frontman for The Mystery Addicts, one of the longest-running rock 'n' roll shows in Dayton. Occasionally, you can spot Gullett performing at a Songwriters-in-the-Round or Musicians' Co-Op at Canal Street Tavern, but it's a safe bet most people know him first and foremost as the glammed-out, rosy-cheeked other half of what might just be Dayton's hardest-gigging original band besides The Jackalopes.

Cheap Reflections was recorded during a two-year period, just Gullett waxing philosophic with an acoustic guitar and a Tascam 4-track recorder, creating a collection of personal stories, narratives and castoffs from Mystery Addicts writing sessions. Some were born as far back as '93, when Gullett was an angry twentysomething opening shows at the now-closed Brookwood Hall, a North Dayton bastion of sweaty, independent punk rock that witnessed shows by the likes of Guided By Voices, Brainiac and The Method. Other tracks were born more recently, molded into shape as Gullett learned more about the recording process while working on the Addicts' first full-length, Unluck and Shame. Something about the songs is raw and unpolished. It's not just the fact it was recorded on a four-track - the tunes are emotional snapshots of personal experiences, cloaked in strained vocals and hushed chords.

Gullett mines richly from the wellspring of rockers-turned-solo-artists such as Paul Westerberg, Neil Young and Peter Laughner, making the obvious nod to his influences with the inclusion of "Baudelaire," "Dead Flowers" and "Needle and the Damage Done" on the album. These songs work well with originals such as "Nowhere Here," which features a "Sister Morphine" feel. "`Nowhere Here' is a song I wrote when I was working door at Canal Street Tavern back in '93 or '94," Gullett explained. "That one I just wrote sitting there watching some horrible band whose name I will not mention, and (it's also about) whatever was going on with me at the time. I had good reaction to that one when I wrote it, but I stopped playing it over the years."

As he was compiling songs for this album, which he'd never actually intended to put out were it not for "people constantly asking" him about it, Gullett ran across other, older songs, some of which made the cut such as the blues tune "Down Here" and "Don't Ask Me to Talk About Love," which was "one of the ones that hurt the most, no elaboration."

"I always wanted to be one of those guys who wrote story songs; I never thought I could," Gullett said. "(When I started playing), l used all these really strange chords that I just made up - which I still think is a good thing, and I do on occasion. I was a lot more aggressive acoustically back then. ... I think I used to write a lot more songs, but as (local blues musician and former CST Co-Op host) Sharon Lane once told me, 'As you get older, you write less songs, but more of them are keepers.' And I think that's true."

Though he remains deliberately enigmatic about the meaning of his songs, he acknowledges the songwriting process provides an emotional outlet he'd never completely gotten from other creative endeavors such as fine art. "It's about honesty," Gullett reflected. "I think that's what draws me to people like Dylan, or Westerberg."

Like his inspirations, Gullett has a natural tendency to camouflage what he's trying to say: "I mean this, and it comes out like that. But I know what I meant; it's up to other people to decide what they think it means.

"Sometimes (a song) means, `You wrote this because you have to get something off your chest.' I don't really think about it that much; it's just kind of what I do," Gullett said. " ... (When I started writing lyrics and my friends forced me to be in a band, it all worked out a lot better; I had some emotional release that I couldn't get anywhere else. ... I try to be honest and hopefully that's what comes off."
- IMPACT WEEKLY By Sara Farr

1. So tell me a little about the new album. Are these all brand new songs, older songs?


All the songs on the new CD were written over the last 2 years with the exception of “Attention Junkies” which dates back to 1995. In fact I used to play that one with my old band Love Lies Bleeding. Anyways I’ve always liked it but somehow it never got released until now. I think it still holds up & is a bit of a nod to my “I’m a tragic poet” youth.

2. Is there a theme running through the album or is it just the latest collection of songs?

If there is a theme then it’s not intentional. I did record twice as many songs for the CD than actually made it on but I kept moving songs around, dropping some, adding others until it sounded cohesive to me.

3. Where/when/how was the new album recorded?

It was recorded over the last year and a half (which is a long time for me) in my makeshift home recording set-up I call Star Heartless Studio (same place where I recorded Robb Young’s CD & am currently working with John Dubuc). I did a lot more digital recording on this CD than the previous 3 and that’s good part of the reason why it took so long. I had to buy more equipment & teach myself a lot while I was tracking the songs.

Then I mixed & remixed compulsively & plug-ined myself crazy. So it was a long process and I’m glad to be past it and have something to show for all the computer eye I suffered.

4. What's the title (Nostalgia Poisoning) about?

The phrase came out of a night at Canal Street Tavern when Legbone was playing & I was hanging out when my old band mate Jamy Holliday happened to step behind the bar for some reason and it was like we’d dropped backwards a decade all of a sudden. I believe it was my wife Angelle who said it was like nostalgia poisoning. I heard that and said, “That’s a song.” Wrote the song about a week later having nothing to do with that evening but just taking the title ya know. And thought it sounded like a good CD title as well.


5. Tell me about the other projects you're involved with.

Well I’m lucky enough to be playing in two very different bands I’m really proud of. First there’s Snake Oil which is Jason Short (ex-Montgomery Greene) on drums, percussion & vocals, Robb Young on acoustic guitar & vocals, Bryan Lakatos (Shrug) on upright/electric bass & myself on vocals & acoustic/electric guitar. It’s a blast playing with those guys; we do my songs & Robb’s. It’s the closest I’ve ever gotten in a band to what I write naturally, meaning we don’t fuss about whether a song is not this enough or too that, we just play what we like. Sometimes it’s a ballad, sometimes it’s got a twang, and sometimes it’s a rocker. I don’t think music is supposed to be that segregated, throw the genres in the toilet I say, let’s just play ya know. And I like to think of myself as at least a 4 trick pony so it works out well. We’re working in our new bass player Bryan right now and hope to do some recording this summer/fall. Until then some demo MP3s and other info can be found at www.snakeoiltheband.com.

Also I play rhythm guitar in The American Static with Jason Himes on piano & vocals, Tod Weidner (Shrug) on lead guitar, Dan Stahl (Shrug) on drums, Tim Pritchard (Flyaway Minion) on bass, Patrice Hall on violin, and Joanna Taylor on viola. That’s been a really cool situation not singing or writing the songs just playing guitar. We’ve been recording a new CD for the last year or so. Patrick Himes (Flyaway Minion) has taken over the recording/mixing after Joe Winner (The Lab/Joe’s Garage) left town. It’s sounding really good; I’m looking forward to finishing that up. You can keep track of what were doing at www.theamericanstatic.com.

6. Is Star Heartless still happening?

No, after Bryan Labonte left it just fell apart. But he’s out in L.A. trying to play music and I wish him the best.

7. What are your musical plans for the Summer?

This summer I’ll be playing some solo shows, Snake Oil shows & American Static shows, hopefully finishing the Static CD, starting the Snake Oil recording, hosting Tuesday night Co-Ops down at Canal Street Tavern, working some more on John Dubuc’s CD, and generally being that guy that’s been doing this a while and won’t go away.

www.stevengullett.com
- DAYTON CITY PAPER