Steve Almaas

Steve Almaas was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota. His father emigrated to the United States from Norway and worked as a salmon fisherman in Alaska before settling in Minnesota to marry and raise a family. His mother was from a Danish farming family and was working as a nurse in Minneapolis when she met Steve's father.

Steve played piano and violin in grade school, and began playing the guitar and bass around age 12. His first working band, the [...] Commandos, was the first punk rock group in Minneapolis/St. Paul. From the Commandos' pioneering performances and recordings grew the thriving alternative rock scene which later produced the Replacements, Husker Du, Soul Asylum and so many more.

At the end of the Seventies, Steve moved to New York City. He worked briefly with a post punk trio called The Crackers before forming a new country-influenced band called Beat Rodeo. This group released two albums, Staying Out Late With Beat Rodeo (1985) and Home In The Heart Of The Beat (1986), on I.R.S. Records and successfully toured the U.S. and Europe.

Returning to New York, Steve began appearing every Monday with a shifting cast of musicians (including former members of Beat Rodeo) at the intimate Ludlow Street Cafe. These gigs attracted a loyal and enthusiastic following, as well as favorable writeups in The New Yorker and The New York Times. Steve also worked with his friend George Usher in a duo called The Gornack Brothers, which released the album Refund on Strike Back Records (UK). In the fall of 1990, Steve Almaas performed at Berlin Independence Days both as a solo and in the band The Kool Kings with Justice Hahn and Alex Chilton. While in Berlin, Steve also had a chance to meet and spend time with long time idol Townes Van Zandt.

Outside New York's Ludlow Street Cafe one night, Steve met Ingemar Magnusson. The eventual result was East River Blues, the first solo album by Steve Almaas, which was released January 1993 on Magnusson's Lonesome Whippoorwill label of Sweden. The album was produced by Mark Sidgwick and contained eleven new Almaas originals. Steve toured Sweden twice that year accompanied by the mighty Ministers Of Sound (see below). A second album, Bridge Songs, was released in 1995. The album was recorded in New York with Mark Sidgwick producing, and mixed by Mitch Easter in North Carolina.

In 1996, Steve played bass on Chris Whitley's third album Terra Incognita (Columbia). Then, after a seventeen- year hiatus, The [...] Commandos played a Reunion show in Minneapolis... and 10,000 people showed up! Mercury/Polygram reissued The Commandos' sole studio album, Make A Record, on compact disc. In the summer of 1998, Steve recorded his third solo album, Human, All Too Human, at Mitch Easter's new Fidelitorium studio in North Carolina. Mitch co-produced the album with Steve, with the music by The Ministers Of Sound.

In 2001, Kingo A Wild One was the first Steve Almaas solo album to receive domestic distribution, with a US release through Parasol Records.

In 2002, Continuing on the winning streak started with 2001's excellent Kingo a Wild One, Steve Almaas teamed up with then girlfriend Ali Smith (a noted photographer who used to be the bassist in the psychobilly Speedball Baby) to record their self-titled debut, a small-scale and utterly charming collection of largely acoustic, country-tinged pop tunes. In 2006, the duo continued their collaboration with their second release, You Showed Me, also on the Parasol label.

Copyright 2007 stevealmaas.com