Today we’d like to introduce you to Steve Homan.
Hi Steve, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I originally got into music by beating on my mom’s dashboard and some old pots and pans she had laying around. A few years and a couple of dashboards later, I started actually learning percussion in the school band around the 6th grade. From there I started jamming with friends and playing drums in a few rock and metal bands. Eventually, when my rock star drummer dreams didn’t materialize and the world’s greatest unheard of rock band broke up, I started focusing more on producing hip hop and electronic beats, which I had been making for fun on the side. I also started learning a lot about music production as well as the business side of things, like publishing and copyrighting. Eventually, I had enough material and knowledge to confidently release an album, which taught me a lot about how that side of things works. Another shout out to Austin Music Foundation for helping me with their free consultations! From there, I went on to release a few more projects before I finally figured out how to take my music and perform it live. Since then, I’ve basically just been trying to get better at every single aspect of it, from production to performance.
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey have been a fairly smooth road?
Has it been a smooth road? Not at all. But driving on a smooth road is boring! Lol. Just kidding (kinda). A smooth road would be nice, but a rough road will make you tougher in the long run, right? I’ve learned so much by doing things the wrong way and looking back, I’m not so sure I would trade that knowledge for a smoother ride at this point. The biggest struggle is obviously building a genuine fan base. I feel like I’ve tried every form of promo out there and still haven’t cracked that egg, but I keep trying new things.
One of the biggest things that changed my mindset on fan base, which I wish I had learned earlier, is that your family and friends are not your fan base. Sure, they might actually like your music and throw a heart on the occasional post, and maybe some of them might buy some merch from you or see a show of yours, but I think the sooner you try to reach people you don’t know, the better. On that same note, I’ve wasted a lot of time trying to cast a wide net with terrible tactics instead of going niche with focus while trying to find fans of my specific genre. Seems like such a simple and obvious thing to do, but I only started doing this about a year or two ago. Talk about wasted time!
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I would say I specialize in producing experimental bass music if I can even use the word specialize. Some people specialize in throwing paint at a canvas though, so take that with a grain of salt, lol. My sound has changed a lot since I started, but I’m closer than ever to actually releasing the kind of music that I’ve wanted to release since I started. It’s just taken me quite some time to really hone in on that sound and get it out of my head and into recordings. Musically, I would say I’m most known for gnarly bass lines because people always come and talk to me about that after shows. Shout out to saw waves, distortion, and limiters!
For most proud of, I’d have to say that lately I’ve been pretty proud of my sound design. I’ve been putting more effort into making original sounds from all kinds of sources and incorporating them into newer tracks. Hopefully, that’ll continue to improve over time. Another thing that I’m proud of and something that I think sets me apart is the 3D modeling that I do for my artwork, which I’ve been doing since the Phase EP. I wish I had more time to just make random artwork cause it’s fun and rewarding, but it’s a whole other world of creativity and unfortunately super time-consuming.
Ok, ok, ok… one last thing that I think sets me apart is my efforts in community building. Of course, COVID has really thrown this into disarray, but before COVID hit I was helping run a monthly producer showcase called Imaginary Stereo. We were really starting to build up a nice little community here in Austin and I honestly didn’t even realize how important that was until recently. I never even thought about it as community building, but looking back, that’s exactly what was happening. Community is super important to me and I love being able to provide people with an outlet for their creativity. If all goes well (spoiler alert) we’ll be bringing that back after the new year! Super looking forward to that. In addition to Imaginary Stereo, I also co-host a weekly podcast called That’s A Trip. We just recently started inviting guests on after spending a solid year just learning the ropes. I hope to continue building the show up as another platform for people to learn about creatives and hear their stories. Also, it’s another community and you know how I feel about communities… If you’re interested in either of those projects, I have a link to both in my bio across all of my social media. We’d love for you to join us!
What were you like growing up?
Oh, growing up, I was definitely the shy and quiet kid. I would really have to know someone before I would open up around them, which is definitely the opposite of how I am now. I feel like getting into skateboarding in my teenage years definitely helped pull me out of that, and then music even more so later on.
Contact Info:
- Email: statxmusic@gmail.com
- Website: www.statxmusic.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/statxmusic
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/statxmusic
- Twitter: www.twitter.com/statxmusic
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/statxmusic
- SoundCloud: www.soundcloud.com/statx
- Other: https://linktr.ee/statx
