Today we’d like to introduce you to Michael Mancuso.
Hi Michael, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
I moved to Austin in January 2011 after I graduated from college. My goal was to open my own recording studio and start a band. Opening a studio proved far too expensive for a broke early 20’s musician like me, but I managed to get Steady Legend going in Spring 2011 after posting a bunch of Craigslist ads looking for musicians who wanted to play ska music. I had written some horn arrangements and my original goal was to have an all-instrumental traditional ska band. That changed when I received an email from a singer who responded to one of my ads looking for horn players, and she ended up being our first singer. She sounded a lot like Gwen Stefani from No Doubt, which really fit the vibe to have a high-energy ska outfit. Our early shows were really well received because I don’t think there was many ska bands in Austin at the time, so we got to know them all pretty quickly.
We played shows through 2012, when I had to put Steady Legend on hiatus because I started playing bass for a touring group called Soul Track Mind, who I played with until 2014. I learned a lot about being in a working band from that experience. We released a full-length album during my time in the band and I learned the process for releasing an album. Not only the music side of things, which I was already pretty familiar with, but the business side. Like how to run a PR campaign behind a record, and just how to manage a band as a business. Before that, I wasn’t very experienced at running a band, but working in a band that had a manager and seeing how it was run taught me a lot.
After I left Soul Track Mind in 2014, I brought back Steady Legend with our original singer and a new band. We played some of the old songs from the original incarnation and I had also written some new tunes too. We cut our first full length album in 2015, and we had some nice momentum going into 2016 after playing some cool shows. We were getting ready to record our second album in 2016, did our first recording session for the album and cut five new songs. Unfortunately, the singer and I had a falling out after she cancelled on a scheduled performance the night before the gig, so we decided to part ways.
I took stock of where the project was going at that point. I figured I had worked too hard and for too long to call it quits, so I decided to look for a new singer. Yet again Craigslist came through, and I met our current singer after auditioning a dozen singers or so. She brought a whole new element to the band with her vocal style, so I decided to shift gears away from our ska/reggae sound towards more of a soul/funk/rock sound to fit her singing style. We still play some of the songs from the early era, but we also have a much larger set list of covers now and a new style of originals.
We had a really great year in 2019, playing some big shows and opening up for some legendary bands. With all the momentum we had going, I decided to take us into the studio to record a new five to seven track EP. We were in the mixing phase of the EP in March 2020 when COVID hit, so I decided it would be best to just put those songs away to release when it made sense to release them. With no opportunities to play live, the band sat dormant in 2020, which was hard for all of us.
So right now, were sitting on four finished new songs to release that I think our fans will really enjoy. And hopefully it opens some new doors for us too. I’m hoping we can come back with the same momentum we had before the pandemic but, I know that will be hard.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
The biggest struggles I’ve faced are staying motivated, keeping the band together, and honestly the Pandemic. It’s really been hard this past year because no one is playing live gigs, at least not how we remember them. It’s been hard to stay motivated to play music and a couple months went by last year when I didn’t pick up my guitar. And even during regular times, I had a hard time keeping the band together. Every show I booked, there was someone who couldn’t make it, so I was constantly shuffling people around and playing whack-a-mole with the lineup. It’s frustrating and caused the show to suffer a bit in quality. I’ve always tried my best to put on a great show.
It’s going to be interesting to see how things are going forward since a lot of the music industry is completely wrecked after COVID. So many venues closed and we haven’t even seen what the full impact will be on the industry yet. I have a gut feeling a lot of musicians left the industry entirely and got “real” jobs to support themselves. We will have to wait and see how the industry bounces back.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
Steady Legend is known for a fun, upbeat, and positive show. We specialize in making people dance! I think what a lot of people might not know about Steady Legend is I do pretty much everything for the band. And what I think really sets us apart is my attention to detail. I write all the original music, lyrics and instrumentation. I compose intricate play-through horn charts for every song we play, including covers. I’ve had people contact me over the years wanting to buy our horn charts, which is about as good a compliment I think you can get in that regard. I also book all our shows and manage all the backend business for the band like the website & social media presence, to even filing our taxes. It’s a lot more work than people might realize, which is also why I turn down a lot of gigs. Steady Legend is a band of seven to eight musicians per show, so if we can’t get a certain guarantee for our time, it’s not worth playing the gig.
Steady Legend has had probably 50+ musicians play a show with us over the years. I honestly haven’t sat down and counted all the musicians that have at least come to a rehearsal with the band. Unless you’re really killing it money wise, it’s hard to be able to keep pro-level musicians playing with one band consistently. The really good musicians are always looking for greener pastures and don’t show a lot of loyalty unless they are getting paid. Which I totally understand and as a musician who has worked as a hired gun myself, unless I’m invested in the music I’m pretty much there just for the money. I’m fortunate because after living in town for over ten years now, I’ve built some great relationships with some great musicians in Austin, so I have a pretty deep call list of musicians I can go through if I ever need someone for a gig.
But one of the things I really love the most about the band and what makes me proud is watching the musicians grow. The folks who have stuck with me through the years and gone through the ups and downs of the project are the ones who really deserve credit. Like our drummer Omar, who has been with the band since I rebooted the project in 2014, has become an absolutely badass drummer. I met him through yet again, Craigslist, when I was trying to start a cover band with a college buddy of mine for fun. That idea quickly fell through, but I was glad to have met Omar because he was clearly a talented drummer and a cool guy. When I approached him about being in a ska/reggae band, he told me he’d never played that kind of music before but he’d give it a shot. And he stuck through the transition of singers and to a new style of music. After learning and playing all these styles and just mastering them all, he’s one of the most versatile drummers I’ve ever worked with and one of the most genuine people I’ve ever met. Steady Legend probably wouldn’t exist today if he wasn’t in the group. I wish I had an entire band of people cut from the same cloth as Omar.
We’d love to hear about any fond memories you have from when you were growing up?
I just realized how much of my childhood I’m starting to forget as I get older. But one memory that sticks out is probably the first gig I ever played. I was 15 years old, playing trombone with a ska band a guy I went to high school had started. The venue was a glorified shack under an overpass bridge in downtown Charlotte, NC. My dad drove me to the gig, I was wearing a silly Dickies hat and pants that were way too baggy for me – I looked like a total dork. The spit valve on my trombone wasn’t working so I had to stick some tissue paper in it. There wasn’t a PA, so we plugged all the mics into a keyboard amp from what I remember. So, it probably sounded terrible. We played at like 6pm and the only people in the crowd were our parents and a couple friends of people in the band. I don’t even really remember how well we played, it was just the fact we were playing a show at a “real” venue and not in our guitar player’s basement anymore. It gave me this feeling that yea, I can do this! I don’t totally suck! I ended up playing a lot of gigs with that band through high school, and it helped me grow into the musician I eventually became.
Contact Info:
- Email: steadylegend@gmail.com
- Website: steadylegend.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/steady_legend/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/steadylegend
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/SteadyLegend
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/SteadyLegend/videos
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