Steffaloo

STEFFALOO FIRST EMERGED ON THE INDIE MUSIC SCENE WITH NOTABLE RELEASES IN TWO DISTINCT GENRES. SEEMINGLY OVERNIGHT, HER LO-FI BEDROOM FOLK TRACKS AND GUEST VOCAL SPOTS FOR ELECTRONIC PRODUCERS WERE INESCAPABLE. NOW, WITH A NEW SOLO ALBUM, WOULD YOU STAY, AND AN ELECTRONIC ALBUM IN THE WORKS, STEFFALOO IS SET TO BREAK THROUGH IN A BIG WAY.

Steffaloo is the solo project of LA based singer/songwriter Steph Thompson. After relocating to Los Angeles from Colorado, Steffaloo first emerged on the indie music scene with notable releases in two distinct genres. The lo-fi bedroom folk tracks that would form her debut, Meet Me In Montauk, and a series of guest vocal spots for electronic producers popped up on the most influential sites in the new music press. There was a steady stream of music for her fans to seek out. New tracks, remixes, reworkings of older vocals into completely new electronic productions, and even a series of acoustic covers were showing up on Bandcamp, Soundcloud, Youtube, and a number of independent releases by electronic producers. Now, with a new solo album, Would You Stay, and an electronic album in the works, Steffaloo is set to break through in a big way.

Steffaloo recently wrote down some thoughts on how this has all come together...



"The songs on this album were what helped me navigate through the unknowns of this crazy life, and realize that a little panic is ok every now and then."



On Steffaloo's new album, Would You Stay...

"Last summer I got laid off from my job of five years. It was one of those moments in life where I didn't know whether to panic or to throw my arms up to the sky and cheer with excitement. It proved to be a good mixture of both in the end, but the process in which that event started couldn't have been something I'd ever seen coming, and really changed the way I approached just about everything in my life. Initially I thought this new found freedom would allow me the time to just crank out new song after new song and finally put the time and energy I'd always dreamed of putting into my music into practice. And for a little while it did. I wrote "I'm Sorry", "The Whale And Me" and "If You Were My Baby" all in a month or something, which had never happened to me before. But then the time started setting in, and becoming longer, and it got harder and harder for me to get a song out. I was forced to let time have the upper hand and to just sit in it and wait. And so this album soon became a painstaking exercise in the learning to let go of things, and then to bravely walk into new ones. This is how I began to approach each song after those first initial months of not knowing what the hell I was going to do with my life. "Would You Stay" sort of became the staple of this album because it was about a relationship that neither of us could seem to either let go of or hold onto. And in those ten months of being unemployed I began to see that this is how life can be a lot of times - a back and forth between losing and gaining, holding onto and letting go of. It was the turning point of the album because I think it was the moment I truly did just let go... of everything. And while most of these songs are brand new, there are a few of them that I dug out of the archives and redid, because they needed letting go of. When all was said and done, the songs on this album were what helped me navigate through the unknowns of this crazy life, and realize that a little panic is ok every now and then. It's what makes life exciting after all."

On how Steffaloo started doing vocals for electronic producers...

"It actually all started with Mikey of Blackbird Blackbird. My brother Tim, who runs the music blog Smoke Don't Smoke, was one of the first bloggers to ever really post any of Blackbird Blackbird's music (who was known as 'Bye-Bye Blackbird' at the time) and I instantly fell in love with it once I heard it. Through Tim, I'd been in contact with Mikey about doing some art for one of his tracks. I'd been recording my own songs for some time but never really knew what to do with any of it, so I found myself going pretty deep into some of the blog worlds that my brother was into. And that's when I saw a tweet from Mikey asking if anyone knew of any good female vocalists he could work with for an upcoming track. I took a random chance and wrote him and said I'd love to give it a shot and that's how "Starlight" came into being. He, along with anyone else really, had never heard me sing so the fact that he gave me a chance really meant the world to me. The response from that whole thing was a bit overwhelming. I had no idea what had just happened, but it opened up this entire world of music to me and I just went with it. I keep waiting for people to get completely sick of me, but I've somehow managed to keep being able to get opportunities to work with more and more producers who I really respect and admire. The guys I've worked with on tracks, like Chrome Sparks or Stumbleine, either found me through the elusive interworkings of the music blog scene or vice versa. And a lot of them have actually become my very close friends. I've gotten to the point now when I hear a track I really just fall in love with, like I did with xxyyxx and Beat Culture, I'll write them and ask if they'd like doing something together. It's really just a testiment to the collaborative spirit among the creative community I've found myself a part of these past few years. Everyone is so eager to learn and expand their own crafts and styles that it's not hard to find other artists to work with and try new things with. It's pretty amazing actually."







"Everyone is so eager to learn and expand their own crafts and styles that it's not hard to find other artists to work with and try new things with. It's pretty amazing actually."

On how Steffaloo started writing and recording her solo work...

"I suppose I started writing songs shortly after I'd moved to LA. My first guitar was this 12 string acoustic that my friend had given me in high school, but it could only hold 6 strings on it otherwise the bridge would snap off. It was a real piece of work, so it wasn't very motivating to try to learn how to play on. But, that first year living in LA was a rough one and before I knew it all I could do to stay alive was play music. I started recording little 'Moldy Peaches-esque' ditty's on my laptop and that just kind of turned into what later becamethe collection of songs on Meet Me In Montauk. The songs on that album were all mostly done long before I started singing with electronic artists. They were kind of like my journal entries of the first few years of me living in LA."

On what brought Steffaloo to Los Angeles...

"I moved to LA from Colorado. I'd always loved it here and actually spent my last summer in college living in Venice Beach. The creative energy was something I knew I wanted and needed to be around, and it helped that I had my older brother living out here too. After I graduated college I had moved to Boulder and was working at this portrait studio taking pictures of snotty, and sometimes cute, kids and living alone in a studio apartment. My brother and I talked every week about me moving to LA and every chance I got, I was on a plane to go visit him. It was after one of the last visits I'd had with him that I remember sitting on the plane to go back to CO and thinking to myself, 'why am I going back to CO? I should be staying here in LA.' It wasn't long after that I woke up one morning and literally just said to myself, 'I have to get out of here' so two weeks later my brother flew out to CO and we packed my Subaru with as much of my earthly belongings we could and drove to LA. I didn't really have a plan as to what I wanted to do once I got here, but I just knew I wanted to be creating things. I did a lot of photography and art when I first got here. I found myself taking photos on a number of film sets that my friends were working on, stuff like that."


On Steffaloo's lo-fi covers that have popped up online...

"This all kind of happened by accident. I made an impulse buy one day at work and bought a ukulele online because I thought it would be fun to learn, and because I think I was just bored and wanted something new to try. Doing covers was the easiest way I found to teach myself how to play it. Along the way I came across a couple of really great artists doing amazing covers on the ukulele; songs I would have never thought would even translate, but somehow did. So I started trying songs like Katy Perry's "I Kissed A Girl" or Justin Timberlake's "What Goes Around Comes Around" and I think I played Kid Cudi's "Pursuit Of Happiness" for my very first show."

On songwriting and the recording process of her solo work...

"The lo-fi sound of my music is definitely a result of me being broke really, haha! The majority of the songs on Meet Me In Montauk were all recorded using the built-in mic on my MacBook believe it or not. When I put up that album it never occured to me that people might see it as a stylistic choice. I was actually a bit self concious about it because I knew it sounded like crap as far as quality was concerned. But leave it to art to turn something like that into something that inevitably has set me apart from other artists. I always get a kick out of that. For this last album I was definitely more conscious, and wanted it to sound a little less homemade, though I think the same feeling still comes across. I've recorded just about every song I've written in my bedroom. Just me and my guitar/ukulele. I added all the drum beats and keys on certain songs with my midi keyboard once I had them all finished. It's a very quite, personal thing for me I guess, writing a song. It's sort of like being sucked into an alternate universe, I can get lost completely, and when I somehow return back to earth I don't know where I am or how long I've been gone."


On Steffaloo's future...

"What's next? I'm working on another album for release next year - it will be a bit different than my solo stuff so i'm pretty excited about it. I'll hopefully be recording some new solo songs with the band I've been playing with. Playing live shows with a band has been amazing. It's really added a fullness to my music that I feel like I wasn't able to add just playing by myself. It's been crazy to play with other talented musicians and see not only where they take certain songs but also what they help bring out in me. Really, I'm just enjoying this whole process and I'm constantly being surprised by the things that come my way and all the people I've met and been able to create with."

Mush Records