Story & Lesson Highlights with Steven Elowe of Northridge, CA

We’re looking forward to introducing you to Steven Elowe. Check out our conversation below.

Hi Steven, thank you so much for joining us today. We’re thrilled to learn more about your journey, values and what you are currently working on. Let’s start with an ice breaker: What are you being called to do now, that you may have been afraid of before?
Write and perform a show that will fill up 500-1500 seat theaters at age 70? Never had to do that before! Usually I’m just told where the next gigs, what time I need to be there to set up my equipment and sound check. I usually don’t even know what time the show is! Now, today, to fulfill a 4 year contract we (the band Deja Vu – for the Love of CSNY) just signed with a producer that does these theater shows across the country, I need to not only play and sing… but write a theatrical presentation for this show… create and/or find all the graphics necessary to also enhance the story on screen… write stage and lighting cues…etc etc. Where was all this when I didn’t need so many naps!!

Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
This beat-up-bag-o-bones is legally called Steven Elowe, though my late mother, when angry with me, would add ‘idiot’ before my last name, as she was about to elaborate on why she was yelling about just ‘WHAT’ I had apparently done.

I’ve been getting paid to play music since I was 10 yrs old, which after 60 years of it, is at once a blessing and terrifying, as shlepping through airports weighted down like a pack mule has gotten MUCH harder to do.

I also run InYourEar.biz, a service for musicians whose In-Ear Monitors keep slipping of their ears. I fix that problem at an extremely low price (as my clientele are musicians… which means if you’re not famous, it’s likely you don’t have very much, if any, money!

Okay, so here’s a deep one: Who saw you clearly before you could see yourself?
Michael O’Neil has been George Benson’s ‘other guitar player’ for over 4o years now. I’ve known Michael since I was 12 years old… and at that time, I preferred listening to him play more than most famous rock guitarists. It was like the soul of the universe just shot through and out of him like a torrent of emotion.

At age 13 (he was 15) I asked him for lessons. His response molded my entire relationship with making music to this day.
He said “before I can teach you, I have to ask you ‘what IS music’. Well, I was 13 years old, so looking back at him like a baby deer in headlights was a huge under statement.

He said, “ya, that’s what I thought” and took my guitar out of my hands… “YOU think it’s this!” he exclaimed, holding my guitar. He put in back in my hands and poked me hard in the heart and said “until you figure out that it’s (music) THIS (my heart), I can’t teach you ANYTHING!

This wasn’t the end of my training – that still occurs today btw. When I was 20 years old he asked me to play on his first solo record. This struck me major excitement…. but also major fear. I responded with “as long as you have a chord chart, I can ‘funk-along’ no problem, just don’t ask me to solo… which he promptly did, to my horror. My response was “DUUUDE! You make me feel like I’m wearing a baseball glove when I play!

His response to my silliness deserves it’s own paragraph, and is worthy of ANY self-help book published.
He said sharply “After all these years you still don’t get it! Why do you think I’m better than you? Is it because I’ve studied more, or can play faster, or whatever notion you have stuck in your head? I want Steve Elowe on my record… and you’re the only guy that can do ‘THAT”. I don’t care if you play ONE NOTE! Just give it all the blood and guts you’ve got… that’s what I want on my record!”

Caveat: I don’t think I wound up on the record… but the lesson stuck! He knew WHO I was before I did!

What did suffering teach you that success never could?
Suffering through what life throws your way taught me several things:
• I can and will get back up and put one foot in front of the other… which just from a physics standpoint alone moves you to another place.
• This too shall pass.
• Humility is a necessary blessing.
• Persistence is a law… and it’s an excellent investment in manifesting success.
• All negative energy comes from “resistance to what IS’ (that’s a good one to chew on for a while 🙂

Alright, so if you are open to it, let’s explore some philosophical questions that touch on your values and worldview. What’s a belief you used to hold tightly but now think was naive or wrong?
I hope there is a lesson in this somewhere, but I used to believe, for a good portion of the 60 years I’ve been getting paid to play music, that I wasn’t quite good enough. I suppose it’s easy to feel that way when several of your friends are playing stadiums and touring the world. They were “World Class”– I felt more “Zip-Code-Class”.

I stressed about this constantly, never at peace. I worked hard to beat the odds I had placed against myself. As a result, into my 40s and 50s I got better gigs, session work, had a bit of ‘notoriety’ here and there… but I couldn’t shake the feeling of anxiously chasing some ‘not-exactly-defined’ success.

Well, as age would have it, I stopped caring whom I pleased or didn’t.

I became obsessed with the idea- the belief – that I just wanted be concentrating on pouring my blood and guts into every note that I squeezed out of my soul, Inspiration rather than musical regurgitation… not worrying anymore about the results from my playing. I wanted to only take gigs/be in bands that felt the same way… that would be intent on feeling and latching onto each others soul — sending the emotion of our ‘group-sonic-conversation’ out to those that came to see.

There is nothing like pouring your soul out to a room full of people and they all go on the journey with you… a room of hearts beating as one. I’ve never experienced anything quite like it… probably why I still do it.

I have to say that once I finally changed my belief, staying true to myself and stopped worrying what the result would be, everything that wasn’t aligned with this new belief just kind of fell away from my life.

The current bands I’m playing in are the best and most fun of my career. Soul satisfying would be a better way to put it. I’m getting more and better gigs than I ever have. I actually just got involved, as of a month or so ago, in a 4 year contract for one of the bands (Deja Vu – for the Love of CSNY) to do theater tours accross the country! (two things- 1- there are no gigs yet on the calendar – and – 2- there goes that ‘old belief system’ of doubt again – ok- a 3rd thing – woulda been nice for all this to have happened in my 30s- before I needed a nap before AND after the show! Oh well… that’s ok… I’LL take it!).

Before we go, we’d love to hear your thoughts on some longer-run, legacy type questions. Are you doing what you were born to do—or what you were told to do?
Doing what I was born to do — rather than what I was told to do, really defines what I’m trying to say about beliefs.
I felt for most of my life that being the best at what I was ‘told to do’ was going to bring me success.

I believe that doing what you were born to do, will not only make you happy, but in my opinion, is the definition of success.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://InYourEar.biz
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/steven.elowe
• Youtube: https://studio.youtube.com/channel/UC7_XEN4qMqDAQMKZrvnPltA/videos/upload?filter=%5B%5D&sort=%7B%22columnType%22%3A%22date%22%2C%22sortOrder%22%3A%22DESCENDING%22%7D

Image Credits
Some photos by Sal Gomez