Steve Appleton

Taking inspiration from classic pop, drum'n'bass, reggae and funk, 19 year old Steve Appleton has an ear for a tune and an eye for an incredible live show. Steve is a singer, songwriter, producer and multi-instrumentalist, with some more talents still to be unveiled as he works towards the release of his varied and mesmerizing debut album. Steve started playing piano from a young age and, encouraged by his family, quickly discovered an aptitude for music, and as he slipped into his teenage years Steve was teaching himself guitar and starting to record his own songs in a rudimentary bedroom studio. By age 15 Steve Appleton was tinkling the ivories in a swank Soho eatery, mastering the art of somehow being audible without ever being distracting. "I’d be banging up the piano like I was at a gig, but I was playing for four hours at a stretch and I had to entertain myself," he laughs. "I used to improvise a lot but ended up building a repertoire of 60 or 70 tunes" Behind the scenes, and far away from the distant clatter of a restaurant kitchen, Steve was developing his own songs with some distinctive production sounds. "A lot of my mates are just into drum'n’bass, or just into chilled guitar music, or just into hip hop," Steve explains. "I love all of them - and I want to listen to all of them at once." Which leads us to Steve’s tracks like Dirty Funk, which really is an opportunity to listen to all of those styles at once: attention grabbing and charismatic pop which combines the melodic, sunshiny vibe of your favourite singer songwritery chaps with funky drum'n’bass and modern urban storytelling; it’s like Jack Johnson versus Pendulum by way of Mike Skinner. One of Steve’s key tracks is That’s Life, Part One, a whistle-stop tour through Steve’s life to date. As the albums keep coming we’ll hear what happens to Steve in future episodes - That’s Life, Part Two will pick up where its predecessor left off, which is right about now - but for the time being we’ve got a snapshot of Steve’s life from age zero to age 18. It’s a characteristically charismatic and buoyant song but here are some bits that didn’t quite make the lyrics: Steve was born and raised in Surrey, growing up with big family and school reports bemoaning his talent for distracting classmates. His first memory of music is seeing The Red Hot Chili Peppers in a video, his first gig was Nelly ("back in the day, if four years counts as back in the day"), and his first festival was Reading 05. Steve now gets to as many gigs as he can, "Every chance I get I go to see live music, all different styles from rock to jazz to drum-n-bass and most things in between - gigs are a good place to learn from when you're in my job". On a Friday in the summer of 2007 Steve signed his deal with RCA. The following day, instead of getting down to work on the album or enjoying a quiet celebration with a few friends, he disappeared for a month interrailing with his mates. It was a last hurrah before they went off to uni and before he went off to finish his album. Recently he popped into a music shop for some guitar strings. A display in the corner – a stage setup, ready for action – caught his eye, and by the time he left the store he’d ordered a lighting rig, a smoke machine and a set of lasers, which he’ll be taking around the country to augment his already incredible live show. Book early: this is not your average two-men-and-a-dog toilet tour setup and, Steve, all about big ideas in unusual locations is not your average artist. "All my songs have experiences based on truth," Steve says, "I didn’t want them to be all about love, lust and break-ups. The album’s title track When The Sun Comes Up - a celebration of the big nights out of which teenage life is made. It’s the sound of clubbing until 5am, the sound of nightbuses across town, the sound of the first tube home, crumbled but content in your seat as freshly-laundered commuters hop on board ready for a hard day’s work. It’s a song about being young, which we were all involved in at some point. If you’ve got the mental image of a sound which is both modern and traditional and both electronic and acoustic, just wait until you hear his songs. So that’s a snapshot of Steve Appleton’s life, part one. What’s in part two remains to be seen, but Steve’s already penciling in gigs, travels, laughs and a little bit of misbehaviour for good measure. "For me it's about standing where the light is," he says - a comment which says as much about his destiny in the spotlight as it does about his propensity to reach for a Frisbee and coolbox at the first sign of summer.