WE INTERVIEW – STEVE POINTMEIER

We’ve been loving Steve Pointmeier’s releases and decided it was high time we caught up with him and found out a little more about this talented country/ Americana artist.

We love the storytelling aspect of your songwriting. Where do you get your inspiration from and how does it all come together?

I derive inspiration from life events that have been lived through by me. I find it an outlet to express and deal with whatever I am going through. From an early age, I journaled everything in my life. Which naturally suited me once i learned to play the guitar. I start with playing melodies on the guitar and let whatever I’m dealing with spill onto the page.
Mostly my songs are written within a short period of time in one session, with a couple of them requiring some “tweaking” after to change grammar or to substitute better verbiage.
Most of my songs are written about my relationships with INCENDIARY revolving around a particular love story that took up a full decade of my life, losing 2 homes and going to prison for 5 years. (The song was penned in the PEN…:)
When you hear me say… “This song was written at an extreme songwriting camp” that’s prison.

I let my producer listen to my songs before I select and we brainstorm the concept to bring the song to full production. Then we take it into the studio and a couple of months later voila’ we have a finished mastered song to upload to radio.

Your music could be described as country, but we feel it has more to it than just the straightforward 3-chord cars and trucks songs, (for example, the Brian May-like solo in Sway) how do you decide what instrumentation to bring in?

-Well it’s been said that my voice makes my songs “Country”, but I like to stick with certain “feature” instruments to compliment the music and bring the bed tracks closer in line with my vocals.
Through Bart McKay we conceptualize the song’s base sounds, and then I let Bart know what I’m looking for additionally…. like in the case of “Sway”. Bart sent me a finished version, but I felt it needed MORE.
So I invited Annika Odegard from LEAVING THOMAS in to sing the harmonies and then I had Bart send the song down to Nashville to have Jennee Fleenor add the Fiddle and Mandolin parts.
It’s tricky, but when you’re working with the best in the business, what you end up with is a great tapestry of good sounds that please the ear.

Do you work with other musicians on your recordings? How do you choose who will be the right players?

  • I use the same 3 players for the bed tracks;

-Chad Melchert, 5X CCMA Drummer of the Year.
A professional in every sense of the word from the ideas he brings to the drum parts, to the actual quality of the drumming, all the way to his being an absolute pleasure to work with.
(Both in my LIVE shows and in the studio recordings).

-Murray Pulver, Touring Lead guitar player for Doc Walker, and Bart McKay studios go to lead guitar player, who provides both the quality and skill required to conceptualize the songs without holding back the necessary creative components you’ll hear in ALL 7 (Plus the next 4 recordings to be released in 2023).

-Travis Switzer (7) /John Baron (4), are the 2 Bass players I have used on ALL my 11 recordings to date. Both having been introduced to me by Bart McKay and for which both are great Musicians that also bring the quality and talent required in a studio recording.
(Travis has also accompanied me on my LIVE show component as well).

From there, we utilize various creative outside our regular ‘box’, so to speak, when it comes to layering each individual song and unlocking each song’s potential. Whether it’s bringing in a certain female voice, (Ami Walraven on NEVER, Tanya Ryan on I’M NOT FALLING FOR YOU, or Annika Odegard on SWAY, or certain elements for the song’s instrumentation.

Tell us something about you that we wouldn’t believe!

-I had quit music in 2001 to raise my daughter, and only recently (after my jail stint and after 2 Heart attacks and 3 Strokes) decided to give music my all to further live my life with no regrets and to explore all the opportunities that music opens up for one. From touring other Provinces and States (Countries), to the individuals you get to work alongside, from Bart McKay to ALL the other live musicians and club owners and event planners, and wedding parties and such.

Your songs are witty and the lyrics are very well-considered. Who do you take inspiration from?

-I have always maintained pride in doing things ‘Myself’, from early on writing and journaling my cross country hitch hiking trips, but if I had to say anything about the inspiration of other people wishing my own recordings and music, Id have to say that the old country greats have a place deep within my soul and I hope they have positively influenced my own music.

What is your favourite song to perform, and why?

  • My favourite song to perform “LIVE” would be “Cold Beer Calling My Name”, due to its being my most recognized uptempo song that everyone seems to enjoy hearing. But I also enjoy “I’m Not Falling For You” because it means a lot to me and I really like the song.
    But it’s hard to pick just one of my songs because they are all my “babies”, and I went through such an intimate time recording and spending time with each, to the point that they all become ‘Memories’ and represent certain “Times” that conjure each time I hear the song.
    Mostly from the relationships built through the shooting of the Music videos.

We feel your music has real commercial appeal, but we know it’s hard to break out of the college radio circuit in North America. What success have you had with radio airplay?

  • I rely on Bart McKay to produce the commercial appeal for each of my songs, ALWAYS consulting with Bart and heeding his advice on what he thinks will work for country radio airplay. Because while you want to express your individual “ART”, you also want it to be enjoyed by as many people as possible with radio airplay being paramount in terms of the success of the song. That means not being stubborn or stuck on certain ideas and being open to collaboration with people with proven track records like Bart himself, whose studio is one of the most recognized and awarded studios in Canada, having won an extensive amount of music awards in the past.
    I load up my songs to a couple of different radio tracking programs, and just recently my song “INCENDIARY” has already been picked up by close to 900 different radio stations worldwide in only its first 2 weeks out of a 12-week tracking cycle.
    (With each new release, you tend to open up ALL the past doors as well as new doors thus broadening the landscape of radio stations playing my music.
    The most lucrative being XM Sirius Satellite radio play, of which all my last 3 releases have been picked up by.

What is the best advice you’ve been given?

-The best advice I’ve been given, is to never take the disappointments that come with the music industry too hard. And never rest on your laurels or put all your eggs into one basket. Diversify and work on ALL aspects of music. And Practice.

What’s the worst advice you’ve been given?

-The worst advice I’ve been given; Move to Nashville. Which I did in 1998, for which the only thing I took back home was the ability to play the guitar, (having been immersed in the culture for 8 months). But I’ve come to realize that “where you are” has little to do with successful music.

Do you have any upcoming shows to tell our readers about?

  • I am looking forward to a full year of LIVE music shows for 2023, thus far I have several dates coming up for;

February 18- Cook County Saloon
March 17 & 18- Whiskey Rose Saloon
July 21-23- Dog Patch Music Festival

Find out more about Steve here;

https://www.stevepointmeier.com/
https://www.facebook.com/stevenpointmeier1970
https://twitter.com/StevePointmeier
https://open.spotify.com/artist/3dL45GqhamSxZJy845FEhd?si=Z0dvPsClS2m05EvK-XDMYQ
https://soundcloud.com/steven-pointmeier
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSsQV9zA3Cu81g2_vym0vzA
https://www.instagram.com/stevenpointmeier/