November 19, 2022. Steve Hill returns from an evening in Saint-Placide, in the Laurentians, to his residence in Trois-Rivières. With nearly 3,000 shows under his belt, let’s talk about something like routine for the guitarist. That was before he fell asleep at the wheel and drove off the road. He will have to extricate himself from his car through the windshield.
“My tank was a total loss, but I got nothing,” he remembers. For 24 hours, I told myself I was the luckiest guy on the planet. » But the next day, his father died suddenly, at the age of 78. Steve Hill was not, after all, the luckiest guy on the planet.
And it wasn’t over. It was just the beginning. In April 2023, at the end of a trip to Western Canada, Steve sleeps in the basement of the house of his tour manager, Nate. “Before I woke up suddenly, I was dreaming of barbecue,” he says. I opened my eyes and the room was full of smoke. Five more minutes and we were there. »
“ Woke up in a house on fire », he wrote a few days later on social networks, to which his friend Brian Loudenslager, founder of the equipment company Lauten Audio, replied that, because life hangs by a thread, he would be high time to carry out their project of recording an album at Dave Grohl’s Studio 606, in Los Angeles, with their friend Darrell Thorp.
PHOTO MAT LUCAS, PROVIDED BY THE ARTIST
Sound recordist Oliver Roman, Steve Hill, Darrell Thorp and Brian Loudenslager
“When I met Darrell, he had eight Grammys under his belt. Now he has ten,” Steve laughs about the director, mixer and sound guy whose resume includes the names Beck, Foo Fighters, Outkast, Jay-Z, Radiohead and Paul McCartney.
Through mutual acquaintances, the Quebec musician became the guinea pig of choice for the two Americans at various equipment manufacturer shows.
That’s because Hill’s one-man band setup, singing, roaring his guitar and pounding his drums at the same time, allows Thorp to show the extent of what Loudenslager’s microphones are capable of.
“Every time, the guys told me: “It would be fun if you came type in LA” And I was always like, “Yeah, that would be cool, but it’s never going to happen.” »
Performance above all else
Brian Loudenslager, producer and man of his word, will put everything in place to make things happen. But last August – this is no joke –, the car of singer Johnny Pilgrim, who had just picked up his friend Steve Hill at the airport and was driving him to Studio 606, was hit by another car at an intersection.
“I received Johnny’s elbow in the ribs and even though I had nothing broken, I was not able to perform at 100%,” explains the man who had to pack up and who – finally! – stayed at Studio 606 from January 8 to 13. “It was better that we postponed it, because Darrell, what he wants is performances. »
Performs ? In his home studio, Steve Hill has the luxury of repeating the same song until he’s happy with it. He knew full well that at Studio 606, where he recorded on tape, this would be out of the question, that the correct take should be the first, second or third.
Steve Hill at Studio 606
Such diligence obviously requires making peace with a few imperfections, but as the saying goes, there is a flaw in everything, and it is through this that rock slips through.
“And there’s also the preparation aspect,” adds Steve, who rehearsed his new songs at home for months on a military schedule. “That’s what makes the great albums of the 1960s and 1970s sound so good: the guys knew they couldn’t correct everything afterwards. They had to give their best right away. »
The beauty of deadlines
At Studio 606, Steve Hill was also able to become a legend thanks to the Neve 8028 console, rescued by Dave Grohl from Sound City Studios (a process recounted in the 2013 documentary Sound City). Fleetwood Mac by Fleetwood Mac, Damn the Torpedoes by Tom Petty, Appetite for Destruction by Guns N’ Roses, Nevermind by Nirvana: all these albums bear the imprint of this exceptional device.
“Yes, it’s impressive to see the signatures of Stevie Nicks and Jerry Garcia on the console,” admits Steve, “but a good album is a lot of stuff. » A bunch of stuff like the “bad pair of Darrell ears” and the 28-inch Masters of Maple bass drum loaned by Dave Grohl. “It’s the end of the world, bass drum there. »
All these crazy ingredients should give Steve Hill the most in-your-face record since very hard rock Devil at My Heels – the diehards’ favorite – in 2007.
On Hanging On a String (working title), to be published next fall, our man will inevitably once again explore the theme of adversity, one of the great subjects of the interpreter of Gotta Be Strong, Long Road And Tough Luck.
“I now know that my life has a deadline, but it’s good, deadlines help you make choices,” confides the man who now gets up and goes to bed very early and who asked for his girlfriend’s hand on the 23rd. last December. He will be 50 in six months.
“But what hasn’t changed since I was a kid is the music. I tell you, I still think about that all the time. And that’s what ultimately makes me very happy. »