 Welcome to On the Waterfront. I'm your host, Mariah Riggs. And this month, I'm really excited to have as my guest my friend and amazing musician, songwriter Steve Hartman. Welcome to the show, Steve. What's up? Hey, nice to have you. Winning. So really quickly, Steve, thank you for being on the show. Oh, my pleasure. Thanks for having me. We are going to enjoy some of Steve's music later on in the show. But before we get to hear you perform, we get to find out who Steve is, what he's done, and how we were lucky enough to have you come to Vermont. Oh, thanks. We're so happy you're here. So, Steve, really quickly, you're not from Vermont. No. You're from, where are you from? I grew up just outside Philadelphia. Philadelphia, boy. Born and raised. No. No, I was born in Dalat, Vietnam during the Vietnam War and brought over during Operation Baby Lift and adopted when I was about five months old and raised outside Philadelphia. Wow, that's wonderful. Now, what did you think of Philly? I love it. The food, the culture, the people. It's awesome. I love Philadelphia. It was hard to leave. My mom's from Pennsylvania, so I fully appreciate it. On the other side, though? No, Allentown. Oh, nice. Yeah, yeah, Lehigh Valley. Perfect. We don't talk about the other side of Pennsylvania. That's what I hear. Great up at Philly, did you like music early on? How did you get involved in music? Oh, my very first inspiration, and I'm not afraid to admit this or shame to admit this, but I listened to a song when my mom came to pick me up from school and Richard Marks had just come out with a song called Hold On to the Nights. And I was like, Mom, I want to do that. So she's like, what does that mean? I was like, I want to take piano lessons. I was like, we already did that, which we did. I was five and we took piano lessons, and I was whatever, when you're five years old. But I was like, I want to do that. She's like, well, you pay for them and I'll take you. So I did for four years. Wow. I took my lessons, and she drove me for four years to this lesson, so it was great. That's wonderful. And it's the perfect building block for understanding music as piano. Yeah, if you want to understand the theory of music and how notes relate to each other and your visual, like I am, everything's in front of you. You can just messing around and literally messing up is kind of the point. So you can actually see what's happening. It's also great because you get treble and bass class, which is hugely helpful. Yeah. You know, moving forward with other instruments and stuff like that as well. For sure. Yeah. It's a great basis. So you got to, I mean, because, you know, actually I don't think I've ever seen you play the piano. Not a lot of people know I play. It's kind of like, I guess one of my own little... Secret. Secret things. We're going to have to do a cabaret show with you sometime. Bring it on. I mean, I just, I just do, you know, I only play, I used to play piano at all my shows. When I was a kid starting out, when I was 18 and all my live shows, I'd play two, three hours just on a piano. Okay. And it was, and well, on a keyboard and then eventually I started picking up the guitar and I had played guitar for a while before then, but I didn't do a whole lot of writing on it. And then when I started doing more writing then I started bringing a guitar and a keyboard and then eventually I learned that lugging a keyboard around is such a pain. So then I started writing more guitar work. I mean, it really, the gravity away from the piano was really more convenience than it was anything else. That's, but you know, I mean, a grand piano is not like some of you sticking your backpack. Or even it's just a full-size keyboard. I know. Those things are huge and heavy. I mean, nowadays the technologies come so far that they are kind of light, but I don't have the, I still don't have space in my car. That's interesting, you know, because I, so moving forward, you know, you ended up at Berkeley. I did. On ecology music. And I guess that leads me to my next question because I'm kind of wondering now, how did you audition for Berkeley? Was it guitar or piano? Piano. You did audition with piano? I was a classical trained pianist. Wow. Studied all the, all the things. Because that's hard. I mean, the piano is really, that's very, I mean, guitarist too, but is highly competitive. I hadn't taken piano lessons in eight years when I applied the second time. So I applied when I read out of high school. I was accepted, didn't work out, went to the restaurant school, filled out, and then when I was 24 years old, I was like, I got to go. It's just something, it's calling my name, so I applied again. But it had been, by that time, eight years since I took the lessons. So thankfully my old piano teacher wrote a recommendation letter for me. I did actually go back to taking a few lessons before I went back to Berkeley. And then, yeah, I was in way over my head as a piano player, because I was going up against, some of them were like 13, 14 years old, going to Berkeley. And that was crazy. And prodigies. I'm like, what are you, I'm like, not what are you doing here? What am I doing here? You're like 12-year-olds playing Rachmaninoff. Oh my goodness. And they're like, oh yeah, it's just, it's just, and they'll sit down and it's almost like they just blink. And I'm like, what now? Yeah, in retrospect, I should have changed my primary instrument. Everyone has to take one, and if you're there for like business law or management, you have to take an instrument, and most of them take vocals. So it's probably what I should have done. A bit of a knockoff though, comparatively. Yeah, I gotta say, I salute you for piano. That's impressive, man. It was hard. That's incredible. It was hard for sure. I had no idea. See, I learned everything. I always learned something during these years. It's always awesome. So, you know, getting back sort of, you know, you're Berkeley, what were your major musical influences as you started writing music? Oh, when I first started writing, musically speaking, I guess back then, I started writing when I was 12, 12 or 13, so I guess maybe Phil Collins back then was a really big influence for me. And then I very quickly went into like U2, like Joshua treated me as one of the most influential albums ever written. Peter Gabriel, and then into high school, Counting Crows, Dave Matthews, Sean Colvin, Sam McLaughlin, Annie Lennox, all the awesome 80s and 90s people that are still doing it today, and should be, damn it. Because they're awesome. Because, you know, because there is a certain sound that you have and that makes a lot of sense. It does. So, you know, it's kind of interesting. I'm thinking of you percolating in Massachusetts, and you ended up in Vermont. Did. And so there's always a story there. I mean, where does every weird interesting story start? Yeah, you know. With a woman. With a woman? You and half my friends who live in Vermont, it's a real thing. I had a five-piece band in Boston, and we were, our first show in Burlington was at what was then Breakwaters. Oh, wow. And they were four-hour shows. So we would come up from Boston, and we would, you know, we'd either crash at her parents' house or get a hotel or whatever. It was mostly her parents' house. And we were here probably every month. Wow. And she was living up here. My girlfriend at the time also did booking for us. So how convenient that she would always book shows for us up here. So eventually it just made sense. The commute was killing me. So I just ended up moving up here. Well, I'm glad you haven't left. No, I'm glad I haven't left either. But like a really, I can't believe I haven't written a song about this, but like a crappy country, typical country song, the band broke up. She and I broke up, and I ended up staying and moving out and to do another thing. I really should write a song about it. You should. You are kind of a mainstay of the Vermont music scene. Oh, thanks. Yeah, you are. I don't know, full disclosure, I got to meet Steve because you were the host of Rocket Shop Live, which was a crazy live show we used to put on back in the early 10 teens. Teens, yeah. Your early teens, you were our host. I was. Dave, Jim Lockridge and I, with Big Heavy World, did this live music show. Yeah. And you were our host. I was. I don't even know how that happened because Jim's like, hey, Steve, you want to host this thing for me? Sure, what do I do? He's just, you know, researched the local music scene and asked some questions of some people. Okay, what about topics? He's like, yeah, whatever you want. And then you got to do the panels. Somehow you ended up... I have no idea. Jim's good that way. You just find out where you are one day and you're like, I have no idea how I got here. Jim, thanks. And we all appreciate the fact that we were delegating the panels we did before every show to you. And you did a fabulous job. That was great. It was really fun. I mean, it was a really great experience for me to get to know some other players in the industry around here and everything from studios. We talked about music law. We talked about, you know, where the internet's going with music. And back then, I mean, it wasn't nearly as big as it is now. Can you imagine? And it was big then. So, you know, session musicians, like, how can you do that virtually even back then? It was a pretty cool thing. Booking... Oh, we had a panel of columnists. There was somebody from, like, seven days to free press. It was a pretty cool thing. It was fun, right? Talking about the music industry, which was great, right? And so I kind of have to ask you, you know, you've been in the music industry a lot up here. And how have you seen it change since you first came up here? Oh, dramatically. I think the internet has a lot to do with that, for sure. When I moved here, I think it was 2002. I think. Good Lord. And, I mean, I knew exactly... It was very easy to figure out where to go, where the quote-unquote scene was, and, you know, where the open mics were. And it wasn't as hard to find out who the, you know, the influencers were. Because we were out. Yeah. We weren't hiding in our homes. And, you know, and I blame that a little bit on the pandemic, but, I mean, you know, people were out and about. It's much, much different than it is now. And it was super easy to figure that out. And, you know, I made great friends and met a lot of people through the Advanced Music Singer-Songwriter search. Yeah. That was my first little staple. I went to a bunch of open mics and applied for that. I was the last one to apply that year. Really? And I won it. Oh, my gosh, it's amazing. I was late. I was like, here, there's a competition. So, also, in case people aren't familiar, explain what the Singer-Songwriter series was at Advanced Music. Well, so, back when Advanced Music was Advanced Music, there was Kevin Boyer, also a staple musician in this area, fantastic guitarist, held an acoustic Singer-Songwriter guitar search, and you, I think it was like 25 bucks to apply. And there's like stages, and they were held at different locations in different venues, and there was a panel of like three or four judges, and you come with your original music, you sing for them, and if you get passed that night, you go to the next stage, and the winner won some recording time and a guitar. That's kind of cool. And a live slot on the point when the live and local was at the point, yeah. Because that's, I mean, that's like, you know, Vermont's own American Idol kind of almost. Kind of. In a wild, I mean. It was pretty cool, and I was late, and I'm like, all the things or whatever, and I was at, all the submissions were done yesterday or whatever, and I went in advance, and I asked if there was any chance I could come in. A little of that Steve saying, is there any chance I could come in, and Kevin was there, and he happened to be there. I had no idea who he was at the time, but he's like, yeah, just come on over, it's at the monkey house, bring 25 bucks, and we'll get you in. Oh my gosh, it's great. It was awesome. And the rest is history. The rest is history. The finals were at Nectar's. That was when Nectar's had the stage along the, along the wall. So much fun. Good times. Ah, back in the day. And Steve has pretty much played every venue in Burlington. Oh, jeez. If I haven't, I've played most of them. You've played most of them. I've been playing to like every small monkey house, all of this. Flynn space, the main stage, the black box, Nectar's, metronome, higher ground, the main stage and the lobby. I haven't played Arts Riot, although I've wanted to. Oh, they don't exist anymore. Yeah, I know. And I will, thanks for just letting me sit in that and knowing that I'll have to sit with that forever. It's okay. We'll survive. I'm still getting over it. Well, maybe you never know, maybe somebody out there wants to restart. Yeah. So, what would you say to somebody now, starting out in the music scene in Burlington? Oh, goodness. That's a really good question because I'm a very big, I'm a very big firm believer in open mics. I think, I think it's a great place that gives people an opportunity to build their community because, I mean, unless you're doing this strictly for other purposes, that's what I think music is for. You know, you build community, you build respect amongst your peers and you grow together both as a community and as a musician. So, I mean, and they're super easy to find. You can just go to any seven days or whatever or look online, any open mics in the Burlington area. Are there still a few happening? Oh, yeah. They're still quite around. They're quite a bit around. Kyle Stevens is a good friend of mine. He hosts a handful of them every week. So, Wow, that's wonderful. Yeah, he's doing, he does great work. I mean, unfortunately, because of how the music accessibility has been changing due to the internet and obviously, since the pandemic, I mean, it's affected us live musicians greatly. And I would love to see and get some more support to get out there and go play some more live local music. And so where, how would somebody, if they were watching this, find those live music events? Believe it or not, I think there's an open mic network page on Facebook. Okay. And all the open mics are there. Okay. Did you guys hear that? Go on Facebook, open mic, Facebook page for Burlington, Vermont. Yeah. Take a look at it if you're interested. I think it's Vermont open mic network. I think as well. There you go. Vermont open mic network. You heard it here. Go check it out. And become a local musician because we can never have too many. And it just makes us all happier and feeds the community. Feeds the community. It's a great thing. So you have, you do have a studio album. You have an album. I do. And so I thought we'd get into how did the first album happen? I was tired of waiting to be able to afford it. I don't know however how any other musician does it because it's expensive to make an album. And we as musicians contrary to what, you know, I don't know what everyone else thinks about how we as musicians make money. But, you know, back in the day, you toured. You toured, you make money and you try to save as much as you can. And nowadays you can just make, you could literally never leave your house, put some spot, you know, not some Spotify because they don't, maybe I shouldn't say that. I mean, royalty is something I've never had. Never gotten, ever. It's crowdfunding and things like that. So I was literally tired and I don't really like to ask for crowdfunding while everyone's doing it. It doesn't really seem like it's something, you know, that's bad or that I should be ashamed of to ask for a little bit of help in that area. So I did a little crowdfunding. I was like, oh my gosh, people might want me to put out an album. So I did. I did, you know, it was 100% crowdfunded and that's how that came about and it's my first solo studio album I ever put out. I'm super proud of it. And so if you want to check out an album or you want to get any Steve Hartman merchandise. Yeah. Or just become a general fan person. Fan person? Fan person. Make sure you go to www.stevehartmanmusic.com where you can find access to all of those wonderful things. Yeah. Hartman's spelled with two N's. Yes. H-A-R-T-M-A-N-N. Yes. I don't know if if you put one in I've never actually done that. I don't know where it takes you. Have you tried that? Have you tried that babe? Yeah. So you know that kind of leads me into I really wanted to talk about an upcoming three-part album series that you're working on currently. And I thought it'd be great for you to tell our audience about that. Sure. It's been 12 years since I put out an album for the same reason as it took me 12 years to release the last one. Mostly it's financial but like I said I'm just tired of waiting to be able to self fund it. So I'm taking donations to try and put together something I'm pretty passionate about. It's going to be a three-part album series. The first two albums are going to be they're going to be studio albums, four songs a piece. The last album is going to be hopefully one live recorded show of live versions of all the first two albums plus four bonus live tracks that are only going to be recorded live. So go check it out. I can't wait to see I can't wait to hear it Steve. And it's all going to be hopefully recorded in one. So we're going to quickly hear from Steve really quickly. You're going to play a couple songs for us. Oh cool. Which is super exciting. Excellent. I am. Perfect. So we're going to listen to those right now. Take a sip of my next master. Well this is just mine. Never let me get had too much. You're still so dead. Never stop chasing and always keep reaching. Don't so dead. She opened the kind words spoken. Never let me give up even when I've had too much. You still come see me so dead. Never let me give up even when I've had too much. You still come so dead. So Steve that was great. It was so wonderful to hear you play. Thank you so much for performing for us today. Thank you so much for being here. I also wanted to mention really quickly that Steve and I are putting together a Lakeshore community event series. The link is there below. We're looking for donations for more information about it. It's going to be dinner and music on the main street landing black box. So please check that out. Check out Steve's awesome new album. It's going to be incredible. I'm sure on his website he'll let you know when that's coming this month. And I'll see you back on the waterfront next month. Take care. Bye.