Check Out Steven Dunn’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to Steven Dunn. 

Hi Steven, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
This is such an interesting question because we are the stories, we tell other people. We choose things to define us and share with others whether that’s career, gender, religion, hobbies, etc. 

I was born and raised in, and around, Bloomington, IN and grew up sitting on my mom’s lap as she would play through hymns on piano for church, running around the woods, and playing any sport my parents would let me. I had a very traditional midwestern protestant upbringing that was contrasted with playing shows in a liberal college town, sneaking into the local music venue underage, going to house shows where drag queens played punk rock, and any plenty of other things you may not want to admit in an interview your loving mother will undoubtedly read 

I did what good midwestern church boys do, went to college, married my high school sweetheart, and “settled down.” Which was then promptly followed with dropping out of college, moving away from home to be a touring musician, questioning my faith, traveling the world, getting divorced, buying a home, living through the natural disasters in Nashville, a bombing, my mother getting cancer, my uncle passing in an accident, and a pandemic all in my first year being a divorcee and alone for the first time in my life. 

I can either let all of that define me, or I can choose to tell stories about my love for my dog, creativity, songwriting, photography, backpacking in national forests. All of it has a space and a time. I’ve probably rambled enough now to have a nice anxious existential crisis with my therapist later 

I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle-free, but so far would you say the journey has been a fairly smooth road?
I think I may have jumped the gun with that first question… see “moving away from home to be a touring musician, questioning my faith, traveling the world, getting divorced, buying a home, living through the natural disasters in Nashville, a bombing, my mother getting cancer, my uncle passing in an accident, and a pandemic all in my first year being a divorcee and alone for the first time in my life.” 

Leaving your faith, or at the very least changing the lens in which you view it, is not an easy thing. In my last album, I explore just the impact it would have on my parents in the song “I Don’t Know” and how other people would perceive them or how they might perceive themselves. 

My mom getting a cancer diagnosis in a pandemic was one of the most heart-wrenching things I’ve gone through to date. There has been no moment in my life that reminded me of my impermanence. Having to fight cancer while hoping not to get covid and I can’t visit, let alone do anything to help. 

There’s obviously a lot of financial obstacles among other things that plague independent musicians, but as someone that is a very emotive and empathetic person, I find things that hold that kind of space in my life to be the biggest obstacles. .How am I supposed to make someone feel something in writing or on stage when my emotional bandwidth is just absolutely filled up with something else? 

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
This is such a difficult questions to answer when you’re just constantly surrounded by so much talent in a city like Nashville. Primarily I’m a songwriter, and I think I have a knack at arranging and telling stories. I love helping my friends with songs or helping to produce a song from a concept to a full-fledge band production. 

My last album, Thoughts, and Prayers, is definitely my favorite work to date. I engineered the record and the core of it was tracked live in a 2-day span in my home. It’s the first album that I put out just for me and made the way I wanted to make it, and there was something incredibly freeing about that. 

I’m the worst at self-promotion. It is not lost on me that I’m another bearded white dude writing sad boy music. What you see with me is what you get, I don’t really do the show biz thing. I don’t know if that sets me apart or not but it’s me 

Alright, so to wrap up, is there anything else you’d like to share with us?
I’m currently working on an album called “Kissin’ Don’t Last, Cookin’ Do” that’s affectionately named after a faux cross-stitch with that phrase on it that hung in my late grandmother’s kitchen. The first single off of that I released on my birthday called, 27 Club, and you can listen to it at all the usual suspects 

Contact Info:

• Website: www.steven-dunn.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stevedunnsbeard/
• Facebook: facebook.com/stevendunnmusic
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCm1WdQIZPm-aM6pNmap2Ybw
• Other: https://open.spotify.com/artist/1ouLSpIpbJnACEjfNuJ6Fv?si=Bzo1FhG2RwGYzrfQ7DWIIA

Image Credits
Reymark Palcon
Robbert Stoffer
Anna Gherasim