STEVE LOGAN has released new album ‘Psych Ward‘, out now, new single ‘Jesus Is My Vaccine‘, is also out now on Flip Flop Records. 

Are we, for all our freedom more troubled and unhappy now than ever? Steve Logan’s sixth album, Psych Ward, touches on many of the big cultural issues of our times and will appeal equally to fans of Neil Young and the Manic Street Preachers.

‘A preacher of the fantastic with the soul of a poet’
Ian D. Hall, Liverpool Sound and Vision. Album rating: 9/10

“He’s a song writer whose relationship to Neil Young is arguably like that of Oasis to The Beatles. Both parties came up with something all of their own, while leaving the listener in no doubt as to where their musical inspirations came from”
Pete Feenstra, Get Ready To Rock Magazine

Latest single from the album: ‘Jesus Is My Vaccine’
“During Lockdown I read an article about a pro-Trump rally. Among banners saying ‘My Body My Choice’, ‘My Rights Don’t End Where Your Fear Begins’, ‘My Body, My Choice’ and ‘Socialism Sucks’, one in particular struck me. It said ‘Jesus is My Vaccine’. I felt that Jesus might have wept at this and the individualistic view of life it implies.”

Order the album here: https://chalkys.com/products/steve-logan-psych-ward-cd-pre-sale-22-12-2023

In 2018, Steve was the subject of a TV documentary which you can check out here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1w_PPQ3c-DQ&t=1s

Steve Logan’s Story
Steve grew up in South-East Wales, in a village where most of the men worked in the local steel-works. His father was a singer, mostly in the Irish clubs around Newport. Later he moved to London and busked in the subways near Marble Arch. On Edgware Road there is a subway now marked ‘Joe Strummer’s subway’ but it wasn’t just his. Steve wrote his first song at the back of the physics class, aged 14 and then kept going. 
He joined his first band at fifteen, playing drums, then moving to vocals and guitar. There followed a long succession of cover-bands, indie bands and tributes. Notable among the indie-bands was one with strong political slant called ‘Keep the Faith’. Dave Stokes, the main songwriter in this, was an inspiration to Steve. He was really driven to write and get his music performed even if it wasn’t always welcomed. 

Later, after moving to Cambridge, Steve formed Free Again which had several different line-ups and was firmly established on the tribute circuit. His plan was to play Free and Bad Company songs then work my songs into the set until they gradually became the main focus. This, however, didn’t happen owing to line-up changes and the constraints of the tribute format. 

Eventually Steve decided to go it alone and began my recording his growing catalogue of original songs in earnest. He drew on the support of many good friends and musicians. Kimberley (‘Walking on Sunshine’) Rew, a legend on the Cambridge music scene generously played on Steve’s first solo acoustic album, Signs and Wonders(2014), as did Rhys Wilson, a stalwart of the local music scene. Kimberley’s wife, Lee-Cave-Berry, played bass on the full-band follow-up, Deliverance (2015), along with Rhys Wilson and Paul Richards (drums).  Steve’s third album, Wanted Alive (2016) again features the superb musicianship of Rhys Wilson (guitars), Andy Cross (bass) and Phil Bryant (drums), alongside Steve’s distinctive vocals and guitar-playing. This was swiftly followed by Backstreets of Eden (2017) which attracted wide and positive coverage in the music press. His current album, the fifth in five years, is called Shaking Hands with the Devil (2019).

As for style and influences, Steve says ‘It’s always difficult to say who your influences have been. If you just mention musical ones, you’re leaving out the personal influences which have often been as crucial. And, if you believe in matters of the spirit, there’s the large question of how we are led to the music and the people who do us most good. But among purely musical influences, maybe mine fall into two categories: heavy blues-rock and what I call song-poets – people who, following Dylan, are the minstrels of our age. Free and Led Zeppelin were crucial to me because they span both genres, writing heavy rock anthems and delicate dreamy poetry in music. My live sets and albums reflect this acoustic/electric border-hopping. Because of this, Neil Young has been an especially important influence and example, known as both the godfather of grunge and the author of some of the most sensitive and alluring acoustic ballads. I love his work because it honours the muse and keeps developing, as I aim to myself, singing with passion, right from heart to heart.

In many gigs, Steve plays an acoustic set followed by an electric one. He does many solo acoustic shows, sometimes joined by members of his four-piece band Geronimo, named with a nod to Crazy Horse. He has played both rock and acoustic stages at the Cambridge Rock Festival six years running. His songs have featured on many radio stations in the UK and on some in the US.

https://www.facebook.com/steve.logan.75286
https://www.stevelogan.co.uk/
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCi1cbgazXc61weRV59pe77w