STEVE PALMER BAND – A 2010 HOLLYWOOD
MUSIC IN MEDIA NOMINEE – BRINGS A
‘TIMELESS AND TRANSCENDENT’ SOULFUL ROCK
ENERGY TO THEIR DEBUT CD “APPARITION”

***
The East Coast Indie Rockers Offer Their First Single
‘In Love,’ As A Free Download To Raise Money For
Save The Children And St. Jude’s Hospital

Steve Palmer, lead singer, songwriter and creative force behind the East Coast based Steve Palmer Band, describes the title track off his debut CD “Apparition”, as “an edgy song rock about a woman who is beckoned to break away from a dark force that wants to control and destroy her.” The band is set to release their 13-track debut “Apparition” March 1, 2011 on Arythmia Records.

This storyline applies to the multiple obstacles Palmer has confronted as an artist who has struggled to take his songs public – songs that are “timeless and transcend genre” (Celebrity Café, 2010). Putting a modern spin on classic rock and soul, Palmer and his band recently celebrated their first Hollywood Music in Media Award (HMMA) nomination (for Best AC/AAA Song) for “Apparition”.  They performed the title track at the red carpet gala November 18, 2010 in Hollywood.

Steve Palmer Band (SPB) and Arythmia Records also offer fans a unique way to help two great children’s charities by giving away free downloads of “In Love”, the feel good single off Apparition.  To raise money for Save The Children and St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital, Arythmia Records will raise and donate five cents for each of the first 200,000 fans who download the song.  The promotion can be accessed by clicking “ShareThis” at www.stevepalmerband.com and runs through January 31.

As SPB gears up to hit the road again in 2011, Palmer has given interviews to In The Now Magazine, the popular online music source Maximum Ink, plus a live interview and performance for New Jersey’s Power Play and a radio interview on KJAG-FM in Salina, Kansas.  In 2010, the band filmed three concerts in Nashville at Mercy Lounge, Sound Check and 3rd Avenue South, as well as producing a live music video for the single “Apparition” that appears on websites – the same recording appears on the CD.  Palmer’s 2010 slate included opening for Blues Traveler, Sister Hazel and Bob Schneider while touring from Massachusetts to Georgia and west to Arkansas.

In 2009, SPB filmed and produced ten music videos and recorded two records in Nashville . . . one two times and the other three times.  “Well by our fifth or sixth effort, I think we got the thing tamper proof so we’re making strides on quality control.  After a lot of mumbo jumbo in studios throughout my career, we ended up at a basement studio called Downtown Battery Studios, which is the best room I’ve ever recorded in.”

Joining Palmer (lead vocals and rhythm guitar) for the Blackbird and Downtown Battery Studio sessions were Bryan Ewald (MD and lead guitar); Anthony Setola (bass) now replaced by Josh Chapmen; Tony Morra (drums); Larry Hall (keyboards and Hammond B3 organ); and Vicki Hampton (background vocals).  Its members are all veteran players with a collective century of studio and concert experience that have joined together with Palmer into a genuine and committed band. On the road, Steve often adds Brian Fullen, Brandon Bartlett and others from Nashville and Maryland.

“I was recording great music before I met my current band,” says Palmer.  ”But I really respect these guys as human beings.  And they’ve become a important part of Apparition and also the live sound.  I rely on their natural instincts and musicality to bring something different to the music.”

Palmer draws inspiration from a wide range of rock and pop from the ‘60s and ‘70s. “Yes, Led Zeppelin, Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson and Beatles were some of my favorites,” he says. “But some of my biggest influences are five great singer/songwriters: CSNY, Cat Stevens, Joni Mitchell, James Taylor, and Joan Armatrading. I also liked Chicago, Bruce Springsteen, Billy Joel, Aerosmith, Hendrix and Joplin, Fleetwood Mac and Stevie Ray Vaughn.

Palmer explains, “All those players taught me about being true to the music. For example ‘No Words To Say’ is a ballad, pure and simple. ‘Her Own Place’ is a long story accented by the big stomping rhythmic beats. ‘Apparition’, on the other hand, has an edgy minor strained sound, more like Nirvana or Dave Matthews Band. And, hopefully, you just want to dance to ‘Livin A Lie’.”

By his junior year of high school Palmer made his initial solo quarter-inch reel- to-reel recordings, followed soon by studio sessions at age 18 in Plymouth, England and then Connecticut with first call New York musicians.  He followed with self funded sessions in Chicago, Indiana, Maryland and DC and recorded four records in Virginia between 2004-6.  But no one would help distribute and promote Palmer’s music.  “People either didn’t want to work with me or just took the money and not only didn’t help much but actually hurt me.”  In the middle of all this, Palmer studied at Northwestern and Georgetown “to keep one foot in the ‘real world’ and the other one on the peripheral, dreaming and writing.”

Since 2002, Palmer has spent every waking hour writing, recording, developing his band, growing a record company alongside “developing a virtual major label” comprised of top independent music industry professionals and putting together a promotion, marketing and distribution team.  In running Arythmia Records, Palmer mixes in the business sense he learned from earning money as a kid since age 10 working in yards, restaurants and supermarkets, starting a student paper in England, founding a fraternity based on diversity, bringing black and white student groups together to put on appearances by Dick Gregory, Chick Corea and Gil Scott Heron, interning with an Alderman Danny Davis on the West Side of Chicago, and working as a professional in New York, Philly and Washington D.C.

Palmer adds. “I will not be satisfied until my music gets out to the people and all the road blocks for me and other artists are torn down.  People need great music to feel good and be inspired to hope and dream.  And that’s one thing I think I can give to everyone.”