Steve Gunn is a guitarist, singer, songwriter, and producer living and working in Brooklyn, New York. He initially gained a reputation as a go-to musician and for his membership in GHQ, though Gunn has a varied recording and collaboration history that includes work with British legend Mike Cooper(with whom he recorded the duo album Cantos de Lisboa in 2014) and Jack Rose. The diversity of his approach embraces everything from American Primitive guitar to raucous, Neil Young & Crazy Horse-inspired psychedelic roots rock & roll. He has collaborated with Meg Baird, the Magik Markers, and Kurt Vile, and issued a number of well-received solo albums including Way Out Weather (2014), The Unseen In Between (2018), and Other You (2021).
In 2007 he released his first self-titled solo album on Onomato, followed almost immediately by a self-titled, self-issued CD-R. Sundowner followed in 2008 on Tulsa, Oklahoma’s Digitalis label. In 2009, Three-Lobed (also GHQ’s label) released Gunn’s Boerum Palace and the Too Early for the Hammer EP. Later that year, End of the City, a split album with Shawn McMillen, appeared from Abandon Ship Records. Gunn’s next solo guitar offering was Camel Throat, released as a cassette-only album on Germany’s Meudiademorte. In 2010, Gunn and drummer John Truscinski began playing live together as the Gunn-Truscinski duo. Their debut, Sand City, was issued by Three-Lobed that year, followed by a live CD-R in 2011 and Ocean Parkway in 2012.
Gunn also kept busy as a solo artist, releasing a split album with Sun City Girls entitled Not the Spaces You Know, But Between Them in 2011. In 2012, the guitarist joined Kurt Vile & the Violators for a global tour, eventually returning to issue his next album Time Off, a trio album featuring Truscinski and bassist Justin Tripp, for Paradise of Bachelors in the late spring of 2013. In 2014, Gunn was prolific. Melodies for a Savage Fix, his collaborative date with Pelt guitarist Mike Gangloff, was issued in March, followed in June by Cantos de Lisboa, a duet session with Mike Cooper in RVNG Intl.’s Frkwys series. In early October, Way Out Weather, his second singer/songwriter offering for Paradise of Bachelors, appeared.
Gunn teamed with the Black Twig Pickers during a short break in his touring schedule to record a live-in-studio date. Seasonal Hire included four original tunes and one traditional piece, with Gunn and the Black Twig Pickers’ Mike Gangloff and Sally Anne Morgan all taking turns on lead vocals and songwriting. It was released by Thrill Jockey in early 2015. By the end of that year, he’d also taken part in a unique vinyl box set of split LPs from Three Lobed Records titled Parallelogram, with Gunn and Kurt Vile each taking a side of one of the LPs. The following summer he made his Matador Records debut with a collection of road meditations called Eyes on the Lines and a live set with Angel Olsen titled Live at Pickathon. The following year his seemingly never-ending tour produced the self-released Dusted, whose six tracks were captured from gigs in Chicago, New York, and Toronto. Gunn’s singer/songwriter ambitions were predominant on 2018’s The Unseen In Between, a set of nine intimate, often-autobiographical songs that flowed stylistically from Anglo-Celtic folk, Indian raga, guitar pop, and Americana. Meg Baird duetted with the guitarist on the track “Vagabond.” The album also contained the song “Stonehurst Cowboy,” a tribute to his recently deceased father and the Philadelphia neighborhood Gunn grew up in. Released in August 2021, Gunn’s sixth solo album, Other You, was recorded on Los Angeles with producer Rob Schnapf. The airy set featured a number of guests ranging from harpist Mary Lattimore and singer Juliana Barwick to British folk legend Bridget St. John.
Nakama, a series of reworkings of tracks from Other You by Circuit Des Yeux, Mdou Moctar, David Moore and the Natural Information Society was released through Matador in early 2022.
In 2023, Gunn paired up with David Moore (of Bing & Ruth) for Let The Moon Be A Planet, the first in RVNG’s new reflections series.
PRESS FOR STEVE GUNN:
By embracing the expanse, his music has gotten bigger, and more universal.” — Pitchfork
“A gifted, innovative guitarist, he evokes the timeless experimentation of someone like John Fahey, and sings like a prairie Lou Reed.” — Q
“His latest album finds the singer-guitarist doubling down on his strengths — shimmering, fingerpicked electric guitar, deadpan-cool vocals — but the songs feel richer, brighter, more alive” — Washington Post
“There’s a sense of Gunn transcending his original reputation as a player, and asserting his skill as a songsmith.” – MOJO 4/5