Steve Rodgers Wakes Up

As a sketched plane lands on a runway, the driving drums give way to a big hook from a guitar, the kind you get to write after you’ve already written a million songs. Stephen Peter Rodgers — a.k.a. Steve Rodgers, formerly of Mighty Purple and the Space — follows it up with an equally sharp vocal. ” Driving all alone / silence wreaking havoc in my head / I turn the radio on / they’re talking about the end of the world again / this crazy human life / this worlds as fragile as it’s ever been.” Then, at the end of the chorus, he delivers the message: ​“let’s stop just getting through / it’s time live a real life / wake up, wake up / let’s live a real life again.”

The song is called ​“Real Life,” and it’s the first song released from Rodgers’s imminently upcoming release, Speck on a Clover, which Rodgers will celebrate with a release show on May 13 at the State House.

“What I’m most psyched about is that it’s actually done,” Rodgers said of Speck on a Clover. And if the lyrics on it seem ripped from the present moment, that’s because they are. 

During the pandemic, Rodgers found himself not only writing prolifically, but learning the musical and recording skills he needed to create most of Speck on a Clover by himself. In finishing it, though, he reached out to the community around him, and found himself helping others make their own music in the process. 

Rodgers had just started dabbling in recording when Covid-19 arrived. ​“I literally opened GarageBand for the first time a month before the pandemic hit,” he said. ​“All I had was an old Mac Mini that was turtle-slow and some archaic AudioTechnica mic.” But it was enough to get him started — and to change how he wrote songs.

“I approached the songs much differently than I had in the past,” Rodgers said. ​“Since I never really had a recording system of any kind, if the songs came to me and I sat down and played guitar, I would hit voice memo on my phone, and sit there and listen to it, and go back and refine lyrics.” After he’d brought the song to other musicians to play, they’d first rehearse, then go to a studio and record it. The pandemic changed that.

“This time, it was like, ​‘here’s this Fender Rhodes that I just finished rebuilding, and here’s this amp, and I’m going to throw a mic on it. And the riff would develop, and I’d program drums behind it” to get the song rolling. As the songs grew, Rodgers found himself playing lead guitar for the first time. ​“I always had Jonny to do that,” he said of his brother, Jon Rodgers, who now lives in Oregon and works as a composer. ​“This time I did everything. It was much more experimental for me. And now I can’t see going back to the old way at all.”

As Rodgers settled into pandemic life, he said, ​“I gave myself that challenge to write and record one song a week. I sat down and wrote them really quickly.” But he also learned to be comfortable with the ebb and flow of his creativity. ​“With the songwriting stuff, I never force songs to come out,” he said. Sometimes, he said, ​“I just wanted to be outside, working on gardening.” Other times, on rainy days, ​“I’d go into my studio, and sometimes something would hit, and sometimes I’d stare blankly at the piano.”

Rodgers took it in stride. ​“I love the process that I’ve stumbled on,” he said. ​“Discovering and learning this process has helped me discover a lot about myself, for better and for worse.” He also ended up with about 40 or 50 songs. ​“Some of those songs will never see the light of day,” he said with a laugh. He sent demos of the songs to friends to figure out whether he should keep developing them, honestly soliciting their opinions. ​“Some of them were very positive, and some of them were like, ​‘hey Steve, maybe you should consider never playing this song again,’ ” he said, laughing again.

But in time, he had the 12 songs he needed to make an album. One was ​“Real Life.” Another was ​“Back into the Muddy River,” born of Rodgers’s connection to his grandfather, author Joseph Chilton Pearce, perhaps best known as the author of the New Age classic The Crack in the Cosmic Egg.

“During the pandemic one night, I was getting wistful that I hadn’t seen my grandfather before he died” in 2016, Rodgers said. ​“I started looking up videos of him, and that’s how I wrote ​‘Back in the Muddy River.’ I took some of the things he was saying and jotted them down on paper, and it developed from there” — ideas about ​“childhood education, and human cognizance, and where we all come from.”

He upgraded his recording equipment by selling some older gear to raise the funds. He borrowed a couple microphones, and his brother Jon held a fundraiser to allow him to buy a couple more. It was ​“enough stuff that I could make things sound good. My brother was huge. He taught me about some of the technical ins and outs about recording,” Rodgers said. Rodgers ended up performing and recording almost all the music on the album himself, with help from David Keith on drums for three songs, Sam Carlson on drums for one song, Seth Adam on bass for a song, Ben Dean on violin for another song, Fred DiLeone on synth for two songs, and Danny Fortin on percussion for one song. Carlson then mixed half the album. Jon Rodgers, Jim Walsh, and Nate Christy each mixed a song. Rodgers did the rest.

Rodgers had built his studio for himself. ​“I just wanted to be able to record my stuff and experiment with things,” he said. But as he sent his friends demos of his songs, a few took note of the quality of the sounds they were hearing. One was Spencer Luckey, a pedal-steel player who also happens to head up the jungle gym company Luckey Climbers, which has fabricated playgrounds all over the world from its shop on East Street. Luckey had been playing with the New Haven-based Americana group Dust Devil Heart, who were interested in recording an album.

“I think they should come over and meet you,” Rodgers recalled Luckey saying. Rodgers had ​“no confidence in my recording skills at that point,” he said, but he agreed to meet with them. ​“Four weeks later they were 12 songs deep with me,” he said. ​“I was working on my material and their material, so I was putting in 8 to 10 hours a day, so I was learning a lot.” He has worked with some of New Haven’s most experienced recording engineers, like Scott Amore, Vic Steffens, and Carlson. ​“Those guys are so far out of my league,” he said. ​“But I’ve played enough music that I feel like I have my own set of things that I should be confident about.”

Rodgers also recorded New Haven-based indie folk artist Sarah Dunn, who is about to release that album on June 4. ​“We’re already four songs deep into her next one,” Rodgers said. ​“It’s a really good working relationship.” He’s also working with Pat Stone, of Pat Stone and the Dirty Boots, and singer-songwriter Anne Marie Menta.

Rodgers found he loved ​“helping them suss out their sound,” he said, whatever they were looking for. ​“I think it’s wonderful to get inside another artist’s head. In the process, I’ve ended up with some really lovely friends.”

He is gathering those friends around him for the release show at the State House on May 13. ​“I’m super-excited about it because this will be my first time back on stage with a full band since the pandemic,” he said. ​“Doing the seven-piece band is something I haven’t done in a long time.”

That band will include Seth Adam on bass, David Keith on drums, Ben Dean on violin, Liz McNicholl and Jessy Griz on vocals, and Sean O’Reilly on keyboards. Rodgers’s set will be preceded by Daphne Parker Powell and MorganEve Swain, as well as Sam Carlson, Ponybird, Dust Devil Heart, Moonrise Cartel, Sarah Dunn. Val McKee will host the whole night.

“I really wanted to involve people who have been in my world for the past couple years,” Rodgers said. As he set up the night, he asked himself: ​“am I being presumptuous and over the top?” Then he remembered that ​“I’ve always been the kind of guy who wants a real production, to make things real. Ever since I was a kid” touring with Mighty Purple, ​“I’ve always focused on the production as much as the music. I’ve always loved that stuff.”

For Rodgers, the album, the collaborations, and putting together the show are all part of a larger sense of rejuvenation that he sees in others as well as himself.

“I’m feeling totally great,” he said, ​“full of youthful energy.”

Rodgers celebrates the release of Speck on a Clover at the State House on May 13. Visit the club’s website for tickets and more details. Visit the Stephen Peter Rodgers website for music and further information.