BIO

Rural Missouri–born, Chicago-based singer-songwriter Steve Slagg has been releasing music since 2011, a body of work that zigs and zags stylistically, guided by his collaborations within the Chicago DIY scene and his playfully curious explorations into spirituality, queerness and nature. Despite their diversity, his songs are anchored by a distinctive songwriting voice: they're earthy yet mystical, cynical yet hopeful, conversational yet poetic, and painstakingly honest, except when they’re not. As a fellow songwriter once put it, “Steve, your songs are full of poison. But also the only known antidote to that poison.”

His third album, I Don’t Want to Get Adjusted to This World, released September 21, 2024, has been featured on WBEZ’s Reset with Sasha-Ann Simons and Prairie Public’s Great American Folk Show, hailed as a “masterpiece” in reviews, and played on college and independent radio stations across the country.

Slagg self-produced the album, recruiting Chicago rock band Mooner (of which Slagg is also a member) as his band and co-producers, with engineer Dorian Gehring (Finom, Chicago’s Cosmic Country Showcase) co-producing, engineering, and mixing. Overdubs came from Chicago and beyond, including alt-country guitarist John Gargiulo (Contorno), experimental woodwind player Eric Novak (The Curls, Dissonant Dessert), LA composer and brass player Aaron Esposito (Son Lux, Knives Out OST), and Slagg’s friend and mentor, Massachusetts singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Erin McKeown (The Mountain Goats, Miss You Like Hell). Together they crafted lush, jangly Americana that occasionally collapses into angular noise and ambient sound, all while keeping Slagg’s voice front and center.

Performed with: Aaron Lee Tasjan, Anna McClellan, Erin McKeown, Flamin’ Groovies, Frances Luke Accord, Frontier Ruckus, James McCartney, Mooner, Over the Rhine, the Vulgar Boatmen.

Performed at: Centerpeace Conference 2022, Nowhere Else Festival 2018, GCN/QCF Conference 2015, Calvin College’s Festival of Faith and Music 2013.

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PRESS

for I Don’t Want to Get Adjusted to This World (2024):

“Queerness and nature: Chicago folk musician Steve Slagg on these themes and more in his new album.” Steve’s interview on Reset with Sasha-Ann Simons, WBEZ Chicago, 9/19/24

Steve’s feature on The Great American Folk Show, Prairie Public, 10/5/24

“A simultaneous expression of grief and defiance—the regret of living in a world which for so long we seemed determined to erase, and the affirming decision to exist as truthfully as possible in spite of everything.” Various Small Flames

“Steve Slagg begins his masterpiece I Don't Want to Get Adjusted to This World with a sprawling epic.” - Rainbow Rodeo

“Daring, impressive, and outright enjoyable.” - Third Coast Review

“Another fine example of how ‘Americana’ would be so much richer if it centered more diverse production aesthetics, and Slagg’s narratives find the faultlines in America’s heartland, foregrounding queer perspectives in his anxieties and uncertainties.” 4/5 star review, Country Universe

“Melds twangy Americana and hooky power-pop within an emotively impactful thematic direction.“ Obscure Sound

“A remarkable bit of writing.” Ear To the Ground (“The Newest Soil” track review)

“…swinging from straightforward folk-pop to orchestral chamber pop to a big psychedelic pop finish.” - Rosy Overdrive (“Heaven Yet” track review)

“Feels like mid-70s Laurel Canyon hippie rock in repose, when hippies lurked around corners and weed was illegal.” - American Pancake (“Indigo Bunting” track review)

for Strange Flesh (2019):

“A true and fierce artist.” - @erinmckeown

“…reminded me of the Velvet Underground (!) in its musical slipperiness, the voice emerging and subsiding. A puzzle made of musical styles; the vocals have a swinging louche sexiness until suddenly they’re saying, ‘They told me to gouge out my eye/So I gouged out my eye.’” - Eve Tushnet (“Dismemberment Song” track review)

for All Saints’ Day (2012) / All Souls’ Day (2014):

“[Slagg] is adding to the death-haunted literature of friendship.” Eve Tushnet

“Raw, painful-to-the-point-of-being-beautiful and intensely emotional.” - Indie Monday

“If (God forbid) I die young, someone pay @steveslagg to write a song about me.” - listener on Twitter

“One of the most impressive projects I’ve ever experienced—and experience is the right word." - listener on Tumblr

for Pigshit & Glowing (2011):

“That CD you left in my car? The one with all the worship music and swearing? That was… weird.” - a friend’s dad