Back in May, I was attending a show at Boulder’s Velvet Elk Lounge. It was one of those rare occasions where I wasn’t covering the show – I was out with friends, simply wanting to enjoy some good blues music without being concerned about taking pictures and notes. The headliner act that night was The Ghost Town Blues Band. The opening act was a local blues rock band called The Stephen Lear Band.
It didn’t take long for the opening act to have me and my friends nodding to each other in a “hey, who are these guys!?” kind of way. Three songs into their set I leaned to one of my friends and noted that I really wished I had my cameras with me – this Stephen Lear dude was incredible photo worthy. By the end of their set I had proclaimed that I had found the next subject for my Local Talent Spotlight series.
Later that night, as The Ghost Town Blues Band was cranking through their own awesome set, frontman Matt Isbell invited Lear on stage to jam with them. Without missing a beat, Lear stepped in, and blew everyone away. Chatting with him a few days later, I asked Lear if his guest spot was really impromptu, or if they had rehearsed it. It was so crisp and seamless it seemed impossible that it was all improvised. He confirmed that he was as surprised as everyone else in the crowd when he was invited on stage.
Lear so impressed Isbell that the band invited him to join them for their gig the following night in Beaver Creek. Yeah, the young man is that good.
Over the course of the last couple of months, I’ve attended two more of Lear’s gigs (this time with my cameras slung across me like a cross-draw gunslinger). If I was impressed when I saw him that May evening in Boulder, I was completely blown away after seeing him play Odde’s in Westminster and the Black Buzzard at Oskar Blues in Denver. The first time I saw Lear play he was fronting a five-piece band, with bass, drums, keys, saxophone and himself on lead guitar and vocals. The next time I saw him he was fronting a four-piece (minus the keys). And the third time I saw him he was fronting a good old fashioned three-piece… just himself on guitar and vocals, plus bass and drums.
What I learned from these three gigs is that Lear possesses the chops to completely dominate on stage. The fewer other players he has with him, the more he has to flex his musical muscles, and just take over. And the more he took over, the more obvious it became that this young man is going places.
Just twenty-three years old, Lear was born and raised in Cincinnati. Unlike a lot of musicians I talk with, he was not raised in a musical family. In a conversation I had with Stephen last week, he explained, “I can remember, thinking back to just being a kid, I always loved trying to make music and singing. But it never really came my way. A lot of my family was into sports. Music wasn’t really an option because nobody in my family really played music. Usually kids get into music because their dad plays music, or their uncle was in a band, or something like that, but I just didn’t have that around me.”
Despite the lack of any direct musical connections, Lear dabbled in music as he grew up. But he didn’t get serious about it, or even semi-serious, until his senior year in high school.
“All my buddies were in a band. They started when we were like thirteen, and I did a lot of hanging around with them. But I never picked up any instruments or anything. I did a lot of photography and other stuff, similar to what you do. That was kind of how I got into the music scene. I always knew I wanted to do something with music, but I just never really got into it. I played drums a little bit. That was my first instrument. And I could play a little ukulele, but I really didn’t start picking up guitar until 2019.”
It was a real-life series of unfortunate events that led Lear to begin his journey from being interested in music, to making music an important part of his life. During his senior year in high school, his father passed away. That, combined with several other stressors pounding down on him, pushed him to find some sort of constructive way to channel his emotions.
“By the time December (of his senior year) hit, things are starting to get pretty weird upstairs (in his head), and I needed something, really anything, to kind of separate me from that. I was going through a bunch of other stuff at the time too. There was a breakup with my girlfriend. And then we were talking about moving. And I’m about to graduate from high school. There was just so much going on. I’m very ADHD, so I kind of just pick up things and I put them down, and I have fun with them just to pass the time, you know. But guitar was very, very different. It was very calming. I remember the first time I picked it up, and I wanted to learn a song. I didn’t think about anything else for like an hour. It was “Day Tripper” by the Beatles. That was the first song I tried to learn. And I didn’t think about anything (beyond playing). It was later when I thought about it. And I kind of just kept doing it.”
It was a Spring Break trip to Manitou Springs that served as the catalyst for Lear’s eventual move to Colorado.
“Fortunately, my mom had a job at the time that allowed her to travel a lot. She asked me, “Where would you like to live”? And I had never been to Colorado, so we came out here for Spring Break. We stayed in Manitou Springs, which I think was just a trap from the beginning, because it’s just so beautiful there. And I ended up coming back just a couple months later. That was when I was eighteen. I’m 23 now, so it’ll be five years in September since I moved here.”
Lear didn’t move to Colorado with an expressed and explicit goal of getting into music. Although by now he was spending more time playing, at that point it was still something he did mostly for his personal well-being.
“The year I graduated, I moved out here with my mom and my grandma. We lived in a couple of different towns before I finally ended up moving out and coming here to Westminster.
Then the world shut down, like six months later (due to the COVID-19 pandemic), and I was kind of trapped in my house. Luckily, I had met my girlfriend just a month or two before, so I did have a good friend. But yeah, it was me moving out here and trying to do something new and just locked in my room playing guitar all the time. I was playing backing tracks all the time, but I wasn’t really any good.”
Listening to Lear play today, you’d never dream that less than five years ago he, by his own assessment, “wasn’t really any good.” You’d never guess that he has only been playing guitar for about six years. You’d assume he was some sort of child prodigy that had started playing when he was four years old and had dominated musical competitions since he was in middle school. But the truth is, he didn’t really begin playing seriously, as part of a band, until about two and a half years ago.
As he continued to hone his skills, both as a guitarist and a vocalist, Lear began to think about playing and performing “for real.”
“Eventually I was like, okay, who’s doing that blues rock, dirty, gritty, power trio kind of thing in Denver? And there just wasn’t that many people doing it. I mean, there were but not to my taste, at least. And so I decided to start playing on my own. And then eventually I found Max (Sherwood), who became one of the original members of the band. And I met my first drummer… a guy named Tommy. And then I met Mr. Tyler Treadway, who’s still in the band today. He’s the only remaining founder besides me.
We got our first gig at So Many Roads Brewery. We had maybe 45 minutes to an hour of good material, and another 45 minutes of shaky material, and I really didn’t know if I could make it through. I’d never done it before. My family came to the show, and even they were like, “What is going on here? What are you doing?
It was very, very weird. I definitely blacked out. I remember getting off stage and looking at somebody and being like, I don’t have any idea what just happened. It was very weird experience. And that still happens. But I’ve come to realize that it’s just my flow zone.”
Long removed from that first gig, the band has built a loyal following in the Denver metro area, and plays, on average, once a week. But there’s still a long way to go. They released a three-song EP, called Far From Here, in 2022. They followed that up with a five-song live EP, recorded at Denver’s Lost Lake Lounge, in 2023. (Both available on all major streaming platforms.) A new single, “Bad Luck Woman” dropped just last month. It precedes a full-length LP, which the band is hoping to release in late September.
“We have a full-length project coming out in late September, early October. We’re very excited. I’ve been sitting on these songs for a while, and a few of them we released on the EP a couple years ago. But there’s a major change in how we sound now versus how we sounded two years ago. And even just listening to the recordings that we started recording in January for the album… it’s like, we’ve already grown. We’re constantly working hard to get better. It’s just a nonstop thing.”
Even with that momentum, there are still significant challenges to keeping a band on an upward trajectory. Primary among those challenges is continuity of band membership. Many aspiring musicians play in multiple bands. In order to make ends meet, they work day jobs – sometimes more than one. As the de facto leader of the band, one of Lear’s ongoing challenges is making sure he has the necessary accompanying players to join him for gigs.
“One of the reasons I chose the name (The Stephen Lear Band) is because when I was starting out it was so damned hard to find people to play with. And I didn’t like the idea of coming up with a band name, because what happens if somebody leaves? You know, somebody leaves the Rolling Stones, or somebody leaves Aerosmith… some will say that the band’s over or they’re never gonna be the same. I’m not gonna go see them play anymore, because he’s not there.
I don’t worry about that. People can always count on me to show up and do my stuff, regardless of who might be there with me. That was just a big thing for me… if I’m gonna do this, I’m gonna do it for myself.
I’m so grateful to the people who play with me, and I’ve met so many great musicians that I’ve gotten the opportunity to play with. But that doesn’t change the fact that two and a half years into this, I’m the one constant variable of the situation.
Today we have Alex Preston… he’s definitely a regular member of the band. And like I said, Tyler’s been in the band since the beginning. But he’s just busy, you know, and also has another band that he enjoys.
It has been tough. It is still tough. Just today I was scrambling to find a drummer for a show coming up. But it also makes it interesting, especially for people that have been going to our shows for over two years now. They can see that one group of players will give a different type of show than another group of players.
I have a good list of people that I can call to write some music or fill in for a gig. And that’s where it is nice. Sometimes, when you have a set group of people, it’s hard to get anything done. But yeah, that’s why I chose the name, man… The Stephen Lear Band. I can always count on myself to be there and put in the work and write the music and be there on stage.”
Yeah, he’s got that right.
Lear’s stage presence, combined with his remarkable guitar skills and his strong, bluesy vocals puts him at the very top of the class of local players. He’s quite the showman… playing guitar above his head and behind his back, playing one handed while using his other hand for a drink break, overhand tapping in the spirit of Eddie Van Halen. He’s a photographer’s dream, both for his rockstar posing and his endless stream of facial contortions. He’s charismatic, is comfortable interacting with the crowd, and possesses a thousand-watt smile. When you have both talent and showmanship you have something very special. And in this case, you have Stephen Lear.
You can find Stephen on the good old Interwebs on YouTube, Facebook, or Instagram. He does have a website, but by his own admission it’s in disrepair, and in need of a facelift. The Stephen Lear Band’s next handful of gigs are listed below, along with links to websites for more information. If you like blues and blues rock music, I highly recommend that you check Stephen and his bandmates out. This could very well be one of those opportunities where, a couple of years down the road, you’ll be telling people about how you knew who he was before the rest of the world discovered him.
Lions Lair Lounge, Thursday, August 29, Denver (Lions Lair Lounge)
Rocky Rock Fest, Saturday, August 31, Woodland Park (Rocky Rock Fest)
Black Mountain Family Reunion Festival, September 13/14, Guffey, CO (Black Mountain Family Reunion)
Photos, interview, and story by Rick Witt www.rickwittphotography.com
