Steven Gregory Drozd (born June 11, 1969) is an American musician and actor. He is a composer, multi-instrumentalist, and songwriter for
the Flaming Lips
The Flaming Lips are an American psychedelic rock band formed in 1983 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. The band currently consists of Wayne Coyne (vocals, guitar, keyboards), Steven Drozd (guitars, keyboards, bass, drums, vocals), Derek Brown (ke ...
,
Electric Würms, and other projects.
Early life
Drozd was born in
Houston, Texas, and grew up in
Richmond and
Rosenberg, Texas
Rosenberg is a city in the U.S. state of Texas, within the Houston–The Woodlands–Sugar Land metropolitan area and Fort Bend County. The population was 38,282 at the 2020 census, up from 30,618 at the 2010 census. The community hol ...
, with three brothers and a sister. He attended George Junior High & BF Terry High School. His father, Vernon, was a member of the
polka band Vernon Drozd and the Texas Brass. At the age of ten, he began playing drums with his father's band and later played piano in various country
honky-tonk
A honky-tonk (also called honkatonk, honkey-tonk, or tonk) is both a bar that provides country music for the entertainment of its patrons and the style of music played in such establishments. It can also refer to the type of piano ( tack piano) ...
groups. After high school, Drozd moved to Oklahoma City and performed, mainly on drums, with a number of underground bands in the area.
The Flaming Lips
Drozd joined the Flaming Lips in 1991 as a drummer. While his style is influenced by the drum sounds of the 1970s, his time spent with his father's polka band helped him develop a sense of delicacy and syncopation. His thick grooves, with episodes of odd-time funk, are interspersed with straight-ahead rock, mixing various genres. In 1999, while touring
The Soft Bulletin
''The Soft Bulletin'' is the ninth studio album by American rock band the Flaming Lips, released by Warner Bros. Records on May 17, 1999, in the United Kingdom, and on June 22, 1999, in the United States. The album was released to widespread a ...
, Drozd decided to assume guitar duties as well as keyboards and backing vocals, using his drum tracks during live performances, but he still drums on the studio albums to this day.
Other ventures
He is the songwriting/musician half of You in Me, a
Neil Diamond
Neil Leslie Diamond (born January 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. He has sold more than 130 million records worldwide, making him one of the best-selling musicians of all time. He has had ten No. 1 singles on the Hot 100 and Adul ...
-inspired duo, with Alan Novey on vocals. Drozd writes the songs, and he and Novey perform them as a tribute to Diamond.
He and Steve Burns created the band
StevenSteven, a children's psychedelic music project.
The artist Imagene Peise is an
elevator music-style covers and originals, culled from the home recordings of Drozd with the imagery and myth being from the imagination of
Wayne Coyne
Wayne Michael Coyne (born January 13, 1961) is an American musician. He is the lead singer, guitarist, keyboardist, theremin player and songwriter for the band the Flaming Lips.
Early life
Coyne was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United Stat ...
.
Drozd and Coyne have a second group together called Electric Würms, with Drozd taking the lead role in the band. Influenced by prog rock, krautrock, and punk rock, their goal is to explore the outer reaches of traditional "rock" music, as well-performing Flaming Lips deeper cuts. Nashville-based
Linear Downfall
Linearity is the property of a mathematical relationship (''function (mathematics), function'') that can be graph of a function, graphically represented as a straight Line (geometry), line. Linearity is closely related to ''Proportionality (mat ...
completes the ensemble.
Contributing work
Drozd has appeared on a number of recordings of other artists, including
Elliott Smith
Steven Paul Smith (August 6, 1969 – October 21, 2003), known professionally as Elliott Smith, was an American singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. Smith was born in Omaha, Nebraska, raised primarily in Texas, and lived much of ...
's ''
From a Basement on the Hill'',
Jay Farrar
Jay Farrar (born December 26, 1966) is an American songwriter and musician currently based in St. Louis. A member of two critically acclaimed music groups, Uncle Tupelo and Son Volt, he began his solo music career in 2001. Beyond his estab ...
's ''Sebastopol'' and ''ThirdShiftGrottoSlack'' and
Steve Burns' ''
Songs for Dustmites''. Drozd is featured on the online release of
Cake
Cake is a flour confection made from flour, sugar, and other ingredients, and is usually baked. In their oldest forms, cakes were modifications of bread, but cakes now cover a wide range of preparations that can be simple or elaborate, ...
's ''B-sides and Rarities'' (2007).
In 2013 Drozd created and directed a volunteer group of music students at ACMUCO called the Mutating Cell Ensemble, whose goal is to experiment with polyrhythm and repetition. They have performed once. Drozd composed and performed on the song "Mattress Warehouse" by
Foxygen
Foxygen is an American indie rock duo from Westlake Village, California, formed in 2005. The band consists of multi-instrumentalist Jonathan Rado and vocalist Sam France. They have released six albums and a number of self-released EPs.
History
R ...
, off their album ''
...And Star Power'', released on October 14, 2014.
Film work
In the Flaming Lips' film ''
Christmas on Mars
''Christmas on Mars'' is a 2008 independent psychological science fiction film from the alternative rock band the Flaming Lips, written and directed by the band's frontman, Wayne Coyne, and featuring the entire band in the cast, as well as many o ...
'' (2008), he plays Major Syrtis, the main character of the film. Drozd has appeared on
Noggin's ''Jack's Big Music Show'', with
Jon Stewart
Jon Stewart (born Jonathan Stuart Leibowitz; November 28, 1962) is an American comedian, political commentator, and television host. He hosted '' The Daily Show'', a satirical news program on Comedy Central, from 1999 to 2015 and now hosts '' ...
and
Steve Burns.
In 2020, he scored the TV series ''
Moonbase 8''.
[131. Dr. Michael Greger, Steven Drozd (The Flaming Lips), Skinner, Mikey Kampmann](_blank)
Podcasts.apple.com
Discography
Solo
Imagene Peise
You in Me
Electric Würms
StevenSteven
References
External links
Drozd fansite
Drozd's Maritime Mixtape
{{DEFAULTSORT:Drozd, Steven
1969 births
Living people
American multi-instrumentalists
The Flaming Lips members
People from Houston
Musicians from Oklahoma
20th-century American drummers
American male drummers
People from Richmond, Texas
People from Rosenberg, Texas