| Smiling Rhinos vocalist extrodinaire... STEVE SMITH |
| HISTORY Hey, you Smiling Rhino fanatic, what�s up? Thanks for visiting �The Smiling Rhinos� website and stopping by my personal webpage. I guess you could say I got started in music very early. Ever since I was about four years old (so I�m told�) I would entertain family and friends by spontaneously breaking out in song and dance. Which I guess really isn�t odd for a four year old. The thing is, I haven�t stopped! People who know me, know me as �that guy who is singing all the damn time� (at least I managed to ease up on the dancing, two left feet have that effect though). When I was about 10 years old, I had an older brother who was in high school who also played the guitar. I was simply amazed that he was playing all these songs from the radio and albums (yes albums, remember albums, shiny black vinyl with grooves?) he listened to. So, when he wasn�t home I would sneak down to his room and play with his electric guitar. But after a few poundings; I learned to take more of a �hands off� approach to the guitar. I guess he didn�t like my choice of settings, which was; all knobs, all the way up. To keep me off his guitar he bought me my own acoustic for Christmas. He showed me some open chord�s, you know G, C, D, E and Em�simple stuff. Well needless to say that lasted about two months. Trying to get all your fingers to go where you want them to at the same time was just too much for this ten year old. I didn�t pick up the guitar again until I was in college. I had some brothers in my fraternity (Lambda Chi Alpha) at UC who played guitar and well, I�ve been playing ever since. I�ve never had any formal music training or lessons. Just guitar magazines and whatever I could pick up by ear. It�s worked fairly well for the 14 years. But nothing I�ve done thus far has taught me more about music than being in the company of such fine musicians as the rest of the band. This truly is one of the greatest moments of my life. I LOVE IT!!! |
| INFLUENCES Most of my pre-teen years I grew up listening to both kinds of music...country & western since that�s what my parents listened to. I mean old school too like George Jones, Charlie Pride, Marty Robins, Hank Williams Sr. and Jim Reeves just to name a few. But when I got to junior high school, kids were starting to talk about music and what groups they liked. You�d be surprised how many times you get beat up for saying you like the Mandrell Sisters. So I guess it was then that I decided to broaden my musical tastes and the first rock band to grab me by the ears was ZZ TOP. From the moment I heard Blue Jean Blues I knew I was hooked. And after TV DINNERS, dinner with the Swanson�s was never gonna� be the same. From there it went on to other groups and performers like: Jimi Hendrix, The Eagles, Pink Floyd, Boston, Def Leppard, Billy Joel and Van Halen. I even managed to squeeze in some Garth Brooks as well and that�s just the tip of the iceberg. I don�t really have just one type of music I like. I consider all options. My radios are tuned to all different styles of music because to me if it�s good music, it�s good music�period. |
| GEAR My rig has certainly changed since I first joined the band. My main guitar is a 2007 G&L Comanche. This is an absolutely beautiful guitar, made with a hard rock maple neck with a rubbed gun oil tint finish supporting an ebony fret board. The body is swamp ash with a flame maple top. The finish is a 3 tone sunburst but after contacting G&L directly they were gracious enough to make it a custom 3 tone sunburst which reminds me of a tropical sunset�aaahhhhh. Thanks G&L. The body has a finishing touch of a natural wood binding. Now I have to admit the guitar came with Leo�s patented Z coils which are nice but I feel they didn�t reflect a tone that was uniquely mine (forgive me Leo) therefore I re-equipped this stunningly beautiful guitar with 3 Australian made Kinman noiseless alnico single coils with a wiring configuration that gives me 9 possible pick up combinations. These pick ups really do sound great and are absolutely noiseless, every tone I need is in this guitar. �Good on ya mate� to Chris Kinman for some outstanding pick ups. To embellish this great tone I incorporate a pedal board which is still a work in progress and it consist of a Keeley modified Boss Chorus-1, a Voodoo Lab Sparkle Drive, a Keeley modified Blues Driver and a Boss Pedal Tuner. This entire signal gets fed into a Mesa/Boogie Mark IV amp which really turns out what I feel is the best tone I�ve ever had the pleasure of working with. I could spend another 5 pages describing all the features that make this amp a world class working musicians gigging amp. If you have not given the Mesa/Boogie family a try you should hear what you�re missing. You don�t need an expensive guitar ensemble to sound great with a Mesa, but, if you�re like me and do have a premium signal chain, you�re in for some tonal bliss. Thanks for spending sometime with me and if you�re ever out to see us, please come up and say �Hi!� (I�m the guy with the great tone) and if you�re out someplace we are not, then please drop our name to the appropriate person in charge of booking. See ya later. |
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