Listen to “E. 240: Steven Meger | Under Paris Skies” on Spreaker.
Born in northern Minnesota…I can kinda remember the day when I fell in love with guitar…I was so infatuated with it…I started learning Beatles records and anywhere I could…
We talked with Steven Meger of the band Under Paris Skies, featuring a unique musical blend of vintage swing, cabaret, tango, samba, bossa and flamenco influences. We talk about origins, the process for choosing music, reworking it, and what is coming up for this group that celebrates the music of French sidewalk cafes, vintage jazz clubs, and Latin rhythms.
Amy Gabay 00:05
We talked with Steven Meger of the band Under Paris Skies featuring a unique musical blend of vintage swing, cabaret, Tango, samba, Bossa and flamenco influences. We talk about origins, the process for choosing music, reworking it, and what is coming up for this group that celebrates the music of French sidewalk cafes, vintage jazz clubs, and Latin rhythms. You can find more conversations, food reviews, live music and events on our website, lacrosselocal.com. I’m Amy.
Brent Hanifl 00:34
I’m Brent.
Amy Gabay 00:35
And this is La Crosse Local.
Steven Meger 00:55
My name is Steven Meger. I was born in northern Minnesota, a small town about 20 miles south of Duluth. I can kind of remember the day I fell in love with guitar. I was bicycling with some friends of mine, we stopped at a guy’s place out in the country where we were going to bike and he happened to have an electric guitar, which I had never seen in person before. And I ended up picking it up for some reason. I can’t explain it. I was so infatuated with it that I remember, all the guys left. They left me behind. I just said like, I’ll meet up with you later. So this was around Beatlemania time for me. And I just had such an interest in playing guitar. My friend who had the guitar, didn’t know music, but he had a system of writing out music using numbers. So the string number in the fret. I didn’t have a guitar. So the first song that I ever learned was a Venters instrumental called Bulldog. And he broke out the music in numbers. So it looked like a code. And I remember in school like during study hall, I’d pull out this pattern piece of paper. And I would just study the numbers because I didn’t have a guitar to play it on. I think my dad realized at some point that I really wanted to play. So he bought me my first instrument. I started learning Beatle records and anywhere I could like some of the old venture tunes. I had a buddy in town that because I had a guitar, he had to get one and we started to teach each other. Eventually we started playing at churches, church music, where we could get away playing like mellow rock. So we were playing Joe Walsh as kind of the, you know, the prelude to Catholic service. And one thing led to another I eventually got into a band in high school where we were playing cover material, we got a gig up at of all places at the officer’s club at an airbase near Duluth. I kind of realized there that we had the most fun and they had the most fun if you could dance to the music, so we started playing r & b and blues. And I think I learned a lot gigging. So between Beatles records and learning their songs, and just gigging and doing some covered material, I more or less taught myself to play guitar. And I’ve been playing ever since.
Brent Hanifl 03:28
Just naming a few influences there. I’ve seen you play a handful of times, probably more than a handful of times just being from the La Crosse area. How did you get into like the flamenco, Tango sort of style that you’re you guys are known for?
Steven Meger 03:42
Yeah, thanks. I read an article in Guitar Player magazine, I think it was a number of years ago. And I still kind of recall, it says something like this, that guitar players that play rock or blues at some point may find themselves wanting to kind of take it to a different place. And the fork in the road was classical or jazz. And as much as I liked classical music, it seemed like jazz is going to be maybe a direction I would lean towards, just for the challenge of learning new styles of guitar. And I did that for a while I played with my friend Chris Buka, we had a jazz duel, or we played some original music that he had written. But it was always a challenge for me. He being the better player, and me, you know, holding it down as best I could. And you know, I think we had a good sound. But it wasn’t until I stumbled across so called gypsy jazz that things started to kind of resonate and how I got into it. I don’t know there was a number of years ago kind of a resurgence in the music of Django Reinhardt. It had hit the coasts first, the West Coast in particular. I just kept reading and hearing about it. Eventually saw it live a few times And it’s the kind of music that on guitar, I find that it’s on one level extremely difficult to play. If you want to play very, very well, it’s difficult. But if you want to get your feet wet, in kind of a jazz vein, it’s more for me it was more accessible than, let’s say, West Montgomery style or whatever you might want to call it a bebop kind of approach to jazz, a whole lot of fun to play. It’s fun, the style that we play, it’s called gypsy jazz, not to be pejorative, the word Gypsy, referring to the Roma people, sometimes referred to as jazz manouche. But it’s a style of music that began in with Django Reinhardt in France, in Paris in the 30s, 1930s. What it was was Django Reinhardt hearing recorded music that was coming from America from the States, and Gershwin and other jazz at the time, and then reinventing it. And using the influences that he had in Europe and with the musicians that were in his community. And he took it to a different level he reinvented Jazz at the time, was a virtual also on guitar, and so many players that you might not think do site, Django Reinhardt is making inspiration Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page, a lot of the classic rock guitar players Ritchie Blackmore, some Hendrix, you can hear it in there playing on occasion. But a lot of the techniques Django Reinhardt had invented at the time, and I don’t try to be Django Reinhardt and our band isn’t trying to be anything other than ourselves. But we do get inspired by the music and the feeling. It’s music that’s advancable. And it’s accessible to any age and any sort of collection of people that are interested in good music that has beautiful melodies and danceable rhythms. And that’s kind of where we started with.
Brent Hanifl 07:05
Just going to your Facebook page, I think your description kind of really kind of tells all about it, about Under Paris Skies, celebrates the music and French sidewalk cafes, vintage jazz clubs, Argentine dance halls and Latin rhythms instantly. That’s, you know, I could hear you guys playing. I mean, you kind of told us about your origin with his music. But what was the origin story of Under Paris Skies is that something that is easily fell together?
Steven Meger 07:29
Well, it sort of had a background that was several years in the making the short story it said, I got interested in music and realized that I would like to play with other musicians and I met a music student who was at UWL. My friend, Tyson, and we got together, he was on violin. And I was on guitar. And we realized that we could kind of get the sound with even the two instruments. And we started the band, we eventually got a clarinet player and a stand up bass player. We played a number of times as the La Crosse Hot Club, everyone, other than me, eventually graduated from UWL, and moved on. And I being of a different generation, and having a family here in La Crosse, I was here. So I was interested in sort of re constituting the band, I got talking to my friend, Larry Dalton, who’s a very gifted bass player. And we were just getting to know each other. And I told him about the type of music and the project that I was interested. And he said, yeah, sure. I mean, he said, but I said, we need a third player. And I thought violin, clarinet, what direction could we go with this? In a trio it was easier to get together than a quartet or anything bigger. So we thought maybe three players. Larry said, well, I know this accordion player. And I remember at the time thinking what, of all instruments, an accordion? Well, I gave my friend, Ron, my friend now Ron, a call, sent him an email and just asked him if you’d even be interested. And to paraphrase them to say, I looked this up to kind of refresh my memory in an old email, but he said, essentially, interested. Let’s start the revolution. So the thought was to, there’s a genre of music and there’s a whole catalog of music that you don’t hear. And so we got together as a trio. The reason we’re called Under Paris Skies is the first song ever played with Ron was a waltz, and the name of the waltz was Under Paris Skies. And we had our first gig at a farmers market and what’s the name of the band? And I thought, oh, my God, I, we don’t really have a name. And I just said, well, at least for now, let’s just name it. The first time we ever played so ever since we’ve been Under Paris Skies. We always start every gig that I can think of with that waltz, it’s a waltz from a film called Under Paris Skies. You have to be careful. If you’re Googling us for Under Paris Skies, you’re going to get all sorts of other references, sometimes to that movie or to the soundtrack.
Brent Hanifl 10:15
That’s cool. I didn’t know that. That’s interesting. So what is your process like for, you know, choosing music? Do you kind of play them traditionally? Or do you kind of rework them to your own? Do you throw in your own pieces, or?
Steven Meger 10:28
Kind of all of that, I mean, what we do is, at least initially, our kind of like, mission statement or guiding light or whatever it was let’s look at Django Reinhardt, Stephane Grappelli, the the music that they had recorded back in the 30s, and 40s. We certainly have a selection of that in our catalog that we played, but then it sort of began or started to turn into other directions. And essentially anything that can lay well, with the three instruments we have an accordion, a guitar, and acoustic guitar, and a stand up acoustic bass, that led us to other styles. We all have other musical interests. Ron has played World Music and Dance music, Eastern European music. Larry is trained classically, in jazz. I’ve got kind of a rhythm and blues, rock, Irish, actually, traditional Irish music background. And so we take all these different influences in so now we’re playing music, it’s not strictly per region. But you know, Eastern Europe, Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela, Colombia, any kind of rhythm, sambas Roombas, swing vintage Americana jazz. And we do try to reinvent it with our instrumentation, sometimes modernize it, oftentimes we’ll throw in quotes, at least the band gets get some musical quotes from The Beatles, or Deep Purple or every now and then if you’re paying attention, you may hear some, what are somewhat outside influences kind of creep in. So whatever has a beautiful melody, a good rhythm, we’re kind of open to it.
Brent Hanifl 12:20
I’m sure it affected you as well, being a musician, how was COVID for you in the band? I mean, it seemed like you guys played pretty regularly across the La Crosse region. How was the past 18 months? Was it difficult? Or is it was there a time to kind of reflect and maybe try other musical avenues?
Steven Meger 12:38
Well, you know, like most other people, COVID had a big impact on what we do. As a band, we play I don’t know, maybe 40 or 50 gigs a year on average. And we had a great year all scheduled, we were going to be playing at the Charmont and Waterfront and El Maro and other venues. And that all got shut down. And I think we, you know, realized that it was going to be a different year coming up, we kind of momentarily kind of retreated into our own recesses kept in touch and stuff, but we’re kind of heartbroken by not being able to play live and play for people. But we decided to invest that time. And we did some recordings. They were recorded individually at each of our homes. And then as you can do, send files digitally through the internet and then stitch them together to make it sound like you’re actually all playing at the same time. So it was mainly just for our own interests. We did something that was somewhat avant garde. We probably won’t play out, yet a Beatles tune Till There Was You from their first album, which dates back to an earlier movie soundtrack. I believe. We had a third project that was in the works that got a little too complicated. Kevin got away from us. I know for me, I’ve kind of gone back and even now I’m going back to the roots of the music I’m studying now. Charlie Christian, a bit more. Benny Goodman, Django Reinhardt, of course, trying to just take this time and refine my skills as a guitarist. We hope to be playing live more. We’ve done a few dances, wedding receptions, played at a winery in the last several months. We’ll just have to wait and see how the picture is and a few months restarting to book soon, but it’s all going to depend on what makes sense and what’s safe.
Brent Hanifl 15:02
What are you excited for over the next year or two? Is anything coming down the road with yourself or the band that your interested in and sharing with people?
Steven Meger 15:09
We’re hoping to be playing out live when the time is right. I think we have the most fun and our strongest interest is not in recording, but just performing live. And so we’re crossing our fingers, looking forward to hopefully, in the new year, doing more live appearances, that would be the main thing and then also always continuing to find new repertoire and keep it fresh for us and for our followers too.
Brent Hanifl 15:40
So if people want to follow along, maybe check out a show when you announce those, what’s the best avenue for them to go to?
Steven Meger 15:46
The main way that we get that information out is on our Facebook page. And that’s Under Paris Skies Band, b-a-n-d at the end. We also you know try to post in local digital newspapers and that kind of thing. But Facebook’s is probably the main thing. You can always shoot us an email to that address, underparisskiesband@gmail. And that would be another way that if anyone wanted to get a hold of us to find out where we’re playing or even potentially book us for something.
Brent Hanifl 16:23
Yeah. And it also looks like off your Facebook page. You have a SoundCloud account with a number of songs that people can kind of peruse as well.
Steven Meger 16:29
Yeah, those were done at a live show a couple years ago. We haven’t had another live recording as such. You know, we never really intended to make that commercial. But it’s out there. You know, warts and all. It’s live. There’s no overdubs. It is what it is. I would just say that in the couple years since we’ve been playing since that recording, we’ve just added new repertoire, we’ve finessed. I think we grow every year. Over the last five years or more the band has gotten tighter and more refined and we’re looking forward to continuing in that direction.
Amy Gabay 17:10
La Crosse Local Podcast is a production of River Travel Media. Do you have an interview idea you’d like to share with us? Message us on Facebook at La Crosse Local. Find out more about us at lacrosselocal.com and you can subscribe to the La Crosse Local Podcast on your favorite podcast app. If you’d like us, rate us five stars. We appreciate it.
About La Crosse Local
La Crosse Local is an arts, food, and entertainment podcast and publication for La Crosse County and its surrounding communities.
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