It’s fair to say Steve Lacy is not your average recording musician. Just 22 years old and boasting credits that include rap megastars Kendrick Lamar and Mac Miller, crossover R&B and thrash artist Thundercat and indie rockers Vampire Weekend, the primary tools in this young guitarist’s rig are, wait for it... An iPhone and IK Multimedia iRig interface. He’ll lay down beats in GarageBand or Ableton then record guitar and bass over the top. Even his vocals are recorded with his phone’s mic. It’s about as stripped back a rig as you could possibly imagine, yet Steve recorded most of his debut solo EP, 2017’s Steve Lacy’s Demo, with this modest setup. It’s a deliberate choice, of course, and one that fuels his creative process.
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Steve’s main gig since 2015 is with neo-soul trip hop act The Internet, the ultra-modern quintet at the head of the contemporary West coast funk scene, where his Strat, Tele and Rickenbacker lines play a typically laidback supporting rhythmic role. His tones are traditional funk: lightly compressed Fender-y cleans, occasional wah wah, and a sprinkling of modulation for richness when it’s needed. If you want to play like Steve you’ll be swapping between tasteful jazzy chords and simple single-note funk lines. It’s not virtuoso playing, but feel takes time to develop and the young Californian has it in abundance. Asked about his playing style, Steve told Wired, “Plaid is my genre. I was out shopping and I was in the Pendleton section. And I realised, scruffling through the shirts, this kinda looks like how my music sounds. Cos if you listen to a couple of songs it might sound like there’s a lot going on, but it doesn’t clash at all. And plaid, there’s a lot going on, but it all goes together to be one pattern.”