Ariel Publicity

Raised in a musical family, Steve McLeod at an early age was exposed to a diverse range of music. His father a guitarist, introduced Steve to the likes of George Benson and Joe Pass while his brother, a drummer, would introduce him to the styles of The Police, Steely Dan, Van Halen, Toto, Donny Hathaway and The Beatles.

With this passion for music, Steve's parents sent him to classical piano lessons, knowing this would give him a solid learning foundation.

It wasn't until Steve saw Prince's Purple Rain did it click. Although too young to understand the movie, he connected with the music. "After seeing Purple Rain, I was hooked. I Would Die 4 U still gives me that feeling when I hear it."

Continuing with classical music lessons, Steve would play at school concerts. He remembers being so nervous that he'd wish to get sick and couldn't play the shows. There was one performance however that he does have fond memories of. At a grade school concert, Steve dressed up as Prince and performed Little Red Corvette. "I was tryna be Prince and I had the dancers (other class members) dress up, all holding pictures of Corvettes....Obviously I had no idea what the song was about at the time."

Enjoying the piano and getting good piano grades, Steve would always see his dad's guitar lying around. The turning point came while watching an NBA game on TV, Chicago Bulls vs Boston Celtics. "I'm a massive Michael Jordan fan - and as a kid, outside of music, basketball and MJ would be my interest. I had watched MJ's "Come Fly With Me" (still do) a million times and I always remembered the line at the beginning, MJ saying "each day I feel I have to improve"...Anyways, I thought, OK, it's half time, today I'm gonna improve. So I picked up my dad's Les Paul Copy and learned 2 chords. C and B. C for Chicago and B for Bulls. I was so excited I went and woke my dad up to show him."

Early into high school, Steve being a big Quincy Jones fan, borrowed his uncle's video of Louis Johnson, bass guitarist from the Brothers Johnson. Steve would sit there with his dad's Fender P-bass, studying the tape note after note. It didn't stop there. Loving to play and being lucky to have all types of instruments around the house, Steve would wait until his brother finished drum practice to jump on. "I'd put on a James Brown album, Quincy's 'The Dude', The Police or Nirvana and smash along. In and outta time, I didn't care, I just wanted to play....

"I listened to a lot of music when I was growing up. Most of it came out before I was born but that's what my family listened to. What I grew up on. My dad recalls me going to school listening to Joe Sample when other kids where listening to what was popular on the radio at the time. But I loved that also, Metallica, Guns N' Roses, Jodeci, Madonna, Michael Jackson, Nirvana, Tupac...to me music was music. I didn't pay attention to genre."

But then came more purple. This time, Purple Haze - Jimi Hendrix. After receiving a copy of The Best of Jimi Hendrix, Steve heavily focused on the guitar. He would live with his guitar. Learning as much from Hendrix, Richie Kotzen, Prince, George Harrison, Steve Lukather, Eddie Van Halen and George Benson that he could.

After graduating high school and entering into his first year University (Business) he knew this was not his calling. Saving up enough money to buy some basic home studio gear, Steve would record through the night, experimenting with guitar music. His love for Rock, Pop and R&B/Hip-Hop saw him attempt to produce demos of all different kinds of music. The path would lead to Steve playing cover gigs around his hometown of Melbourne, Australia. "Those gigs were fun but I knew that I wanted to be making my own music, in the studio writing and producing".

Steve decided to embark on his first proper solo project, an instrumental Jazz Fusion album. "Doing this album was a great learning experience, not only in regards to musical direction but also recording and engineering. I had some engineer buddies give me tips, but in general I took care of most of it because I wanted to learn through trial and a lot of error."

With the album recorded, Steve was excited to be heading to Headroom studios in L.A to mix it. After one of the mixing sessions however, something clicked. "By the time I got back, I had this unavoidable inspiration to do a vocal, Rock album". Steve returned to Melbourne with a whole new plan.

"Right at this time, Steve met Hans Ebert in Melbourne, who, at the time, was EMI Music's Executive Director (Asia). "Hans had heard demos of songs I was trying to shop to other artists and asked why I was only working on instrumentals when he felt I should be a singer-songwriter. This kinda sealed my vision after mixing the instrumental album"

A few months later, the opportunity came for Steve to head back to Los Angeles to attend Musicians Institute. Bags packed, the journey to this point today, would be the beginning of his debut album "Human Uniform". Steve says, "This album took so many different turns. Ups and downs. It got to the point where I was like, f**k it, this is the album, no more changing. Looking back, I learned a lot as a songwriter and producer and am a lot more confident now as I work on my next one..."

This period also saw Steve work on other music projects both in the U.S and Asia. Some of the highlights was writing music for Emmy-Award winning TV and teaming up with his idol Richie Kotzen to write "Beautiful Life" for Richie's Wilson Hawk album.

"Human Uniform" is a mix of Rock, Funk and Pop. Written and Produced by Steve, the album also has Steve playing and performing all vocals and instruments on it. The album sees release in August 2009! This is followed by his first tour of Japan.