Steve Marion would like you to know, first and foremost, that he’s a human being. That’s why the New Jersey-bred guitar maestro’s given name is right there in the moniker of his primary musical project—Delicate Steve is both the four-piece live band Marion fronts and the superhero alias he assumes for his one-man recording output—and in the title of his long-in-the-works third LP. Marion will be guest editing magnet magazine.com all week. Read our feature.
Marion: Dirty Projectors were one of the main reasons I started making music as Delicate Steve. Most of the reason for recording Wondervisions was to give Dave and Nat and everyone in the band the record as a thank you to them for making such inspirational music, as DP’s music was one of my core inspirations for this band.
I literally started making the first Delicate Steve album the day after I saw Dirty Projectors live and met Nat after the show. He asked me if I played music, and I didn’t know what to say. So the next day, I started making an album. I made it in three weeks, and I gave it to him the next time he played a solo show in Brooklyn. Little did I know that he and the band were listening to the record and digging it. Then one day we played Glasslands. Nat ran up asking if we had played yet. I was blown away that he was there. I told him no. And he said something like, “OK, good! Cause we’re recording this record with Björk right now, but they didn’t really need me in there right now. I’m so happy I made it!” Over the years we’ve all become friends. Everyone in the band is someone I deeply admire musically and personally. On the tour for Swing Lo Magellan, Dirty Projectors had Delicate Steve open up. It was a full-circle experience. At one point, Dave said this to the crowd after one of our sets: “Sometimes you tend to think about unqualified joy as a 17th century emotion, then you listen to Delicate Steve and realize how futuristic it is.” On the recording of their song “Impregnable Question,” there is an instrumental verse that I felt was missing a guitar solo. One day, just for fun at my house I recorded a solo over the mp3 of the song and sent it to Dave. Then on the last day of the tour I got to play it with them onstage.
