Biography

The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars.

Beat poet Jack Kerouac wrote that in his 1957 novel On the Road. But if it were written today you might think ol’ Jack had happened across Steff Mahan on his journey.

Make no mistake about it – Steff Mahan is mad. The kind of madness that captivates to the point you find yourself staring at the disheveled man on the side of the road screaming to no one in particular, evoking scriptures and in the same breath cursing at the clouds. Madness that comes from blind love, where you would sacrifice gladly your very identity and drive off the side of a mountain chasing it with a smile on your face. It’s the same madness that inspires a lyric that cuts you so deep your blood runs blue. That’s Steff Mahan’s madness. It’s not conventional, nor methodical. It’s just Steff.

From the age of 4 when she first saw Bobbie Gentry perform “Ode to Billie Joe” on television, the Arkansas native told her mom that’s what she wanted to do. A few months later she got her first guitar for Christmas – “a Harmony that was bigger than me,” she recalls. “I guess I can never remember ever not wanting to do what I do.”

But madness is a funny thing. It can drive you to greatness, but it can also take you on a long detour to get there. Steff’s took her to the 9-to-5 world. Putting aside her desire to make music, Steff took a job in advertising in Memphis. But as any true musician knows, the siren of a musical dream is sometimes quiet, sometimes dim, but remains constant.

“I was about 28 when I received an offer for a writer’s deal and I quit the advertising job and moved to Music City,” she says. The deal only lasted for a year before the publishing company went under. But the siren was already getting louder. She continued to write songs and had some cuts by independent artists, but then “middle age” came.

“One day when I was about 35,” she says, “I looked at my 401K and realized I didn’t have one, got scared about old age and decided to get a full-time job. I tried to find something that made me as happy as writing and singing but I never did.”

It wasn’t until she passed her 40th birthday that Steff released her self-titled debut album, and embarked on a six-week tour to support it. Now, officially, her employer was herself; her office, the road.

“I will never forget that feeling of first pulling out of my drive way, knowing I was actually going to go play music every night for whoever would listen,” Steff recalls with the youthful whimsy of a 40-year-old. “That feeling never leaves me, and eight years later it’s the same exact feeling I still get when I pull out of the drive way to hit the road.”

With her second album, 42.50, Steff conveyed stories from her life on the road with a sweet and soulful blend of rock and country, with a little gravel in the tire treads. But she also found a soft spot, with the ability to craft a heartbreak song from shapeless putty into a sharp arrow pointed squarely at the heart.

Finally, the Mahan Machine was running on all cylinders, chugging toward the dream that had passed so many by. But there goes that siren again, fading.

“I started to believe what every person in the music business was telling me … ‘You’re too old,’ ‘You’re too commercial,’ “You’re not commercial enough.’ And after a very bad break up and a few hard knocks, I had resigned to the fact that my so-called music career was over.” So, Steff gave up on the notion of ever making a third album. “I either had to accept it or be bitter. But either way it was time to move on.”

But that pesky madness is persistent. It’s always creeping behind you, watching you, waiting for you to turn around and notice that it’s still there. And sometimes it just takes a different shape.

“Throughout all of it I found myself still writing songs,” Steff says. “But I was writing as if no one would hear them. I was writing them for me this time.”

Slowly, as she played clubs and bars to make ends meet, she noticed something different on the faces in the crowd – they were finally “getting it.” This journey she was on, with all of the heartbreak and stops and starts, they were travelling it with her just by sitting and listening … and connecting.

And then, just as madness seems to do, that third album – the one that was never supposed to happen – happened.

Never a Long Way Home is a 12-track journey of healing that encapsulates who Steff Mahan is right now. From the familial nostalgia of “Carnival Ride,” to the rocking kiss-off anthem, “If I Let You Go,” into the feeling of slow descent of falling into new love on “Save Yourself,” Steff shows that with age comes clarity. And in the heart-wrenching words of “Forgive Me,” about missed opportunities, and “When I Need it Most,” about giving love when you feel unlovable, that clarity turns to reflection.

From beginning to end, Never a Long Way Home takes you on that path that to redemption but is always firmly planted in Steff Mahan’s shoes.

“My story is not always pretty,” she says. “My story does not always have a Hollywood ending. What my story does have is a common bond from one human to the next. We have all made mistakes we are ashamed of. We have all sought forgiveness from others and from ourselves. We have all loved and laughed and lost ones that were so dear to us that losing them left a big hole that will never be filled. This album goes beyond the simple ‘broken heart.’ It is about a broken life and trying to find the path back to ourselves. It’s about memories, good and bad, and believing that every experience makes us who we are. And in the end, when it’s all said and done and we finally get to the point where we like ourselves, how can any of us look back and not be grateful for the path and everyone we have met along the way.”

The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live…

Yeah, Steff Mahan is pretty mad.