Steve Gad
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
This article or section may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. Please help improve this article or replace this tag with a more specific message. This article has been tagged since June 2006. (help, talk) |
Steve Gad (born 25 May 1961, Mansfield, Nottinghamshire) is a British rock musician.
[edit] Early Career (c. 1979–c. 1990)
Steve Gad was a roadie and 'cling-on' during the 1978 "BE STIFF" Tour, a showcase of acts on the Stiff Records roster, featuring, among others Jona Lewie, Lene Lovich, Rachel Sweet, Dr Feelgood, and Wreckless Eric. This gave him a taste for both travel and band life. Moving on to various Gothic Rock bands, including Echo and the Bunnymen, Danse Society, New Model Army, and The Sisters of Mercy (later The Mission ) opened up the notion of music and theatrics intertwined. This became something of an obsession, although he wasn't to realise why for some years. Gad is a published poet, short story writer (including one stab at comedy in an hilarious article for an in-house magazine) and author of a surrealist cartoon series "Brian Damage". After several early attempts at joining the Punk Rock scene, he went on to front several bands, including Let's Immense ,Gothic Rock band, Dead Fingers Talk, English by Radio, and later - during the 'Madchester' era - psychedelic pop/rock band Such Perfect Liars, who (prior to Gad being asked to join) released their first and only EP, called '1967' in 1990, through Everbimes records.
In his early 20s, after years of spells of grossly exaggerated mood swings and bouts of severe depression (leading to cancelled gigs, officially reported in the music columns as a series throat ailments) he was officially diagnosed as having Asperger's Syndrome. People with this form of 'High functioning Autism' often display remarkable abilities, despite their ability to interact socially often being severely impaired. Hans Asperger called his young patients "little professors" because he thought his thirteen-year-old patients had as comprehensive and nuanced an understanding of their field of interest, as university professors. In Gad's case, as a child, one of the side effects of this condition, manifested itself as a remarkable ability in both literature and music composition. He quickly mastered playing Drums and both Guitar and Bass Guitar with his parents struggling to keep up with the financial strain of having to buy varying musical instruments. Once his malaise finally had a name, the deressive episodes stopped, although the themes of despair in his records remained a constant.
