Review Fix Exclusive: Stephen Wrench Talks Goals in Music and 2020 Plans

Review Fix chats with singer/songwriter Stephen Wrench to find out all about his origin in music and goals for 2020.

Review Fix: How did you get involved in music? 

Stephen Wrench: As an 11-year old, I had no interest in music or performing. I was into football, any sport. However, Dan, my older brother, was a musician and dreamed of a career. He was in a band and knowing I could carry the band, he bribed me to sing for the Optimist show in Fairmount N.Y. We won the show and the grand prize. That was the start of my career in music. I played in a soul band in high school. After high school, I was offered 5 football scholarships. After visiting Boston College in the summer of 1969, I was on my way back home to Syracuse New York. Traveling the New York State Thruway I saw a sign that read “Rock Concert.” I followed the sign not even knowing the concert was Woodstock. That stop changed the course of my life. I met some people who were telling me about a band that was forming in Jacksonville Florida and was invited to come down to Jacksonville. The band was to become Lynyrd Skynyrd. I became friends with several of the members. I worked with them on and off over the next 4 decades, playing, writing music and managing tours with them. Along the way, I became good friends with the late founding member of Molly Hatchet, Banner Thomas. Banner and I used to get together weekly and create music. The music business is a big small circle. The circle grew from there. 

Review Fix: What’s your creative process like? 

Wrench: It is so hard to describe. I hear music in my head all the time.  When I produce music, I hear all the instruments in head what I want it to sound like.  Sometimes I write the lyrics and then create the music and sometimes vice – versa. Sometimes I pick up my guitar and hit voice recorder and words flow out. My new release “Life’s a Sham”, I created the lyrics first. The words just came out all at once as fast as I could type. Then the music came together months later. Every song and creation is uniquely different. It all depends on the inspiration and the subject. Regardless, I was blessed with a talent to create music and lyrics. It just comes naturally. 

Review Fix: What inspires you?

Wrench: Life in general. Sometimes I watch a good movie and the story inspires a song. Most of the time I will come up with a hook line and write to that. Sometimes it goes fast, at other times I may work on it for years until I know it’s done and I am happy with it. It can come from life experiences, the joys and disappointments of living. An example of inspirations is the song “The Grass Ain’t Always Greener.” I used to go to a friends house weekly for dinner. I thought they were the perfect couple. One evening they told me they decided to spit up. I was shocked. That prompted me to write the song, “The Grass Ain’t Always Greener.  Some of the lyrics are “ On the other side of the mountain lies the promised land we don’t have to go there we just do it because we can. This kind of tired and weary you can’t cure with sleep, a restless heart can’t find anything to keep. The grass ain’t always greener, on the other side, everything we see we don’t have to try, why is life always so full of goodbyes, cause the grass ain’t always greener on the other side.” Being alive inspires me to write about so many different people and experiences. 

Review Fix: What does music mean to you?

Wrench: It means everything, really. Music is always in my head. It is a form of expression to release what is in the mind and the soul. It relieves my troubles, clears my head and gives me clarity of life. It is a form of expression to release what is in the mind and the soul. It relieves my troubles, clears my head and gives me clarity of life.

Review Fix: What makes this project special?  

Wrench: Life’s a Sham is full of my favorite produced and acoustic tracks. Songs that evoke emotion and feeling. Accumulation of my life’s creative work  

Review Fix: What makes this project special?  

Wrench: “Life’s a Sham” is filled with many new songs. Including some of my favorite produced and acoustic tracks. Over the decades, I played with everybody and every band but a member of nothing. This is my chance to present my music, my heart. I wanted to showcase my music. The song that invokes emotion and feeling and represents the accumulation of my life’s work.

Review Fix: How would you describe your sound to someone who has never heard you?

Wrench: It is never the same. I create in most genres depending upon the mood and motivation. Lynyrd Skynyrd meets James Taylor. Everything that comes out is unique in its own way. 

Review Fix: How are your live shows different from your studio work?

Wrench: I have had over the last 50 years some great shows and some shows I am just there. I remember some shows I did about 15 years ago. I put together several ex living members of Lynyrd Skynyrd. We did about 20 shows throughout Oklahoma, Texas and Louisiana. There is a place in Baton Rouge called the “Grant Street Music Hall.” I believe it is the oldest music hall in the US. When I walked into the dressing room I looked at autographs that artists that previously performed here wrote on the wall. Names like Janis Joplin, Stevie Ray Vaughn. It was a big open room with no seating the held maybe 2000 people. It had big beams across the room. I remember that night. The room was packed, people were perched on the beams like birds. The shows usually lasted 60 to 75 minutes. That night we played for over 3 hours. It was like being transformed back into time. When I perform live, I always let my soul out of my body. The audience can feel it. Performing live can be magical.

I also love the studio. This is a special place where I can transform an idea and give it life. Some of the songs I think may be great creations but die in the studio. Others that were just a fleeting thought, breathe and come to life. 

Review Fix: What inspired your latest single?

Wrench: Life’s a Sham is honest, gutsy and how most people feel at one time or another but can’t express or say it. I have felt this way a long time and Life’s a Sham” says it all perfectly in plain English. 

Sometimes I think that life’s a sham  

Cause I’ll never be nothing but who I am   

And I won’t lay down with my head in the clouds    

I don’t dare speak what I feel out loud    

I never mind my p’s and q’s      

I Don’t  leave behind what I have used

Whats Right Oh I Don’t have a Clue

You Just Gotta Do What You Gotta Do  

Sometimes I think that lifes a sham   

Cause I’ll never be nothing but who I am   

I’ve had so many promises that fell on the floor

So many people that came in and out of that door

I get confused I’m tired of being used

But I just keep trying knowing I’m gonna loose 

Whats Right Oh I Don’t have a Clue

You Just Gotta Do What You Gotta Do  

I’m hoping life won’t continue to be a sham   

One day I’m gonna get up and know who I am  

I’m gonna grab the world by the balls

I’m gonna squeeze life till I got it all

Then I think I’ll do anything I wanna do

Just because I can so can you

Whats Right Oh I Don’t have a Clue

You Just Gotta Do What You Gotta Do  

Review Fix: What are your goals for 2020? 

Wrench: To get my music in Movies and TV shows. I want to do a major TV show live appearance. Continue to create music. 

Review Fix: What’s next? 

Wrench: Who knows. “Whats right I don’t have a clue you just gotta do what you gotta do”

Review Fix: Anything else you’d like to add? 

Wrench: “Sometimes Lifes a Sham, I’ll never be nothing but who I am “