Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Michael Mancuso. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Michael, appreciate you joining us today. When did you first know you wanted to pursue a creative/artistic path professionally?

I can’t pinpoint one moment of my life where I decided “Yes! I am going to be a professional musician!” It was more of a slow burn, and one that kind of started when I was very young, because I’ve been involved in music in some form since I was a very young child, so I’d say I knew I wanted to be involved in music since I was really young.

But I think if there’s any moment I knew I would probably be doing music professionally was when I transferred colleges when I was 18. I went to East Carolina University to study construction management, for some reason. My teenage brain thought it would be a good career. And it probably would have been. I went to the first couple classes, the professor was teaching about concrete “slurry”, and I was bored out of my mind. I knew it wasn’t a fit for me so I dropped the classes and decided to transfer schools. I decided to go to the University of North Carolina at Asheville to take their audio engineering / music technology program. A lot of decisions and moments lead up to that decision, but that decision put me on the path I’m still on today.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your background and context?

Steady Legend is my main project. We’re an 8 to 9 piece multi-genre act that I formed around having a great horn section. What sets Steady Legend apart from I think almost every other act I come across are the horn parts that I write. I grew up playing the trombone, and I write all of the horn charts for the band. It’s not an easy band for a horn player. I’ve had some players come sit in with us for a gig and think they can sight-read the whole set, and they end up making a fool out of themselves and I never call them again haha.

I wouldn’t say having a horn section in 2022 is “popular” or “current” these days. I think it’s a craft that I think might get lost in the next couple of generations. Steady Legend appeals to a different kind of individual – people who appreciate a horn section, the time and effort it takes to put something like that together, and people who enjoy well-crafted songs. I could change how the band sounds to possibly appeal to a different audience, but we do what we do and I’m not going to shy away from it. I’ve been working on Steady Legend for over 11 years at this point, with some breaks in between, but there’s no reason for me to change it now. At a certain point, people will either dig what you are doing, or you will fade away. We haven’t faded away yet, so who knows what is next from us!

I’d say the thing I’m most proud of is just being who we are and continuing to perform despite many reasons why I should just fold it up, We still get to play some cool gigs and the people in the band always end up becoming my friends one way or another, so I appreciate the relationships I make through music. I’ve always made my best friends in life through music, and that’s not something that happens easily. I do it for me at this point in my life, no one else, so if some people enjoy what we’re doing along the way, that’s beautiful too.

How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?

The music industry is dying quickly, and unfortunately there’s not a lot that can be done to save it either. People these days seem to think music should just be free, and that’s another issue with being in the arts. It’s not valued as something that should be rewarded or compensated. So there’s a lot of work to do if we as society want to save what I see is a dying industry.

In the US, I think we need to have a complete overhaul of many things, and there are much bigger issues afoot than supporting the arts. But as a start, I think we need easily accessible funding for creative individuals. Some countries around the world have government sponsored programs for musicians and other artists that provide living expenses and honing your craft. In the US, there’s nothing like that. It’s an old adage really, to be an artist means to be poor.

I don’t think it has to be that way, although I do subscribe to the belief that suffering can create great artwork. Cities like Austin, where I’ve lived for the last 11 years, used to be a haven for musicians and called the “Live Music Capital of the World” (a title I see getting used less and less) because it was a cheap place to live that offered a lot of opportunities to perform. That has changed a lot in the last decade, and now it’s impossible to survive on a musician’s meager income.

The arts need to be nurtured with funding from either the government, or another source could be the big tech companies that move to cities and drive up the cost of living. These tech employees claim they want to go enjoy live music, but those things are being killed around the country because artists can’t support themselves. Many great creative people end up leaving the field because they need to earn a living, and being an artist can’t support even a basic lifestyle in 2022. So if we want to continue fostering creative achievements in our society, we need to fund those individuals, because there’s not really another way for them to survive and also create art.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

The most rewarding thing for me is the relationships. I’ve made some of my best friendships through music and it’s something I will cherish throughout my life. It’s always been an avenue for me to meet new people and to collaborate. It’s easy to bond with other musicians over the shared struggle that is being a working musician, bouncing ideas off each other, sharing a mix of a new song you wrote, and just learning and growing as a person. Sometimes other musicians are some of the wisest people I know. I’ve considered quitting music all together many times in my life, but that is one of the things that always brings me back.

I also get a great personal sense of accomplishment when I write a new song. Songs are like organic living beings. They are born and come to life, they grow, they change, and sometimes they become completely different organisms over time. I really love to see the life a song takes on. I have a couple songs I still play that I wrote 10-15 years ago and they become like a part of me.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://steadylegend.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/steady_legend
• Facebook: https://facebook.com/steadylegend
• Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/steadylegend
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/steadylegend
• Other: https://open.spotify.com/artist/5VByNGBQhX9Oad5rUQckBR?si=kCILEBqwS1CrApJ3fI53Kg