I met Steve Knight through my coworker, Tara, at the Evergreen Chamber, who booked him from a recommendation for our 2026 Foothills 4th festival. She gave me his number, suggesting that I reach out to him for a feature, and promising that he was nice. He is nice. And a damn good singer. Not long into our conversation, I could see why he is spoken about so highly. Steve has an ease of character that bleeds right into his Americana-soul sound: laid-back, but with a little grit.

Steve has always had an interest in writing and poetry. His father, who joins us for the interview, shares a poem Steve wrote in seventh grade. The poem is thoughtful, tackling questions of personhood and growth. As a young person, Steve didn’t really focus on writing, but “looking back, all the pieces were there,” he reflects. That early spark would resurface years later, in unexpected and important ways.

Steve has a Southern zest to him that isn’t just an accent. Steve grew up in Huntsville, Alabama on Appalachian gospel, the Grateful Dead, and Pearl Jam. His dad plays the autoharp, and his grandmother taught piano. Music is “genetic” in his family, he jokes. His roots in Alabama run deep, but in his early 20s he felt the inevitable 20-something urge to reinvent. He ran away to San Francisco, flung himself into the Bay Area, and—in his words—“assimilated” into the music scene and culture.

The collision of these influences shaped something entirely new. Bay Area hip-hop crashed into Steve’s Alabama-gospel blood. Add in the unique flavors of fellow musicians Dave Lopez on guitar and lyricist Jinho Ferreira, and the result is a crazy genre soup that mixes spices from all over. Steve describes Ferreira as a “genius lyricist” and Lopez as “a disciple of the Bay Area scene.” All together, the group was a “spontaneous explosion of creative energy.” The band Flipsyde was born. In 2005, they released their debut album, “We The People,” through Interscope Records. The single, “Someday,” was picked up by NBC and used in promotions for the 2006 Winter Olympics. It was also featured in the 2008 martial arts drama “Never Back Down.”

Twenty years after “We The People,” the band is “simmering,” with each member working on their own creative projects. This season of independence has opened space for Steve’s next step: his first solo album. The titular track and beating heart of the record, “Man Made Lights,” is already out as a single on Spotify. “This one might be the most personal song I’ve ever written,” Steve writes on his Facebook. It is a coming home to his hometown, his faith, his family, and himself. More than anything, it reflects a clearer, older, more grounded understanding of the man he is.

Steve describes his younger self as more selfish; as he gets older, he explains a profound mental shift he’s experienced in his relationship with music and creativity. He still writes music full time, whether working his own tracks or producing for other artists, and recognizes what a gift it is to have a career in something he loves to do. He talks about creativity less as a career move and more as a form of personal alignment. “Creativity is not a suggestion,” he insists. Unchanneled creative energy can be destructive. He compares the act of suppressing creativity to suppressing trauma. The urge to create is the body telling us that we need release, healing, and to be a part of something greater than ourselves.

Steve uses the word “service” a lot when he talks about his new album and his evolution as an artist. A big part of his journey has involved a service-minded approach to creativity, community-building, and relationships. Steve sees a resonance between the ethos of recovery communities and a healthy creative life: for success in either, service is a foundational pillar. Prioritizing balance and routines are also key. “When you’re tired, when real life hits, it’s important to take care of yourself and find balance,” he tells me. For Steve, this often takes the form of physical grounding, including saunas, cold plunges, and the gym. That daily discipline becomes its own structure, essential when you don’t have the scaffolding of a 9 to 5. Service, balance, simplifying, and taking care of your mental health are themes that we’ll see in Steve’s upcoming record.

For “Man Made Lights,” Steve has been returning to his hometown and studio where he often worked on Flipsyde projects. Muscle Shoals Sound Studio is a hub of creative genius. The home of session house band The Swampers, this studio has been an epicenter of magic for artists all over the spectrum. Rodney Hall, son of FAME Studios producer Rick Hall, is a good friend of Steve’s and convinced him to come back to the studio to do some recording. Steve admits that “without [Rodney’s] belief in me, I wouldn’t have started this record.” Steve describes himself as a “collaborative artist” who rarely works in isolation. This project is no different. Together with Rodney and FAME legends Spooner Oldham and Kelvin Holly, he wrote “Cold Heartbreak.” Although lyrically mournful, the track has an upbeat, magnetic rhythm to it. Steve recalls dancing around the studio with Kelvin while writing the song. It’s new, fresh, and genuinely radical. He names this collaboration of minds “the gift of the project.”

“Man Made Lights” will be a time capsule of Steve as he is today. It’s like “a long journal entry,” he tells me with a grin. His dad always says, “You can’t make the surf, but you can ride it,” and this seems to be exactly what Steve is doing: following the current, leaning into his creative flows, and getting to know himself better in the process.

Steve’s next scheduled show in Evergreen will be at the Evergreen Chamber’s Foothills 4th Festival in 2026. In the meantime, he will be doing a radio tour to promote his single “Take You Higher,” with the hope of taking it to festivals in the spring.

Stream Steve’s music on Spotify for a taste of what he’s working on! He is also open to production projects and collaborations, and can be reached on his Instagram @steveknightmusic.

Pull Quote:

“A big part of his journey has involved a service-minded approach to creativity, community-building, and relationships.”