Today we’d like to introduce you to STEVEN HIGGINBOTHAM.
Hi STEVEN, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I’m the music director for an indie rock band/music collective called The Wheel Workers. We formed in the late 90s in Houston and then moved to Austin in 2001. That first line-up lived together in Austin and made music constantly; practicing nearly every day and recording everything. We put out a debut and then broke up just as we were recording our best material. I moved back to Houston in 2005 and reformed the band with new members in 2009 and we have been going strong ever since. But that first line-up had something special and it always bothered me that we never finished the best material of that period. So I recently decided to correct that. Over the few years I polished off those unfinished demos, brought back original drummer and bassist to rerecord their parts at a much higher quality, and eventually finished the record, resulting in an album named “One More Thing To Say” that we’re releasing this October. Here’s our full bio:
Bio
Indie psych-rockers The Wheel Workers are doing something truly trippy for album eight, One More Thing To Say. The Houston and Austin-based collective is finally releasing its sophomore album 20 years after it broke up while making it. Rediscovered and partially re-recorded by the group’s primary creative director, Steven Higginbotham, the album is a crucial missing piece in the beloved band’s artistic continuum.
The Wheel Workers have remained active after its 2006 breakup, continuing to release records with an inspired and fluid membership. Yet the album One More Thing To Say always felt like the “one that got away.” The 16-song album documents the halcyon days when the original quintet were twenty-somethings living together, working crummy jobs, and jamming all of the time. That said, One More Thing To Say isn’t just old stock polished for public display. The record’s pointed commentary on corrupt political leaders (then Bush and Iraq War) feels just as vital today. And the two decades of additional recording experience Higginbotham has brought to producing One More Thing To Say make it a strong, standalone album eight statement. As Higginbotham says, “I felt like I was finally a good enough recording engineer and producer to finish these songs at the level they deserve; it’s me in my forties producing the best music of my twenties.”
“These songs always lingered in my mind, and I felt there was a gap of material important and pivotal in all of our lives,” says Higginbotham, the collective’s musical director, producer, singer, lyricist, multi-instrumentalist, and current primary songwriter. “When I went back to the songs, I realized the magic was still there and they still resonated with me.”
The Wheel Workers are less of a band and more of a collective. For over two decades, the group has been a sturdy fixture on the Texas music scene. The original lineup congealed in Austin in 2000/2001 around Higginbotham; songwriter, guitarist, and backing vocalist Chris Maness; songwriter, drummer and percussionist Nathan Maness; songwriter and bassist Giuseppe Ponti; and guitarist and songwriter Chad Fontenot. That lineup dissolved in 2005, but the group reconvened in Houston in 2009 with new Workers. From then on, Higginbotham has emerged as the band’s leader and chief songwriter.
To date, the group has released 7 albums and a live EP. The Wheel Workers have amassed eight nominations for Houston Press Music Awards, track spotlights on The Onion’s “A.V. Club,” and the collective has played Austin’s iconic freeform radio show Eklektikos on KUT. The Wheel Workers’ previous album, 2022’s Harbor, spent more than three weeks on the NACC Top 200 college radio charts, rising to number five on the “SubModern Chart.” The group has toured nationally; played festivals such as Milwaukee’s Summerfest and Houston’s Free Press Summerfest, alongside the Flaming Lips and Phantogram; and opened for Trail of Dead, Best Coast, Elf Power, and Thao and the Get Down Stay Down.
The resurrection of One More Thing To Say can be traced back to pandemic self-reflection. During this time, Higginbotham began thinking more intentionally about the material, and he started to reconnect with old bandmates. “We had some long phone calls,” Higginbotham says. “There was a little bit of strain between some of us, but we smoothed it out.”
Higginbotham had always been the group’s archivist, and had demo recordings of many of the songs. He augmented these basic original performances with new tracks from drummer Nathan Maness and bassist Giuseppe Ponti. At times, Higginbotham redid his lead vocals, and at other times he just added backing vocals, harmonizing with his twenty-something self. Recent Workers also contributed, including Dan Workman (ZZ Top, Lyle Lovett, Destiny’s Child) and Craig Wilkins on synthesizers, and Erin Rodgers and Alli Villines adding harmonies.
Higginbotham recorded and produced One More Thing To Say with help from recording engineer Josh Applebee at Wire Road Studios in Houston, and at his home studio, The Attic. Grammy-winning mix engineer Steve Christensen (Khruangbin, Steve Earle) mixed the album. The online streaming versions of One More Thing To Say extend well beyond its 16-song core, with the band opening the vault on nearly 40 total tracks — including demos, beloved B-sides that rank among the members’ personal favorites, and sprawling live improvisation jams from the recording sessions. Captured during a period when the original lineup lived together and played music nearly every night, the archival recordings document the raw experimentation, near-telepathic chemistry, and creative intensity that defined The Wheel Workers’ formative years.
On One More Thing To Say, The Wheel Workers’ strain of psychedelia owes more to the grungy 1990s than the paisley 1960s. Its intricate arrangements are often built on hypnotic basslines layered with chiming, analog delay-treated guitars punctuated by crashes of massive powerchords, dreamy vocals, and ethereal synths. This arty-but-aggressive sensibility recalls Jane’s Addiction, Sonic Youth, Fugazi, and the Pixies.
“O’er The Sands” features a soundscape of sparkly guitars laid over intricate propulsive drums. This meditative environment eventually surges with shards of jagged ambient guitar solos in the climax. Originally written about the Iraq war, the song’s sentiment is apt today with Trump, Netanyahu, and Iran. One standout passage is: Change in the season/War and the soldier/Unknowns multiply/Raid the brain/Seems like the whole world’s gone insane. “One Must Speak’s” hypnotic bassline and glistening psychedelic textures recall late 1980s Stones Roses’ “Madchester.” Former bandmate Chris Maness wrote “One Must Speak” as an acoustic track, but it came roaring into life as an epic rock tune when The Wheel Workers as a collective laid into it.
Songs like the cinematic “Distractions” and the ethereal “Seaside” are impressionistic storytelling songs with Beat poetry inspiration. The album concludes with a lullaby-like “In The Breeze,” which builds from a gentle quiet waltz to a powerful soaring anthem. This track showcases the band’s telepathic chemistry, as it was born from a jam nearly complete when it arrived from the ether, each member a cog in the overall Wheel Worker machine with no one person stealing the spotlight. “It captures that feeling of riding the wave of music’s spontaneity, and the joy and connection that comes through making music together,” Higginbotham says.
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I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Getting the band back together (literally) is always a challenge. Some of the guys I hadn’t talked to in many years, and there had been some strain between us at the time we first broke up. But age smoothed out egos and we found that all of us really valued the time we spent together and the music we made as some of the best moments of our lives. It’s always harder to get together to make music in your 40s than your 20s, given all the additional responsibilties that tend to pile up, but we made it happen.
Additionally, I personally went through a challenge when I fractured by larynx during a martial arts class in 2019. I’m the lead singer of the band, so I thought my music days might be over. Fortunately, beginning with speech therapy and then years of vocal lessons I was able to regain my singing voice with the help of my amazing vocal coach Alli Villines. In fact, I actually think all the work I put in to recover my voice ultimately resulted in my becoming a better singer than ever before.
Alright so before we go can you talk to us a bit about how people can work with you, collaborate with you or support you?
Follow us, The Wheel Workers, on social media and your favorite music streaming platform!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.thewheelworkers.com/
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/thewheelworkers
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thewheelworkers
- Twitter: https://x.com/thewheelworkers
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/thewheelworkers
- Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/the-wheel-workers
- Other: https://open.spotify.com/artist/5lprg7DE7NnwMp2tn805rE?si=iVbxG4N7TsCdKZGan69h8w
