Ozwald

Steve Stout has spent the better part of two decades moving between arena stages and quieter, more personal recordings, first known as the touring lead guitarist for multiplatinum rock band Lifehouse, and more recently as the owner of Shabby Road Studio, the basement space he built into a 1963 Nashville ranch house. Alongside Lifehouse frontman Jason Wade he co-founded the project ØZWALD, and the two also run Allswell Records together, the label behind Wade's solo album A Likely Story and Stout's own solo catalog. That solo catalog runs from his self-produced 2021 debut Dairy Made through 2023's Sunday Stars to his newest full-length, i wanna buy a beach house, the first record written, recorded, and mixed entirely at Shabby Road, whose original tile floor and 60s sensibility shape the whole vibe of the place. Writers have compared his lo-fi, harmony-soaked songwriting to Kurt Vile and Stephen Malkmus, and outlets like Glide Magazine have followed the singles as they've come out. Whether he's producing other artists in his studio or finishing his own tune, Stout keeps coming back to the same idea, that the song itself comes first and everything else is there to serve it.