Michael Reed

Michael Reed was a vocalist, guitarist, drummer, banjo, ukulele, and pianist in Steam Powered Giraffe.

Michael Reed did backing instrumentation and album construction for Steam Powered Giraffe from January 2009 to March 2014. He returned in 2018 for the ten year anniversary show. He stayed with Steam Powered Giraffe until his removal from the band in 2020, after he moved out of the country abruptly, abandoned his contracted work, and dozens of inappropriate interactions with fans were brought to light.

In July 2020, the band made an official post condemning Michael Reed as having inappropriate interactions with fans, based on the accounts of numerous people who contacted the band in private.

History
Michael was born in San Jose, CA. Michael’s father was a concert accordionist at the age of 15, and got Michael started playing the piano when Michael was about 8 years old. At first he focused solely on a piano style called “stride piano”, eventually becoming interested in and focusing on the styles of blues, boogie woogie, classical, jazz and funk. Michael’s mother has been a gigging singer/guitarist/songwriter since she was 14 years old, and both his parents instilled in Michael a great love for all kinds of music, classical to contemporary. He lived in the bay area until he was 13, moving to San Diego at the beginning of the year 2000. He attend Parkway Middle School, where he met Jonathan Sprague. Their friendship grew, and Jon would eventually introduce Michael to the guitar when Michael was 17 years old. At first Michael was mostly interested in finger style guitar, because he found he could sound almost like a piano, playing bass parts, chords, and melodies on top of each other at the same time. He eventually became interested in more musical genres, as well as singing, writing and composing. He also began learning other instruments including banjo, bass guitar, drum set, ukulele, synthesizers, harmonicas, tenor mandolin, and mallet percussion. At 18, Michael completely immersed himself in audio recording and engineering, investing in audio equipment to start recording himself singing and playing his own music.

By the age of 19, Michael had left college to start playing in local bands, eventually touring around the United States for a couple of years. He played at festivals on the same bills as Willie Nelson, and The Squirrel Nut Zippers. Around the age of 22, Michael was contacted by Steam Powered Giraffe to record Steam Powered Giraffe’s first studio album, Album One. They gave Michael the freedom to explore and invent sounds and ideas, drawn from and inspired by the lyrics of the songs. After the completion of Album One, he was asked to become a permanent member of the band to flesh out the sound. Michael started busking with Steam Powered Giraffe, and for the first year of plugged-in stage shows, being the only additional member, Michael would sing and play the piano, guitar or bass while also playing the drum set at the same time, which gave birth to his nickname “The One Man Band”.

Removal from Steam Powered Giraffe
In February 2020, Michael Reed suddenly moved to Europe to get married, and abandoned his current contracted work on an album with Steam Powered Giraffe. The band and him went their separate ways. In July 2020, multiple fans reached out to the band privately to inform them of Reed’s inappropriate interactions with fans. Most of these accounts, and the details thereof, remain anonymous and private to protect the victims.

Michael's voice was edited out of multiple tracks for the final release of the band's 1896 album following his actions coming to light.

The band made a public announcement condemning his actions in July 2020. A full transcript of the band’s announcement follows:

If you haven't heard by now from our posts on Patreon or YouTube, last week issues concerning Michael Reed were brought to light. The evidence presented to us from victims who contacted us shows him having inappropriate interactions with fans. We do not have a statement from Mike, he has denied everything when we contacted him early last week. The evidence presented to us in private is not something the band can turn a blind eye to and it's clear as day to us. The band does not condone his actions. Yesterday someone came forward with an incident about our sound technician Steve Negrete and we followed up with the sources. The band does not condone these actions and we are no longer working with Steve because of them. Here is a statement from him:‬


 * To the fans and followers of Steam Powered Giraffe,
 * This is Steve Negrete, I’ve been the technical engineer for the live stage show for around 10 years.
 * The information that has come to light about Mike this past week has shocked us all. I stand in solidarity with the band’s reaction to the information, and also with the decisions they have made in response.
 * Steam Powered Giraffe is meant to be a safe place in an uncertain world. This simple statement serves as one of the band’s core principles.  With this statement in mind, I must reflect on my history with the band, and I must take responsibility for a stark truth: I have betrayed this principle during my time with the group.
 * The fact of the matter is that I have hooked up with fans during past Steam Powered Giraffe shows. As a result of my actions, I have left emotional scars in my wake.  To anyone who has suffered in any way due to my actions, I acknowledge that your feelings and emotions towards me are valid, and I apologize for the hurt that I have caused you.  I readily accept responsibility for leaving these scars, and I make no excuses for my behavior.  I cannot ask for your forgiveness, nor do I expect you to give it.
 * To the internet at large, I say this: I don’t care what people think of me, and I don’t care about any reputation of my own that I have in this band. What I do care about is how all of this affects Steam Powered Giraffe, and how it affects the livelihood of the people therein.  I don’t want the rest of the band to try and defend me on any of this, I don’t want them to have to deal with stress because of me, and I don’t want my presence to serve as a deterrent to the fans.
 * Above all, however, I want there to be no question regarding the core principles of Steam Powered Giraffe. As such, I am making the decision to resign from my position of employment with the band.  I will not be working with Steam Powered Giraffe again.   Thank you for all the shows, songs, and smiles over the years.   -Steve Negrete

We have already made edits and re-uploaded our recent music videos "Shattered Stars" and "Latum Alterum" to remove Michael Reed. Today we made another set of edits to "Shattered Stars" to remove Steve Negrete. We are not going to invite arguments over the severity of the actions of either member cut from this video. They both crossed a line in their own ways that the band would never condone now or in the past.

The band will not re-edit the past albums, songs, music videos, and concert videos featuring Mike and Steve, but we wanted to do it at least for our recent music videos and our currently unreleased newest album "1896" and it's already released singles.

These issues came to light recently for us and we feel it's only right to do what we can to make people aware of why we edited these video and validate the victims that have reached out.