Steven Marriott: Singing Guitarist in Vancouver, B.C.
At Event Captain, we love to highlight our favorite local providers and provide a recommendation. This week we chatted with Steven Marriott, a singing guitarist based in Vancouver, B.C. Steven provides musical performances for children’s and adult parties. He performs both originals and covers of every artist from Abba to Zac Brown, and provides a digital song list for people to make live requests on the fly.
Check out our conversation with Steven:
What can you tell us about yourself?
My name is Steven Marriott and I am a solo musician from Vancouver, BC. I’ve been playing guitar for 20 years, and have toured extensively through BC and Alberta with various musical projects. I released my debut solo album last year called “Caught in Parallax” (which can be listened to on all streaming platforms) featuring songs like “Don’t Know How To Dance”, and “So Far To Go”. Outside of music, I’m a certified teacher, I work part time as a voice actor in video games and cartoons, and I have over 15 years experience as a finishing contractor.
Why did you decide to do musical performances at events?
I’ve always enjoyed entertaining people, and have an innate drive to make people laugh and smile. Music became a natural conduit for me to do both. They always say that if you love what you do, you never work a day in your life, and I feel so grateful every day that I’ve managed to build a career that fills that exact role.
Has your music and performance evolved over time? If so, what’s changed and why?
Absolutely. I used to be quite rigid with my performances and would plan my setlist out, practice it, and play it in that order, usually with a brief pause between songs. Now I’ve got about 500 songs committed to memory and jump around from song to song on the fly. If a song is really falling flat, I’ll just transition into a different song. Similarly, if a song is landing really well, I’ll think about what to play next and go right into it so we don’t lose the momentum when the song ends.
Having worked with a number of childrens parties, is there any event that stands out as memorable to you? And if so, what made it special?
I love it when a kid asks me to play a random song I’ve never heard of, and we just improvise a new song on the fly. It usually gets some laughter and smiles, until they say “now play the real one!”…. which I still have never heard of. I did that at a community centre show one day, and right at the end of my time, the kids requested the new improvised song again. We had our own inside joke song that could never be recreated, but served as a pretty cool and unique memory for everyone there.
What’s the #1 piece of advice you’d give parents looking to host a children’s birthday party?
I give the same advice for planning birthdays as I do for weddings and theme parties. You know the attendees better than anyone on the outside, so brainstorm and plan for activities and special guests that will be both memorable and specially catered to your vision.
A big thing to bear in mind, is that timelines will rarely go 100% according to plan, and if you’re stressing about hard start and end times for varying activities through the day, the stress will take away from your overall enjoyment, and more than likely, you’re the only one who will even notice.
You can learn more about Steven Marriott and book him for your event here.
