It started out as a way to meet chicks. Four guys who found themselves in Kunsan, South Korea, with a lot of time on their hands and no one to spend it with. In the middle of a drunken haze they heard the mantra,”If you practice, they will come so-to-speak.” So the next morning, using mostly borrowed instruments, they jammed out some tunes. Initial results were surprisingly positive and on Halloween night of 1996, Steal Wool launched into the opening strains of STP’s Interstate Love Song and the band was born. For the next 6 months the band enjoyed huge success playing gigs every weekend throughout South Korea for a captive audience of US servicemen, servicewomen, and Canadian English teachers. Then, as will happen in the military, people got transferred back to the States. Fortunately, the band’s popularity made it easy to find replacement musicians and despite losing key people every 6-9 months, Steal Wool continued to thrive and even now, almost a decade later, Steal Wool still plays in Kunsan, South Korea.
Jump forward a few years (2001 to be exact) to Luke AFB in Phoenix. Former Steal Wool members, along with some other South Korean “Refugees” who happened to be in Phoenix decided, “We’re on a mission from GOD, we’re getting the band back together!” At first they tried using a new name but no matter what they called themselves, the crowd would yell, “Steal Wool Rocks!” Who were we to tell them they were wrong?
It started out as a way to meet chicks, and it remains that. It’s not country music or disco, it’s rock and roll, but if you can’t dance to it (or at least jump up and down spastically) we don’t play it.
