He first came to the publics attention on alternative band A Fine Frenzy’s first album, 2007’s One Cell in the Sea, where he is listed as playing piano, keyboards and vibraphone (a keyboard like percussion instrument), although he himself says he was the piano player on “many of her signature recordings.“
"I'm proud of what I accomplished in that project,“ he says. “I had a lot to do with creating her sound, even more so live.“
On their second album, last years Bomb in a Bird Cage, he is again credited as a keyboard player: piano, keyboards, Hammond Organ and Hammond B3.
While keyboards is his primary instrument, steel guitar is the family business.
Thirty Seven year old Stephen LeBlanc came from what biographers like to call, a musical family. His father was pedal steel guitar player Leo LeBlanc. Leo LeBlanc played with Jerry Jeff Walker, John Prine, Mac Davis, Carole King. Melissa Manchester, The Osmonds, Merle Haggart, Clarence Carter and The Wallflowers among others. He was a member of Walker’s touring band for three years, and Prines for two. He also played on many sessions at Stax records, Muscle Shoals and Sun Records.
Stephen told the following story on a pedal steel website last year:
Dylan and the Wallflowers were showcasing and playing gigs looking for a new record deal. Leo sat in with the band one night, everyone loved the sound, he was invited to sit in on more gigs and eventually became a full-fledged member of the band. The Wallflowers signed with Interscope and started recording the album (Bringing Down the Horse).
While working on the Wallflowers album, his father was diagnosed with cancer. He died in 1995, age 57. Jakob Dylan dedicated The Wallflowers album Bringing Down the Horse is to Leo LeBlanc.
Born in 1972 in Memphis, Stephen began noodling on the family piano when he was 5. His “musical family,” included some older brothers. His first band was with the older brothers, playing songs such as Free’s Alright Now.
When Stephen was 11 the family moved to Nashville. He enrolled in the Blair School of Music at Vanderbilt, “were Roland Schneller taught him how to keep from damaging his fingers while playing fast.”
The family later moved to Waltham MA, where he took weekend classes at the New England Conservatory of Music.
Soon the family was on the move again, from Atlantic to Pacific: Massachusetts to Los Angeles. Stephen was 15 and enrolled in the LA Jazz Workshop, where he got to play with Louis Bellson, something he describes as, “one of the most amazing experiences of his life.”
He then went to the Dick Grove School of Music were he was taught how to “learn any song faster than most anyone else.” He played $50 sessions, in top 40 country bands, with R&B singers and heavy metal bands, but success eluded him.
Stephen did a lot of work with hip-hop rap artists during the 90’s, “making beats and playing keyboards.” He toured with a Tex-Mex country band, Rio Grande and toured with his dad on a project for Curb Records called Jackson Claypool.
At 23 he quit the music business, quit piano, bought a guitar and took an office job. Married and the parent of one son, now 7, Stephen spent his time doing his best Hendrix impression and recording. During his ten years in the corporate jungle, he recorded his first album, SLEB (Stephen LeBlanc’s Eclectic Band), never expecting to make any money off the project.
He is a big jazz fan and had his own jazz fusion group, as well as performed in many jazz gigs. He has even occasionally gigged as a drummer.
Stephen LeBlanc was recommended to Jason Bonham for the Led Zeppelin Experience tour by his friend, bass player Michael Devin. He and Devin have previously done a blues project together and Devin has played a gig with A Fine Frenzy. Of course, they currently play together in Jason Bonham’s Led Zeppelin Experience.
On playing Led Zeppelin music, LeBlanc says:
My personal connection to Led Zeppelin is mostly as a huge fan of the music, my older brother and I have listened to everything Zeppelin we could find since we were babies. I say this because, though my professional experience is very different from Zeppelin, I never stopped listening or being inspired by their music. JPJ is easily my biggest influence when it comes to rock keyboards.
The tour is going beautiful so far.
The Led Zeppelin Experience finishes off it's Western Canada leg in Regina Saskatchewan tonight, and Winnipeg Manitoba tomorrow.
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