27 Facts About Steven Severin

Steven John Bailey was born on 25 September 1955 and known professionally as Steven Severin, is an English songwriter, composer, multi-instrumentalist and producer.

Steven Severin is best known as the bassist of the rock band Siouxsie and the Banshees which he co-founded in 1976.

Steven Severin was the co-founder of the short-lived band the Glove in 1983.

Steven Severin took the name "Severin" from the Leopold von Sacher-Masoch character who is mentioned in the Velvet Underground song "Venus in Furs".

Steven Severin grew up in Archway and moved to Bromley at the age of 11.

Steven Severin's favourite writers when he was a teenager, were William Burroughs and Jean Genet amongst others: he said, "Since I was very young I've always felt the need to retreat into my head and scratch around the rim of my imagination to shut out the trivia and carelessness of the world outside".

Steven Severin was a full contributor to the band's musical output from the first release: the B-side "Voices" to the top 10 single "Hong Kong Garden" was a Severin lyric.

Steven Severin would contribute lyrics to many of the album tracks, singles and B-sides produced by the band.

Steven Severin initially wrote many of the songs recorded by the band, composing earlier versions that the band would work together to perfect.

Steven Severin produced the majority of the album Happy Birthday.

Steven Severin then played bass again with the Cure for a one-off live TV appearance on BBC's Riverside in January 1983, for a rendition of the song "Siamese Twins".

Almost 10 years after creating the Visions of Ecstasy soundtrack, Steven Severin released an album entitled Visions, featuring four tracks derived from the original pieces written for the film, plus another five instrumentals.

The origins for this instrumental album were as far back as 1993, when Steven Severin wrote some tracks for Brazilian Theatre Company "Os Satyros" production of Lautreamont's Chants of Maldoror.

Steven Severin contributed keyboards and produced this album for the Tiger Lillies.

Steven Severin returned to composing soundtracks, and in 2003 film director Robert Pratten approached Steven Severin to compose the soundtrack for his first film, a British independent supernatural thriller called London Voodoo.

The film contained four tracks that Steven Severin collaborated on with his wife and songwriting partner Arban, under the name "Darling Hate".

Arban Steven Severin took responsibility for the odd-numbered tracks and Steven Severin for the others.

In 2008, Steven Severin started composing scores for silent films of the 1920s and 1930s, the first being Germaine Dulac's The Seashell and the Clergyman: he made scores for 6 short films and got in contact with Picturehouse, to play in their cinemas in the UK.

In 2010 Steven Severin released his debut album for Cold Spring titled Blood of a Poet.

That year, Steven Severin composed a score to Theodor Dreyer's Vampyr; it was his second collaboration with the label Cold Spring.

Steven Severin then went on tour in Europe in 2012.

Steven Severin played bass in an unusual way, hitting strings upside down with a guitar pick, from bottom to top.

Steven Severin often played "three note chords and play triplets across them with the pick".

Steven Severin stated that on the two first Banshees albums, "the bass had a sort of dynamic role, pushing and pumping".

Steven Severin played on a Music Man StingRay, mainly in studio but not so much on stage, as "it tended not to be so thick-sounding".

Steven Severin used Ampeg SVTs and a rack full of choruses, flangers, and octave dividers.

Steven Severin is married and is the father of two children.