“Poetry and music are the lifeblood of human beings, and a society without those is inhuman. I assume that poetry and music are examples of free expression, and in that respect are the canary in a coal mine. If they’re diminishing or being extinguished it’s a sign the country is filling with the lethal gases of authoritarianism.”

Steven Gray: Counterculture To The Moon

Writer, poet and musician Steven Gray, lived in San Francisco since before computers, and read his work all over town for many years, but using 2020 vision he moved to the coastline of Connecticut where he stares at the fire. Steven’s latest 10-tracks album TO THE MOON released in 2025. In his own words: “As a writer and musician I’ve been under the influence of a lot of people, probably too many to mention. In high school in the late 1960’s I was preoccupied with Bob Dylan and reading the beat writers, along with a French poet from the 1800’s - Rimbaud. I was in Los Angeles at the time, which had its downside, but there were bands passing through like Cream and Hendrix. I had a Navajo friend who played bass during our wine-soaked music sessions in his liberated garage. We were going to be the next Hot Tuna. He would go to the reservation in New Mexico and bring back peyote. We had some before going to a drive-in movie in an old pickup to watch “2001.” While living in an old Victorian mansion in San Pedro during my second year of college I went to see Captain Beefheart in a small theater.”

(Steven Gray / Photo by Sarah Page)

Steven, continues: “I moved to San Francisco when I was 20 for two more years of college, studying with the Greek surrealist poet Nanos Valaoritis and the novelist Kay Boyle. I was reading my poems at Minnie’s Can-Do Club in the Fillmore and the Old Spaghetti Factory in North Beach while living in the Haight. During my last year of college I had an enormous studio in a converted factory in the Mission District called Project Artaud. I was on the corridor known as “Alchemical Rhetoric,” living next door to a clown troupe who would come home late at night blowing trombones. The place had thin walls and open minds - there were performers, artists, acid heads, etc.”

Interview by Michael Limnios.                        Archive: Steven Gray, 2014 Interview

How have the Beats and Counterculture influenced your views of the world and the journeys you’ve taken?

I came of age in California in the late 1960’s – I was sixteen in 1968 – and the counterculture was raging with passionate and revolutionary forces. When you live through that it’s part of you and is always there as long as you don’t succumb to mainstream propaganda and the shallow journalism. The Beat writers have been a pretty good homing device for keeping me on track over the years.

I met a lot of them, including Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, Michael McClure, Bob Kaufman, and Ted Joans, as well as Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Gary Snyder. Most of these were brief encounters, except for Corso and Ted Joans who I got to know more personally, and had a long friendship with the ex-poet laureate of San Francisco, Jack Hirschman. I went to a talk by Diane di Prima, heard William Burroughs read his material in an old jazz club in North Beach (the Keystone, across the alley from a police station), and had a two-hour phone interview with David Meltzer (and posted the 20-page transcript). City Lights Bookstore had suggested I talk to him in regards to a recent book of poems and a review I was writing (my literary reviews are at litseen. They also suggested I interview Joanne Kyger, which never happened, but I did see her read.

For that matter, I went to a reading by Bukowski in the early 1970’s, and heard other writers who were passing through town, like the Russian poet, Joseph Brodsky. I was going to Minnie’s Can-Do Club in the Fillmore around that time, and got to know ruth weiss who ran the readings.  

Currently you’ve one release titled On The Moon. How did the idea of album come about? Where does your creative drive come from?

I have three albums on Bandcamp Exile and On the Moon have songs from the last few years, while The Somahexuals has some older material going back to the 1990’s. I also added some separate tracks which were hiding in the archives, including a 13-minute solo on a borrowed Les Paul guitar, and a cover of “Lonesome Town.” I’m driven by my guitar and all the music I’ve heard, or just from having a mortal nervous system on this planet.

“There are too many writers and musicians to mention who I find inspiring or spirited, but I will say it could come from anywhere, a random occurrence or someone I’ve known about for years. I’m very eclectic in that respect, which keeps me on my toes and probably messes with my self-image, but what the hell.” (Photos: Steven Gray and his latest albums)

What has been the hardest obstacle for you to overcome as a person and as an artist, and has this helped you become a better writer and musician?

Having to earn a living, pay the rent, etc., and the time it takes away from my writing and music. I compromised by working part-time for attorneys for many years, usually leaving my mornings free. I also kept the same apartment in San Francisco for forty years and had rent control, so it didn’t cost that much. Most of the time I didn’t have a car or go out for dinner very often. It may have helped my writing, if only by staying in touch with working people and not losing track of their perspective. Musically, it drove me further into the blues.  

What moment changed your life the most? Who are some of your very favorite artists or rather, what poets/musicians have continued to inspire you and your music?

There are too many writers and musicians to mention who I find inspiring or spirited, but I will say it could come from anywhere, a random occurrence or someone I’ve known about for years. I’m very eclectic in that respect, which keeps me on my toes and probably messes with my self-image, but what the hell.

Some moments that changed my life: peyote, going to a Cream concert, and being in bed with my girlfriend – all of that in high school.

What is the impact of poetry and music on the racial and socio-cultural implications? How do you want poetry and music to affect people?

Poetry and music are the lifeblood of human beings, and a society without those is in human. I assume that poetry and music are examples of free expression, and in that respect are the canary in a coal mine. If they’re diminishing or being extinguished it’s a sign the country is filling with the lethal gases of authoritarianism.

That said, I started a Substack recently for my essays and poems. The material may be old or recent, or published somewhere else.

“I came of age in California in the late 1960’s – I was sixteen in 1968 – and the counterculture was raging with passionate and revolutionary forces. When you live through that it’s part of you and is always there as long as you don’t succumb to mainstream propaganda and the shallow journalism. The Beat writers have been a pretty good homing device for keeping me on track over the years.” (Steven Gray has authored two books of poetry: Shadow on the Rocks and Jet Shock and Culture Lag. influenced by the Beat Generation, and figures like David Meltzer and Charles Bukowski / Photo by Sarah Page)

What are some of the most important lessons you have learned from your experiences? What do you think is key to a life well lived?

If you’re compelled to write or play music it helps to do it every day. Doing it for money is a burden and can compromise the muse, but the main thing is to cultivate it. It’s good to measure your success by what you have produced, and not so much by how it is received by an arbitrary public. In other words, a failed writer is one who doesn’t write.

What was it like being born and raised in San Francisco when you were growing up? What are some of your most fond memories from that time?

I was born in an army base a few hours down the coast, and didn’t actually live in San Francisco until I was twenty, having spent a few years in Los Angeles. I moved there in the early 1970’s, and lived there pretty steadily until 2020 when I moved to the coastline of Connecticut with my wife. There were a lot of changes in the city, not all for the best, as it became more expensive and conservative. It used to be that a 100,000 or more people would gather in the Castro District on Halloween with the streets closed to cars, and most of the people in costume, but the authorities closed it down. There were tremendous marches against the Vietnam war, but also against the Iraq war following 9/11. For that matter, in 2005 there was a three-day symposium in the civic center on the question if 9/11 was an inside job. This is not to mention an active poetry community with live readings every week all over town, whether a nightclub or an alley or the library, sometimes reading our poems accompanied by saxophone and drums. I also have good memories of the cliffs near the Golden Gate Bridge where men and women would lay on the beach with no clothes on, and we would take our chances with the riptide.

Steven Gray - Home

(Steven Gray / Photo by Zarina Zabriski)