S.W. Lauden was a guest once before back in January of 2024. It was a tremendous chat about the waning power of guitar pop and why it needed to go underground again to gain relevance. We dove deep on subjects like cultural inheritance and the power of pop.
Steve Coulter, the real dude behind the S.W. Lauden pen name lost his Altadena, CA home in a matter of hours to the Eaton fire that raged across Los Angeles earlier this year. On the night that Steve, his wife, and their youngest daughter packed the car with a few belongings, they were sure they’d be back inside of 48 hours. By the morning their home and everything within it was simply gone.
Just a few days after his house went up in flames, Steve wrote a heartbreakingly beautiful essay called Vodka Sauce. Somehow in the midst of massive grief, Steve penned a piece that covered the meanings of family and home all while discussing his sobriety and a favorite family recipe. From 2500 miles away, I silently grieved for this person and his family that I hardly knew.
A couple of months after the fires had abated, I reached out to Steve to see if he might be ready to have a chat about what he and his family have gone through, and how they’re coping in the current moment. To my surprise, he responded with an immediate “Sure. Let’s do it.”
Our conversation was nothing short of remarkable. We covered the agony of what Steve describes as “losing the comfort you had earned and so carefully curated for you and your family.”
Steve opened up about how he has lost a large chunk of his cynicism in this process. He also reveals that he may have underestimated his neighbors based solely upon their political affiliations.
We discussed how Steve’s neighborhood looked much like Dresden, Germany after the Allied fire-bombings in World War Two. Somehow, Steve managed to dig through that rubble to find his wedding ring in what felt like a minor miracle within a sea of tragedy.
This is a vulnerable, beautiful conversation with a dude who has lost almost everything and managed to find a new grain of gratitude within that loss. As Steve says, “My house may have burned down, but I am still a lucky guy.”
Here is an amazing conversation with that lucky guy.
Cheers,
Matty C
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