At the age of 10, singer/songwriter Steven Van Betten began his journey into music.
It wasn’t until college when Van Betten took music seriously.
“It’s been 10 years and I’m still going at it,” Van Betten said.
Students gathered at the Performing Arts Building on Thursday to witness Van Betten perform original songs and to have a Q&A .
Van Betten said that the audience was the largest that he had gathered for any of his shows.
Student and attendee Hasty Almasty shared that there were many great songs and her favorite moment from the show.
“Honestly, I personally loved the way he conveyed all of his stories and those messages, because they were very personal to him,” Almasty said. “I loved the fact that there were some serious and some lighthearted songs, because, to me, that depicts the nature of life.”
Another student attendee, Jonah Matos, said that he enjoyed the transparency within his songs.
“It felt very intimate, very childlike and very honest,” Matos said. “Those are all things I really appreciate in a songwriter and artist. I feel like he really expresses human emotions very simply and very intensely.”
Both students shared what their favorite song from the performance was, with Matos saying that he liked the song about Wyoming.
“I really liked the ‘Beach Boys’ song,” Almasty said. “The last one that he did, ‘Mother,’ was also a really good one as well. I just think that all the songs specifically focus on a certain memory, or they focus on some things specific to him.”
After performing his songs, Van Betten answered questions from attendees about who inspires his songwriting.
Van Betten named the artist Mark Kozelek of the band Sun Kil Moon. Musician and songwriter Phil Elverum influenced Van Betten when he was with the band The Microphones. He shared with the audience that he finds much of his musical and songwriting inspirations from things that he personally likes and simply goes along with those things.
Van Betten shared some advice on how to deal with writer’s block when writing songs, as he noted that just writing a lot of words down without even thinking about what he’s writing helps him formulate ideas for his songs.
“It’s fun and it’s really hard,” said Van Betten, whose love of music drives him. “As soon as you think you figured it out, it changes on you and it won’t connect with you anymore”
At the conclusion of the Q&A section, Van Betten announced that he has a record that will be released on Oct. 27 titled “Friends and Family,” and he announced that his next live show will be on Nov. 2.
Daniel DeCamp contributed to this story.
