Steve Taylor(VII)

Steve Taylor was born in Brawley, California and raised in Denver, Colorado. He studied music, filmmaking and acting at Colorado University in Boulder, then began a career as a recording artist that has spanned decades and garnered him two Grammy nominations for "Meltdown" and "Squint." In the process, he made history as the only artist to twice win Billboard Music Video Awards for self-directed music videos. He was also fronted the MCA-signed alternative rock band Chagall Guevara, who were first introduced on the soundtrack to the movie "Pump Up The Volume." Among his many credits as a music video director, his best-known is the Francois Truffaut homage he shot in Paris for Sixpence None The Richer's "Kiss Me." Taylor also directed and starred in the award-winning long-form video "Squint: Movies From The Soundtrack," shot on 35mm film in ten countries around the globe including Vietnam, Nepal, United Arab Emirates and Turkey.

In preparation for his first movie, Taylor spent two years studying the Meisner technique under acting teacher Bill Feheely. His filmmaker resume as a writer/director includes "The Second Chance" for Sony, and "Blue Like Jazz," based on Donald Miller's New York Times bestselling memoir, which premiered at the South By Southwest Film Festival and won the 2013 Wilbur Award for Best Feature Film, joining past winners "Schindler's List," "Dead Man Walking," and "The Help." He's the producer of two upcoming feature films: "Sun Moon" for Sony Affirm (filmed in Taiwan); and "Sketch" starring two-time Emmy winner Tony Hale of "Arrested Development" and "Veep" fame, which will premiere at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival.

Steve serves as Filmmaker-In-Residence at Lipscomb University (where he also earned his MFA in Film and Creative Media), and lives in Nashville with his wife, the artist D.L. Taylor, and their daughter.