Steve Smeltzer has been a fixture in the Fort Wayne music scene for the last 35 years. He's played with various bands at about every local venue, from the smallest hole-in-the-wall, to the main arena at the Memorial Coliseum. He's also played on numerous radio and television commercials, various rock and jazz cds and extended "house gigs" at such places as; Columbia Street West, Club Soda, Paula's Seafood, The Holiday Inn-Downtown and The Downtown Hilton. In addition to these public engagements, he's played countless private functions at The Summit Club, The Fort Wayne Country Club, The Grand Wayne Center, and The Embassy, to name a few.

But possibly he is best known as a drum teacher who has taught hundreds of students, many who have gone on to professional music careers or even have become drum teachers themselves.

Steve started his teaching career at age 15 at Guy Zimmerman Music in Fort Wayne. He remembers his dad racing to pick him up from driver's training to tell him that his drum instructor, Kent Stier couldn't teach lessons that night and had requested that Steve fill in for him. He loved the experience and shortly after was hired as the permanent replacement for Mr. Stier who left to pursue his desire to teach in college.

In addition to his teaching responsibilities, Steve was establishing a performance career with area bands. It was the early '70's and he and various band mates were honing their skills on Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, Cream, Deep Purple, ELP, Yes and Genesis. This was the kind of music that Steve liked to play, but unfortunately, it wasn't the kind of music that paid very well. The music style that was popular in clubs was disco and that's where the money was. So, Steve and some of his rock 'n' roll buddies cut their hair, bought leisure suits and joined a disco/dance band. They played around the area, mostly at a place called The Sands on Coliseum Blvd. Their schedule was 6 nights a week, 5 hours a night. It wasn't too long until Steve and the other band members couldn't take another night of playing K.C. and the Sunshine Band, so they retired the leisure suits and began playing rock music again. 

During this time, they joined forces with a local keyboard player by the name of Barry LaBov. Barry had a history of writing, recording and successfully publishing his songs with music companies, including Barry Manilow's Kamikazee Music Publishing. Labov had no desire to perform publicly and invited Steve and his friends to concentrate their talents on recording. As they became more and more experienced in the world of recording studios, they became in demand to play on other artists' recording projects, as well. In addition, Steve was hired frequently to play on many of Fort Wayne's radio and television commercials produced at such studios as, StarFox, Ajax, Sweetwater and AZI. Some commercials are still being played. Hires Auto and Nisco Pool & Patio Paradise to name a couple.

Years before when he was still in high school, Steve got an acoustic guitar and began, with the help of his band mates, to learn to play the guitar. With practice, he soon knew enough to strum some chords and write little melodies. By the time he joined forces with Barry LaBov, Steve had already written quite a few songs including a slow one called "On A Night Like This". After some collaboration with Barry, the boys recorded it and added it to the tape of other songs that Barry was readying for his next trip to New York to "shop" the songs for a publishing contract.

One of Barry's stops in the Big Apple was to Sid Bernstein, who is credited as being the man who brought The Beatles to America. Bernstein liked "On A Night Like This" but said, "If you turn this song into a fast one, I think you have a hit on your hands." Needless to say, Barry returned home and he and his wife, along with Steve began rewriting the song to a faster rhythm. They got the rest of the musicians together and recorded it on one of the coldest days of the year, So cold in fact, Steve said," I got in my car that morning, shut the door and my back window shattered!"

"On A Night Like This" started getting so many favorable reviews from family and friends that Barry and Steve decided to press the song on to a 45 rpm record. Up until this point, the musicians who played on the song were just a group of studio musicians and not really a band. But now that the song was on a record, they decided that there needed to be a band's name on the label, so they put Barry's publishing company's name of "LaBov and Beyond" on the record. Soon after this they formed a group out of the studio musicians and kept the name "LaBov and Beyond" but later renamed the band "Mark Urgent".

The months that followed became what Steve refers to as his fifteen minutes of semi-fame. "On A Night Like This" became a frequently played song on many local radio stations, as well as a few other radio stations around the country. Also, the song was the winner (against "Red Skies At Night" by the Fixx) on "American Bandstand's" Rate-A-Record". In addition, it was a "recommended pick" by Billboard Magazine and was made into a music video that played on HBO's Video Jukebox and USA Channel's "America Rocks".

But perhaps the single two most exciting events that happened because of the song's success was playing at The New York Songwriters Showcase in Greenwich Village and opening for John Mellencamp at the Allen County Memorial Coliseum. In the 2 or 3 year existence of the band, there were many memorable experiences (contests, radio and TV appearances, gigs and interviews), but Mellencamp and New York were definitely the biggest for Steve.

Steve left the band in the late eighties and began playing with local guitarist, Geo Conner. Geo had recently returned from Los Angeles, where he had made quite a name for himself playing guitar for many noteworthy people. Peter Noone (Herman from Herman's Hermits), Barbra Streisand and legendary record producer, Ken Scott are a few of the names that are associated with Geo. Back in Fort Wayne, he and Steve recorded an album with bassist, Jeff Stone who has been Steve's best friend since first grade. The name of the band was "Two Words" and the album title was "Changes Due".

Even though Steve would be recording during the day with Mark Urgent, Two Words, or on a radio commercial, often Steve's nights were (and still are) filled playing with area jazz bands. The names of the some of these bands, past and present are; Dr. Bob Band, Red Ball Jets, Hot News, Ron Barber Trio, James Baker Quartet, Caribe, along side such notable local musicians as; Tim Beeler, Rick Brown, Eric Clancy, Brian Derek, Dave Latchaw, George Ogg, Michael Patterson, Kevin Piekarski, Jim Steele, Larry Stout, Louie Strahm, Cliff Webb and John Weber. 

Throughout the years, Steve has had the opportunity to play with some very prominent musicians. He played two Fort Wayne shows as the drummer for the legendary, Bo Diddley. 

He was chosen to play with nationally known jazz trombonist, Bill Watrous for the Northrop Jazz Festival. 

He has played many gigs with Blue Note Recording Artist Cal Collins.

When scheduling permits, Steve joins forces with Mat Britain, adjunct instructor of music for Blair School of Music at Vanderbilt University and Dan Moore, percussion area head and associate professor of music at The University of Iowa, to play "island jazz" in a band named Caribe. (As a side note, Mat Britain played the steel drum solo on Kenny Chesney's country hit, When the Sun Goes Down).

As a perk to playing a lot of downtown hotel gigs, Steve has enjoyed jamming with a lot of famous musicians who were staying there after their performances at the Embassy or the coliseum. Except for one instance (ask him about it), Steve and the rest of the band "had a blast" jamming with musicians from Spyro Gyra, The Rippingtons, Dizzy Gillespie's band and The Beach Boys.

Currently, Steve resides in Fort Wayne, teaching many drum students, playing jazz engagements and drawing cartoons for magazines.