Richmond musician Stephen Frost literally can't live without making music. "It's really like breathing for me, that if I don't do it enough, my health gets shaky, some people say they can't live without music, but it's not a figure of speech when I say it." While playing piano, bass, drums and guitar, Stephen takes nods from various indie rock and classical styles and makes it his own. But really, he just wants to make good dance-rock music, because there's nothing like being in a dingy club when the walls are shaking, and everyone's dancing and singing. "I've been told I sound like Feist as a male, Sufjan Stevens and John Lennon. And the style I fit into? Indie, or baroque-pop or post-vaudevillian or some other such meaningless term, but once I was turned onto the contemporary Chanson genre, that's when I finally felt like my music has a home...despite singing very little and very poorly in French." Stephen got into opera when he was 3 and was reading music and playing piano before he could even speak a discernible language. He began experimenting with recording techniques at age 9, and by 12, started his first band. Since then, he's played in all sorts of bands, including rock, jazz groups, traditional Indian music, noise, as well as composing film soundtracks and shows for a Chicago theater company. His first and last influences are the Beatles, but he's not ashamed to listen to anything. "Whatever it is you listen to, they're one of my influences, not only the obscure groups that haven't made it out of Sweden, but even Christina and Justin." Stephen explains, "And when I get mocked for spending six months with ABBA's greatest hits, I'm happy to ask 'well, you must be familiar with the five elements of music according to Leonard Bernstein, so, would you like to go through one of ABBA's songs with me and explain how they fail?'" Stephen is currently working on six short albums right now. Partially this is to dispute the argument 'you seem to lack direction' by putting like-mooded songs together, and partially this is because, seriously, who listens to albums anymore? -Andrew Cothern