Ghostwriter

       Steve Schecter has performed as the stripped-down-twisted-roots act Ghostwriter for the last twenty years and released ten albums on his End of the West label. Resembling the musical offspring of Walter Hill and Mary Flannery O'Connor, Ghostwriter blends influences from pre-war to post-punk for an original take on American roots music. 

       Born and raised in the rural community of Friend, Oregon, Steve Schecter first played in bands as a teenager in Portland, OR. In 1996 Schecter moved to Austin, TX. where he formed and fronted Billy Swamp, The American Standards (later The Standards), and End of the West.  In 2002, Schecter began recording and touring with under the name Ghostwriter with little more than a guitar, homemade foot-percussion device, and an old Nissan pickup.  

        Since then, Ghostwriter has shared stages with Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, T-Model Ford, Dex Romwewber (Flat Duo Jets), Pierced Arrows (Fred & Toody Cole), and many others, toured extensively, through forty-four of the lower forty-eight States, and played festivals from Sleazefest in Chapel Hill to Not the Same Old Blues Crap in London. 

        In 2022, Ghostwriter released The Antique Tractor Pull & Last Hayride, an album of new originals celebrating obsolete efforts and rural fortitude, accompanied by an EP of '50s Rockabilly songs in tribute to the often-misrepresented Hillbilly-Wildman. Shortly after, Steve Schecter's first book, No One at the Circus: The Story of Ghostwriter through Place and Song, was published by Gob Pile Press. 

 "To these ears, one of the best purveyors of down and dirty blues triumphalism." - Robert Ham, Willamette Week.

"A one-man junk-folk-blues act with knitting-needle guitar, footstomp percussion, and a holler that sounds like a less lysergic Captain Beefheart." -  Ned Lannamann, Portland Mercury. 

"Live, Ghostwriter can put the fear of God in you...  unleashing some serious power through his minimalist approach. " - Mark Lore, Chico News & Review.  

"A haunted road hog with a brimstone growl and guitar mixed hotter than Lucifer...  imagines Nick Cave waking up on the wrong side of the bed, fighting cottonmouth and arrest warrants in several Southwestern states." -  Christopher Grey, Austin Chronicle