Since releasing 'Altar of Harmony,' his 2020 debut on Jack White's Third Man Records, Luke Schneider has been redefining the role of the pedal steel guitar and showing audiences how dynamic the instrument is. Using an instrument most commonly associated with country music, Schneider creates ambient landscapes that feel more at place in a yoga studio than a honky tonk.
On February 20 Schneider is bringing that energy to The Fuzzy Needle in Durham where he'll perform a set alongside Chapel Hill-based fingerstyle guitarist and composer Josh Kimbrough.
"I love the way Luke's music transports me to an alternate, serene, plane of existence," Kimbrough said. "His songs feel like guided instrumental meditations, and I'm stoked to gather with friends to get the full Luke sound bath experience."
Originally from Ohio, Schneider moved to Nashville in 1998 for college and quickly engrained himself in the local music scene there.
Growing up as a fan of the country-rock music that was coming out of California in the 1960s, he was drawn to the pedal steel guitar from an early age and finally, when he turned 21, decided to take up the instrument himself.
"This was in 2001, when the only way to learn pedal steel was by sending away for a VHS tape via snail mail," he said. "You'd just stick that in your VCR and sit in front of your TV and try to play along. There was no YouTube and not a lot available on DVD either."
Schneider eventually joined singer-songwriter Margo Price's band and toured the world with her, playing country music on the pedal steel to large audiences. It was on these tours that he also started experimenting with more ambient tones and playing styles on the pedal steel.
"During those years with Margo I was kind of going through a recalibration of my health and lifestyle," he said. "I had cut out alcohol and drugs from my life, but was still very anxious on airplanes and playing these high profile stages like Saturday Night Live."
To help deal with the stress, he started leaning more into meditation and listening to calming ambient music.
"We would have these long sound checks every night, and during those I started making these ambient soundscapes. That started to be my way of de-stressing. I'd take 10 or 15 minutes during the sound checks to get recentered, and then eventually, every time I sat down at the pedal steel that's what I was doing instead of shredding country lick or whatever."
In 2025 Schneider released two projects in fast order. "A Companion For The Spaces Between Dreams" found him collaborating with the British singer-songwriter and synthesist Jamie Lidell on a record described as a "reverent companion for psychedelic journeys." Liddell had been working with the Asheville-based Moog Music on some ambient music and wanted to bring in a pedal steel player. Moog introduced the two musicians and they quickly hit it off.
"I went over to his studio, and we jammed for a good two or three hours, and that went really well," he said. "Immediately both of us were like, dude, we should make a whole record of this."
Before that, Schneider released an EP called "For Dancing In Quiet Light" that he says was subconsciously inspired by Lou Reed's relatively obscure 2007 tai chi soundtrack "Hudson River Wind Meditations." He says that the goal for "For Dancing In Quiet Light" was to make something that people can both dance and breathe to.
That same goal is true for Schneider's live performances. Speaking about his show at The Fuzzy Needle, Schneider said, "I want people to come in and to take deep breaths and to have a walled off space from all the noise and aggression that's penetrating our brains and our souls right now. I tell people all the time, if you fall asleep at one of my shows you get extra credit."
