Steve Forde was born in the regional farming centre of Cowra, New South Wales in 1977. Steve spent most of his early childhood moving from town to town across NSW with his family. He is a singer, a songwriter and a touring country star. Although retired now, Steve was a successful bull rider and bareback bronc rider. Moving to the South Coast, the rawboned 18-year-old Forde joined his first band and tasted the life of a touring country musician. It was also during this time that Forde decided that he wanted to join the rodeo as a bull rider. He first left for the United States in 1998 he joined a country band in Texas and toured through Colorado, South Dakota and into Canada. When the gigs were lean he would often be working in bars, building fences or riding bareback broncos in Lubbock, Texas. When his rodeo friend from Brisbane, Australia broke his back riding bareback in the rodeo Forde left for Nebraska however his car failed and he had to hitch a ride to Missouri where he found a man that was headed for a rodeo in Franklin, Tennessee Forde went to the rodeo strapped for cash hoping to win some much-needed money. Forde then headed off to Nashville, Tennessee where he was introduced to songwriter Dan Roberts. Hitting it off well with Dan he moved in for a time and had the pleasure of playing songs and working on new material with the writer who soon became his friend. Steve headed back to Australia when he heard that his father needed help on the farm and he went to work on the farm, still doing rodeos during the weekends. He bought his farm, near Grenfell, New South Wales and set about getting it cleaned up, stocked up and productive while still helping his father on his farm and finding time to getaway riding broncos.
In 2000, Steve started his band The Flange and they started doing the rodeo tour before moving to Tamworth, New South Wales where word of mouth spread about the band. Enthused by the great response the band was getting Forde sent some demos to Nashville producer Mark Moseley who liked what he heard and contacted Steve and they set about recording the debut album. Steve Forde and the Flange’s debut album “Livin’ Right” was released in May 2002. The first film clipRodeo Freak was released on the back of the successful debut. The album continued to build momentum and attract both recognition and accolades including two Golden Guitar nominations at the Tamworth 2003 awards and the second single “What I’m talking about” spending twenty-six weeks in the CMC top twenty. Due to the rapid success of the album, Steve's younger brothers took over duties on the farm so that he could tour with his band.
“Wild Ride” was again recorded in Nashville in December 2003 with Mark Moseley although this time Steve co-produced the recording process as well as penning all of the tracks. The first single was “The Letter”.
