Steel Drum Music - Steel Drum Players
Providing live musical entertainment for countless wedding receptions, birthday parties, anniversary parties, pool parties, office parties, Christmas parties, grand openings & events of all kind

Sean Michael Mireau has been working as a professional musician in the Phoenix area since 1984. The musical instruments he plays include drum set, steel drums, marimba, vibraphone, xylophone, glockenspiel, tympani, congas, and numerous Latin percussion instruments. Sean placed first in the 1991 Drum Corps International Individual and Ensemble Competition held in Dallas, Texas and has made several television appearances in Arizona since 1995 including on KTVK Channel 3 and KSAZ Channel 10. He has performed in twenty-three states nationally and his international performance locations include Canada, Turkey, Italy, Greece, and Spain. Sean holds an associate of Arts Degree from Central Arizona College and studied Jazz Performance at Arizona State University from 1990 to 1993. While studying music at ASU, Sean performed in over 50 concerts and recitals as a soloist and as a member of the ASU Big Band, Steel Drum Band, New Music Ensemble, Percussion Ensemble, Marimba Ensemble, Symphony Orchestra, Percussion Jazz Ensemble, and numerous jazz combos.

Sean has been playing steel drums since1992. He started playing steel drums at ASU in the "Pandevils" steel drum band. Sean averages over 200 paid professional performances per year performing with his own band, Volcano, and with a number of other bands and artists including Island Steel, Panacea, and Paul McDermand. Sean has provided live musical entertainment for countless wedding receptions, birthday parties, anniversary parties, pool parties, cocktail parties, office parties, Christmas parties, grand openings, and events of all kind. He has performed numerous times at every major resort in the Phoenix area including the Arizona Biltmore, The Camelback Inn, The Scottsdale Hilton, The Phoenician, the Pointe Hilton Resorts, the Scottsdale Princess, the Ritz Carlton, the J.W. Marriot at Desert Ridge, The Wig Wam, and the Hyatt Regency at Gainey Ranch in Scottsdale. Sean currently performs on a regular basis at the Tommy Bahama Restaurant at the Kierland Commons in Scottsdale.

Sean has an eight-piece band named “Volcano”. They primarily do steel drum, calypso, luau, reggae, island music. They can play instrumental back-ground/dinner/atmosphere music and they also can play higher energy party music with vocals. Volcano has a song list of over 400 songs but some of their most requested tunes include Margaritaville, Volcano, Kokomo, Brown Eyed Girl, Hot Hot Hot, Red Red Wine, One Love, and Three Little Birds. The size of the band can be anywhere from two to eight members. Quite often the size of the ensemble is two or three musicians in order to accommodate smaller engagements. This is possible because Sean has digital recordings that replace the missing musicians when the engagement does not require the entire ensemble.

For prices and sound samples, please contact Sean at seanmireau@cox.net or 602-616-5386.

Volcano-Partial Song List

Margaritaville
The Pinacolada Song
Brown Eyed Girl
Another Saturday Night
Volcano
Three Little Birds
One Love
Hot Hot Hot
Kokomo
Red Red Wine
Waiting in Vain
A Pirate Looks at Fourty
Apocalypso
Almost Jamaica
All Night Long
Banana Boat Song (Day-O)
Barometer Soup
Black Magic Woman
Boat Drinks
Buffalo Soldier
Changes in Lattitudes, Changes in Attitudes
Cheeseburger in Paradise
Coconut Telegraph
Come Monday
Could You Be Loved
Diamond as Big as the Ritz
Dock of the Bay
Don’t Worry, Be Happy
Down Under
Dyermaker
Englishman in New York
Everybody’s Got a Cousin in Miami
Everywhere Calypso
Fins
First Look
Get Up Stand Up
Giligan’s Island Theme
Groovin’
Here I Am
Higher Ground
Holiday
Hotel California
I Can See Clearly Now
Iko Iko
I’ll Take You There
Island in the Sun
I Shot the Sheriff
Is This Love
Jamaica Farewell
Jamaica Mistaka
Jammin’
The Joker
Jolly Mon Sing
Kingston Town
Last Mango in Paris
Late in the Evening
Limbo Rock
Love is the Seventh Wave
Matilda
Me and Julio
Message in a Bottle
Mexico
Montego Bay
Natural Mystic
Nightshift
No Woman No Cry
One Particular Harbor
Quietly Making Noise
Redemption Song
Sailing
Satisfy My Soul
Should I Stay or Should I Go?
Sloop John B
Son of a Son of a Sailor
Stand by Me
Stir it Up
Sweat
Tequila Sunrise
Touch of Grey
Tropical Loveland
Trying to Reason with Hurricane Season
Two Pinacoladas
Under the Boardwalk
Walkin’ on the Moon
The Way You Do the Things You Do
Wild World
The Wino and I Know
Yellowbird
Jingle Bells
Silent Night
Sleigh Ride
Mary’s Boy Child
Deck the Halls
Holly Jolly X-mas
Let it Snow
Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer
Silver Bells
Winter Wonderland

What are Steel Drums?

Steel drums are musical instruments made from fifty-five gallon oil barrels that were invented in the late 1940's on the Caribbean island of Trinidad. Today they are still made by hand by hammering and shaping the top of a fifty-five gallon oil barrel. The typical steel drum requires forty to fifty hours of hammering to produce and there fewer than ten people in the United States who can make and tune steel drums. Because of this, steel drums are very difficult to obtain. It is very common for an individual to wait one or two years, or longer in many cases, to have a steel drum made and they can range in price from $1,000 to $5,000.

Steel drums are very fragile and can go out of tune very easily. They must be kept out of the sun at all times. Direct sunlight will severely damage steel drums and will turn them from being musical instruments worth thousands dollars into worthless hunks of metal, within minutes. Drums that are played frequently, typically need to be tuned at least once a year. They are tuned by being skillfully tapped on with hammers to put the metal back into its correct shape. The closest steel drum tuner to Phoenix is Los Angelas. The next closest is Chicago.

There are many misperceptions about steel drums. Some people think a steel drum with a chrome finish is not a “real” steel drum or that it was mass-produced in a factory or that it is electronic. Steel drums with a chrome finish are as “real” as any steel drums you have ever seen or heard. Steel drums often have a chrome finish put on them primarily to keep them from rusting but it also helps the drums stay in tune longer and gives them a brighter sound. There in fact is no such thing as a manufactured or mass-produced steel drum. There are also no steel drums produced in factories or by machines. All steel drums are made by hand by hammering and shaping the top of a fifty-five gallon oil barrel. Steel drums are also not "electronic" in any way. The sound you hear is simply the metal vibrating when it is carefully struck with a rubber-tipped stick.

Steel drummers are often asked if they made their own drums. This comes from the belief that anyone with a hammer can make a steel drum in a few hours. In reality, making a steel drum is extremely difficult and would take an individual five to ten years just to learn how to do it. This is why there are so few people who can make a steel drum. One very skilled tuner has said that he had to tune over one thousand steel drums before he felt like he knew what he was doing.

Among other cities, Steel Drum Music by Sean Michael Mireau may serve the following areas: Phoenix, Scottsdale, Mesa, Glendale, Sun City, Tempe, Prescott, Chandler, Peoria, Gilbert, Sun City West, Yuma, Surprise, Sedona, Show Low, Holbrook, Globe, Eden, Fountain Hills, Chandler Heights, Prescott Valley, Pinon, Safford, Cave Creek, New River, Luke AFB, Pima, Quartzsite, Queen Creek, Payson