Steve Burns

Steven Michael Burns was born on October 9, 1973, in Boyertown, Pennsylvania, to Joseph Burns Jr. (1938–2015) and Janet Burns (née Petaccio). He has two older sisters named Karen and Jennifer. His father served in the U.S. Navy and later became the human resources director of Safeguard Business Systems. He attended Boyertown Area Senior High School in Berks County, graduating in 1992.

During his high school and college years, Burns played in several bands: Sudden Impact US, Nine Pound Truck, and the Ivys, the latter of which he called a "Morrissey rip-off band". He studied theatre under an acting scholarship at DeSales University in Center Valley, Pennsylvania, in the Lehigh Valley, where he was discovered by an agent. He dropped out of school and moved to New York City to become a professional actor. He lived in a basement apartment near Times Square, finding his first success as a voice-over artist for ads and making appearances on Homicide: Life on the Street and Law & Order.

After leaving Blue's Clues in 2002, Burns began working on material for his first album, Songs for Dustmites. The album was released by PIAS Recordings in August 2003. He posted eleven songs on his webpage and then realizing he needed help with drums and arrangements went to Steven Drozd of the Flaming Lips for advice. Drozd assisted Burns with six tracks, Lips bassist Michael Ivins engineered the album, and longtime Lips producer Dave Fridmann produced it. One of the songs from the album, "Mighty Little Man", is used as the opening theme for the CBS series Young Sheldon. Burns made several appearances on the series beginning in January 2022, playing a Star Trek enthusiast whom the title character meets.

Burns started a band, Steve Burns and the Struggle, and completed his second album, Deep Sea Recovery Efforts, which was released in 2009. Members of the Struggle include Drozd and Ryan Smith of A Million Billion.

Burns acted in the 2007 horror-comedy film Netherbeast Incorporated with Darrell Hammond and Dave Foley, playing the part of a vampire. In 2008, he played an astronaut in Christmas on Mars, a science fiction film from the Flaming Lips. In March 2012, he appeared in the YouTube comedy series The Professionals.

He appeared in DeSales University's production of Amadeus as the title character in 2007 and also appeared in The Comedy of Errors.

In late 2016, Burns released a children's album with Drozd, titled Foreverywhere under the name "STEVENSTEVEN". They released a video of the album's first song, "The Unicorn and Princess Rainbow".

Burns made a guest appearance on Tim Kubart's 2018 children's album Building Blocks.

After residing in Williamsburg, Brooklyn for much of his adult life, Burns told the New York Post in 2020 that he had been living mostly near the Catskill Mountains for the past four years.