Steven Ronald Jensen

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For a list of people referred to by a similar sounding name; see Steve O.

Steven Ronald "Stevo" Jensen (1959 - 2005) was the original lead singer of the California punk rock group The Vandals from 1980 to 1984. He quit playing music in 1984 after the Vandals' second drummer, Joe Escalante (an attorney), launched a series of legal maneuvers that stripped Stevo of the right to use his own band name or to sing his own songs, which were written before Escalante joined the band. Having used his wealth and his position as an attorney to wrest control of the band's name and material, Joe Escalante replaced the entire lineup of the band and went through a number of different vocalists until Dave Quackenbush joined the band.

Stevo died of an accidental prescription drug mishap in August, 2005 and never received his first settlement check from the Vandals. Many of his friends and acquaintances who were in and around the early Los Angeles punk rock scene have claimed that Joe Escalante's shameless theft of Stevo's work (and subsequent sale of Stevo's songs to Sony and Adidas) hastened Stevo's death significantly. Escalante has since contradicted himself numerous times (both in and out of court) regarding the authorship of the songs in question.

More information regarding Escalante's theft of Stevo's intellectual property can be found at http://www.vandalscandal.com