As a child, he taught himself how to play guitar and eventually starting writing his own songs as a teenager, citing John Prine, Loudon Wainwright III, and Bob Dylan as influences.
He attracted notice after opening a concert for John Hiatt, leading him to sign with Demon Records, who released his critically acclaimed live album It Happened One Night in 1988.
The album featured members of The Attractions, and this association caused critics to frequently compare Stace to Elvis Costello for much of his career.
[4] He continued to release music as John Wesley Harding throughout the 90s and early 2000s on various independent labels, including the song "I'm Wrong About Everything", featured on the soundtrack for the movie High Fidelity.
[5] In the mid 2000s he took a temporary hiatus from music to focus on his burgeoning writing career, returning in 2009 with Who Was Changed And Who Was Dead, a collaboration with The Minus 5.
[6] "John Wesley Harding's Cabinet of Wonders", his series of variety shows, began in Spring 2009 in New York City at (Le) Poisson Rouge, before moving to City Winery, and has included appearances by Rosanne Cash, Graham Parker, Josh Ritter, Rick Moody, Colson Whitehead, Jonathan Ames, A.C. Newman, Rhett Miller, Steven Page, Eugene Mirman, Kristin Hersh, David Gates, John Roderick, Jon Auer, Tanya Donelly, Martha Plimpton, Todd Barry, Steve Almond, and Stephen Elliott.
The spring 2010 series featured, among others, Sarah Vowell, Sondre Lerche, Buffalo Tom, Janeane Garofalo, Robbie Fulks, and Paul Muldoon.
A third, Charles Jessold, Considered as a Murderer, was published by Jonathan Cape in the UK in July 2010 and Picador in the United States in February 2011, and was one of the Wall Street Journal's Top Ten Books of the Year.