We are swamped. Music up to our ears. Swab some out and even more appears than before. Along comes Stephanie Briggs. Her hands out of her pockets and on the fret board. She is poised and ready to burst. To compress her down into a single word: original. “I made a commitment to the music world to be my own songwriter and go where only I can go. There’s so much music out there that it’s not about good and bad music, but about original music. That’s what counts. That’s what makes history.” Currently residing in New Braunfels, TX, this girl only has one thing on her mind. "I write obsessively. If I have an addiction, that is it." Originally from El Campo, TX, she began her career with a small cover band out of West Columbia, TX, singing back-up and shaking a tambourine. That band broke and its remaining members formed an original band by the name of Rodger Wilko. Having already familiarized herself on an acoustic guitar she bought with her fresh scholarship money, and caving into the other members' coaxing, she decided to pick up the bass and learn to play. Rodger Wilko traveled, wrote music, recorded three albums, and played live for four years. In December of 2005, the group decided to disband, and Stephanie, along with drummer-turned-guitarist Matthew Briggs, struck out to fulfill Stephanie's individual spirit of writing. She says after years on bass, people are surprised at her ability on the acoustic guitar. One live sound engineer, attesting to her skills, said, “We’ve had a lot of guitar players I would call better than good, and many amazing, and I give Stephanie credit for some of the more unique lines I have heard in a while.” Her abilities echo fully in her debut album Spark. Upon the recommendation of Ray Wylie Hubbard, Stephanie took up her first solo project at The Zone Recording Studio in Dripping Springs, TX, just outside of Austin. “It was the best recording experience I’ve ever had. Just the freedom was enough to make me explode.” The album employs all of Stephanie’s efforts in an eclectic array of quirky pop and folk songs as well as an acoustic track showcasing her raw songwriting and guitar playing abilities. Crooning above the instrumentation of the album, are Stephanie’s poetics. Her stark choice of words with the contrast of her coy delivery create her habit of making the simple things sound beautiful. In “Conspiracy” she explains a boy’s apathetic attitude, purring “Hey you over there, riding your bike and pedaling / You say it ain’t me, it’s just the light from her hair, and the whirl of the pool, and I’m a sucker for a girl.” Other times the words themselves are the focus. “I like words. Just the sounds they make coming out of your mouth... Sometimes that’s enough to pull a song out of me.” From a song about the slow motion scene of a flash going off and capturing the victim on film, to a song about the simple joy of singing, she explores the happenings of her world and transfers them into the stories and affirmations that make the songs. Stephanie travels with her band all over Texas and up into Oklahoma. “We love to bring a new flavor into every town we roll through. It gives me the greatest pleasure to have someone tell us we are refreshing.” They are paving the way into a new era of indie in the Texas music scene. She remains positive and astute at the beginning of her promising future, and seems hell-bent on nurturing her individuality as she declares, “I could be some more... cut right through the grime.”