(E.P.K.)

Bio

Short Version

Sidney Stephens (The Big sid) is an original songwriter and recording artist based in Austin, Texas. His style is best described as Country, Rock, and Folk. He arrived in Austin in the mid 90’s to develop his songwriting and performing. He played around Austin solo and with his band for a few years then went to Santa Fe, New Mexico and started another band with his friends. A few years later, he left for Nashville and eventually started up his own recording studio in Tennessee. He recorded many local Nashville artists along with two of his own personal albums. A kid’s novelty album, ‘Bugs for Dinner’, and a Rock collaboration album, ‘Want Too Much’ under the band name, ‘The L.G.’s.’ He came back to Austin to raise a family in 2005. He left music completely for a few years but started up again with sobriety around 2019 with the ‘Origins’ album and followed it with the ‘Nashville Millennium’ and ‘Heart Shaped Rain’ albums. He’s also released a handful of Singles.

It can be said that Sidney Stephens (the Big sid) is the real deal. The poetry of his lyrics often reflect real life. The music is uniquely composed to solidify the meaning behind every song. A multi talented, well seasoned Producer, Songwriter, Composer, Engineer, Multi-instrumentalist, Recording Artist, Photographer, Graphic Designer, and Author. He’s released five albums and seven singles to date and has a wide variety of music available on all streaming platforms. He plays all the instruments on his recordings and produces the music in his very small home studio. He also designs and creates most all the cover art and produces his own online videos.

Introspective:

In an age where soulful, heartfelt, and real lyrics sometimes are set aside for the manufactured, copied, and contrived, Sidney, is as authentic as the sky, with almost untracable influences.
While not every word is buzzy, catchy, and trend following, the music he makes is authentic and honest. His writing and composition is as original and unique as can be in a world oversaturated with commercialized and inauthentic music. (Not that there’s anything wrong with shallow music. Everyone should make whatever they want.)
He listens to the music internally, opting out of the depthless algorithms of the modern playlist. There is no format for writing music shaped to conform to the rules of mass marketing. It’s a natural spring, rising from the emotions of thoughts and dreams.

Another Bio 2

Sidney’s writing style is sometimes comedic, sarcastic, and whimsical. Sometimes heavy, serious, and deep, and sometimes socially observant and irreverent. He often writes from his own introspective Blue collar to poverty life experience. But occasionally there’s an exploration in colorful imagination. When the ideas and melodies float from the ozone and oxygen in the atmosphere and somehow land in his ear and mind, he simply tries to keep a touch of subtle poetry and flair. He writes sometimes with intellect and complexity, open to artistic interpretation, and other times straightforward and easy to understand. His content is as fluid as his musical style of minor, major, and diminished chords, reflecting the shifting mood of all human nature. He’s influenced by all music and philosophy and holds no allegiance to any era or genre. He is unique in his work and influenced by all. He is as original as original is. He calls it “Countri-Cana-Blues-n-Roll” but its sound is most easily described as a tangled confection of Country and Rock. Also known as Americana.

Sidney’s musical influence comes from many sources and styles but the sound of Texas is dominant. If geography has a sound, Texas is steeped in it. You can hear traces of Steve Earle, Steve Miller, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Tanya Tucker, Roy Orbison, Buddy Holly, Joe Ely, Ray Wylie Hubbard, Christopher Cross, Robert Earl Keen, Jerry Jeff Walker, Sonny Curtis, Townes Van Zant, Michael Martin Murphey, Kris Kristofferson, Gary Clarke Jr., and Don Henley, just to name a few.

Short Backstory
I find I have to omit some life experiences to not shock anyone or be accused of being hyperbolic. I would like to say I want to forget many moments in my life, but it would be an untruth. As insane as some of my darker stories are, I think they give me a unique perspective on life. Otherwise, what would be the use of it all. I have chosen to assign my pain and experience a noble purpose.
And as much as I wish I wrote happier lyrics to make my music more cheerful and celebratory, I rarely can. I can only write what I feel, from my own perspective. It may be the way I process my own self therapy. It may be my own healing. I only hope there are others that understand it and find it interesting or helpful somehow.

I do have more upbeat songs that are based on happier times, but like all of my life stories, there’s usually something disturbing attached to it-an occurrence that I accepted as normal only to later analyze and discover it was a little messed up. I try not to get distracted in my writings and stay on topic, but occasionally there’s something that doesn’t really make sense. Those are just for me. They can be puzzles for you, or just make up your own meaning.

My basic story starts before I was even born, with my dad working in radio and booking Willie in south Texas for a short time. Then relocating to Gallup, New Mexico (for some unknown reason) and living among the Navajo Reservation. As a child, I was a self proclaimed cowboy with a heavy Nicotine addiction. I was abused by a neighbor and was actively drinking whiskey and beer at eight years old. My family became more dysfunctional with violence and alcohol. We moved many times to different towns and houses until I was on my own at sixteen. I stayed with different friends but High School proved difficult to continue. Jobs were scarce for a misfit such as myself, but trouble was always readily available. I eventually reconnected with my mom to allow myself to further pursue my education, which somehow led me to music.

I have always loved making music and writing for as long as I can remember. Throughout my childhood, I played an antique, upright piano my mom had collected as a furniture piece. Nobody played it. I traveled with a keyboard and an amp during my wayward teen years. I taught myself guitar when I was twenty-three. Later, I picked up drums, bass, and taught myself how to record. Analog, then digital. I now almost always play all the instruments on my recordings.
I moved to Austin in 1993 to learn songwriting and performing. I went back to Santa Fe and started a band with friends. We performed at Michael Martin Murphey’s Westfest in 1995. I eventually moved to Nashville in 1996 to learn even more and moved back to Austin in 2005.

Back in Texas, I was working labor outdoors and raising a family. I was also drinking more and more, struggling with pain, depression, and the difficulty of life. I stopped writing and playing music altogether for over ten years.
But I eventually decided to reclaim my life and ended my addictions. Music was my inspiration and savior. I began recording and releasing my music legacy, and after a few sober years, I started becoming more social and make connections and new friends.

Currently, I’m learning how to engage with people and be less awkward. I’m making mistakes but I’m learning. I’m playing drums and bass in local bands and getting out there. Music is now my rehab and my tiny studio is my church. I can’t wait to see what’s next.

I’m hoping to gain some notoriety and success and become fully dedicated to music, writing, and art.Realistically, the industry is oversaturated with artists and very few will find success. It makes no difference if an artist is pretending to be from the streets, or actually is from the streets. Bitterness, envy, and negativity have no place in success. I have to remind myself of that.

I have always believed in my abilities, my talent, and my drive. Even when others have not. Persistence is my biggest advantage. And my version of success is surprisingly minimal. So that’s good.

The long, storyful Backstory:

As a child, Sidney was always tinkering on the antique family piano, composing music naturally. Although music was prevalent in his early childhood with his father in the radio industry, pursuing music was not actively encouraged. Due to a broken home, nothing much at all was encouraged and survival became the focus. At seventeen, his first instrument was a basic electronic keyboard given to him by his minimal engaging father. He asked Sidney where he would go, often riding his bike miles across town to play the keyboards in a music store. It was a much appreciated gesture never the less. Sidney joined a band but soon realized the simple keyboard with a small practice amp proved ineffective.

Around twelve years old, he was handed a broken guitar from his older brother and instinctively tuned it to an open chord. He strummed along, using the separated wood face as a tremolo bar, until it completely came apart at the seams after just a few minutes. That would be his only experience with a guitar until he was twenty -one and bought an electric guitar that did not stay in tune. A few years later, he walked directly to a used twelve string hanging on the wall in a music store on Mill Avenue in Tempe, Arizona. Something drew him to it. Although he was struggling to survive, he became slightly obsessed and returned later to buy it after leaving a small down payment, a leather jacket and his drivers license. He scrounged for cash, completly depleted his bank account, and wrote a questionable check for the difference.

Just about every moment he wasn’t working at the gas station or attending the graphic design trade school, he taught himself to play, figuring out chords, and utilizing a cassette tape of a college friend taking music production classes. He also used a tape of the band, Tesla playing an live acoustic concert. He often enjoyed the solitude and echoing acoustics of the apartment complex laundry room late in the night and morning hours while he washed his clothes.

At the beginning of his musical career, he was powerfully, cosmically, divinely inspired by a songwriter showcase in Santa Fe, New Mexico and soon after arrived in the hippie cowboy cosmos of Austin in the mid 1990’s. He developed his style, started a band, and played around Austin for a few years, creating a small following, then went back to Santa Fe, New Mexico to regroup. He was making plans to head to Nashville, Tennessee and subsequently started a band with friends. ‘Stephens and Steele’ played Michael Martin Murphy’s Westfest concert before a difficult, and typical, band breakup. A little while later, he went back to Austin and started another band called ‘The Texas Maniacs’. A few years later he went back to Santa Fe and then he left again. This time heading to Nashville to learn more of the business. He eventually started up a recording studio in East Nashville called PollyDog Recording. He recorded many artists along with two of his own personal albums of a different style. A kids/novelty album, “Bugs for Dinner”, and a masterful Rock collaboration album (with the talented Artist, Nathaniel Allen) named “Want Too Much” under the band name, “The L.G.’s.” .

He married his Texas girlfriend of many years in the yard of their home in East Nashville but went back to Austin to raise a family in 2005. Although he left music for a few years, he started up again around 2019 with the ‘Origins’ album and followed it with the ‘Nashville Millennium’ and ‘Heart Shaped Rain’ albums. He also has recorded a handful of Single releases.

His personal life has been rocky starting from a dysfunctional, abusive childhood and later struggling with alcoholism, depression, and chronic fatigue. He’s sober now and focused on his family and musical path. He is grateful for sobriety and those around him that have held solid ground and allowed him to stabilize. He’s optimistic for the future and appreciates everyone who listens.

Official Website
www.bigsid.biz

Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/thesidshowonline?igsh=Mzd3YTRnY2UzM2cy

The Big Sid on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100086390771041

Music and Personal on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/SidneyStephensMusicFacebook

YouTube Channel – Sidney Stephens – Songwriter Series/Official Videos/ Raw Videos/Vlogs
https://youtube.com/@sidneystephensmusic8793

YouTube Channel – The big Sid – Songs/Videos
https://www.youtube.com/@ThebigSid4U

Sidney Stephens

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