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August 8, 2007
Accounting Major Turned Musician
Take a twist of bluegrass, a shot of blues, add an infusion of “redneck hippie” and that’s the style of Ryan T Briggs.
Written by Gretchen Pressley
Ryan T. Briggs, '01, was named "Rising Star of the Year" by Texas Music Awards.
From Buddy Holly to Waylon Jennings, the cities of West Texas have been the birthplace and inspiration of many musical careers. Ryan T. Briggs is no exception.
The 2001 graduate was named "Rising Star of the Year" by the 2007 Texas Music Awards. This award comes on the heels of the success of Briggs' debut album, released in 2006.
"More and more lately, wherever we play, folks have heard of us," Briggs said with a laugh. "And we’re finally getting a little radio play."
Briggs’ style of music has been described as country music with a "twist of grass and a shot of blues."
"I can remember being a little kid in my parents’ 1970s van listening to Willie Nelson and Kenny Rogers," Briggs said. "In Texas, you can’t escape country music, especially at college in Lubbock. We spent most of our time listening to country. Once you bring a guitar into that picture, it’s only natural to be driven to play in that style."
Despite a stint playing the trombone in junior high, Briggs had no plans to be a musician. In fact, he started at Texas Tech in 1996 as an accounting major.
"I didn’t have a great desire to do accounting," Briggs said. "It was more like I needed to pick a major and graduate. But I am so glad I got that degree. I use those skills all the time – just having a degree and being exposed to what you need to know in life is so important. Even though I’m a singer and a songwriter, I still have to run my business. Having that financial knowledge has really helped to make my dreams a reality."
Briggs joined Beta Theta Pi, which just happened to be the fraternity of fellow musician alumnus, Pat Green. On the weekends during his freshman year in 1996, Briggs and his fraternity brothers would watch Green perform. Inspired, Briggs decided to get a guitar of his own.
Briggs and the Redneck Hippies turn heads everywhere they go with their country, grass and "a shot of blues" style.
Click to enlarge.
Star of the Murdough Laundry Room
"My dad had always played guitar, but I never took to it," Briggs said. "I'd always get frustrated and quit. But once I got to college and was exposed to a healthy dose of live music, I got a hankering to play. I’d go down in the laundry room of Murdough and practice so I wouldn’t bug anyone."
In 1999, Briggs started the Texas Armadillos, his first band, who debuted at the Blue Light, a well-known bar in Lubbock’s Depot District.
"I would love to hear a recording from back then," Briggs said. "I have no idea if we were any good, but we had so many friends and fraternity brothers coming out that we felt like rock stars. Without that college network, I may not have had the confidence to chase music like I did. It’s very cool to get that kind of supportive energy from folks, and it’s really what keeps us pickers going."
To Arthur Andersen and Back Again
After getting his degree in May 2001, Briggs halted his music career, despite his growing popularity, packed up his bags and moved to Houston to accept an accounting position at Arthur Andersen. As a newcomer to the corporate world, Briggs had a rude awakening as he took a front row seat for the fall of Enron Corporation that occurred late in the year of 2001.
Arthur Andersen subsequently went out of business and after watching thousands lose everything, Briggs became disenchanted with the corporate world and decided to find another line of work.
"I just saw so many people lose," Briggs said. "That made the time in Houston seem much less significant. It is really easy to spend 50 years chasing that dollar and it doesn’t seem to make much of an impact on your happiness. I realized life is short and I would rather spend time doing something I love."
Briggs first album, called LeT iT RoLL, was released in summer 2006.
He quit in 2003 and came back to where he’d gotten his first taste of success – West Texas. Briggs enrolled in South Plains College, where he immersed himself in the associate’s musical degree program. His first semester there, Briggs won a spot as vocalist and guitar player with "Thursday Night Live," a televised monthly concert. He also was awarded Outstanding Male Vocalist in Bluegrass.
In June 2004, Briggs began playing with a band in Lubbock for the first time since his undergrad years. His group, Ryan T. Briggs and Co., had a successful year playing at venues such as Jakes Sports Bar, Bash Riprock’s, the 4th on Broadway Festival, Hub City Brewery, Buffalo Wild Wings, Crickets, Gaslight, the Texas Café and many others.
The Road to Fame
After graduating from SPC, Briggs left for Austin to launch his music career. But first, Briggs had to battle the thousands of other potential musicians and get his name to the top of the lists.
"One of the hardest things about this business is that the actual performance is only about 10 percent of the time you spend," Briggs said. "The other 90 percent, you’ve got to practice, but there’s also a huge amount of time you have to spend booking gigs. Most of the time, when you send your CD to a venue, they put it in a stack of a hundred others. You can get lost in the pile. It ends up being about how many times you call them. If you call them 20 times, you’ll get the gig. If you call them 10 times, you might not."
Even though he chose a hard field to break into, Briggs and his band, the Redneck Hippies, have turned heads everywhere they go. In less than a year, Briggs and his band released their first album, LeT iT RoLL, and by the end of 2006, Briggs and the group had performed 65 shows. One of Briggs’ songs, "Las Vegas, West Texas," has been the number one most requested song on Radio Free Texas, an internet radio station, since December 2006.
"Making an album was fantastic," Briggs said. "It’s definitely a whole other ball game from writing songs and playing them onstage. You’re making something that’s going to last forever. It’s like writing a book, once you are finished and you put it to press, that’s it. So it was really really cool."
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Story produced by the Office of Communications and Marketing, 806-742-2136.
Photos courtesy of Ryan T Briggs, Jill Ribich and Ginger Biskup
Web layout by Gretchen Pressley