Stephanie Fagan

Stephanie Fagan married, started her second record, moved to Germany, waved her husband goodbye while he went to Iraq, returned to South Carolina, finished the record, played to a standing room only CD release party, and went home to Germany--all in less than a year. The twenty-something songwriter from the country takes it all in stride, and has already written her third album while her husband serves our nation.
Fagan describes her first effort as "trying to sound like a singer-songwriter," but Heart Thief comes from a more personal and genuine moment in her life, post-college, pre-marriage, in a comfortable limbo of adulthood.

Fagan wrote the first single, "Beautiful Man," as a "platonic love song" to her former roommate.  Thematically, her songs cover everything from being hungover in a greasy spoon diner to being irritated with oneself for obsessing over a former love to a sweet-sounding "I hate you" song.  Her tunes are catchy, but not bubble gum.  With a cast of players including nearly every professional musician in her hometown, the tunes are layered with instrumentation and ambient sounds, reflecting the public folk music that greatly impacted her appreciation for German street performers.  Stephanie tells an amusing tale contrasting the complex pedal steel that only took an hour to record with trying to get the sound of gentle wind chimes, which took five hours!

Fagan is a self-described "lyrics snob," with melody  and instrumentation coming in far behind.  She also is a product of her generation--she grew up listening to singles, and only recently has discovered the pleasure of an entire album.  Interestingly, this has led her to re-examine some of her former favorite songs and find the artists' deeper catalogs and histories--a completely novel concept to Fagan!  Prior to the last two years, she could not even identify artists, simply individual songs, but at the encouragement of the producer, Missy Jones of Yonder Music, Fagan began to immerse herself in albums from start to finish and found that the cohesive concepts greatly improved her own writing for this record.

Stephanie's voice needs no "fairy dust" to bring forth meaning beyond her lyrics.  Her live performance, whether backed by a full band, in an acoustic duo, or just with her guitar, remains true to the recording yet stands on its own.  If you enjoy her live, you will appreciate the album, and vice versa.  Heart Thief accurately reflects songwriting to which many people can relate and enjoy.