Melbourne / Naarm, Australia
STEPH
STRINGS
Singer-songwriter. Fingerstyle guitarist. Storyteller. The girl who started busking on Melbourne streets and ended up on the Bonnaroo stage.
There is a particular kind of musician who does not need a band. Who does not need a loop pedal, a backing track, or a light show. Who walks on stage with one guitar and fills the room so completely that you forget to look for anything else. Steph Strings is that musician.
Born and raised in Melbourne — on Naarm country — she started piano at seven and guitar at nine. By her late teens she was busking the streets of the city, playing to whoever would stop. Most people stopped. She has a way of making you stop.
Her debut EP Allegoric Oceans arrived in 2018. Wildfire followed in 2022. Then Lion in 2023 — nominated for the Environmental Music Prize — and Cradle Mountain in 2024, which earned her an AIR Award nomination for Best Independent Blues and Roots Album. Each record was a step further into the world. Each tour was a little bigger. And then, in January 2026, came Feel Alive — her debut full-length, debuting at No. 17 on the ARIA Charts — and the world caught up with what the people who had been watching already knew.
Origin
Melbourne / Naarm, Australia
Genre
Folk · Blues & Roots · Fingerstyle
Latest Album
Feel Alive — Jan 9, 2026
ARIA Charts: #17 debut
Influences
John Butler Trio · Kim Churchill · Ziggy Alberts · Tash Sultana
Audience
1.1M combined social · 167K Spotify monthly listeners
"This album is everything I've dreamed of. I want people to dance, cry, dream and feel."
— Steph Strings, on Feel Alive
Debut Album
FEEL
ALIVE
Produced alongside Tim Hart (Boy & Bear), with collaborations from Alice Ivy and Jared Adlam, Feel Alive is both intimate and cinematic. It weaves folk, rock, country, and pop with her trademark intricate guitar work and emotionally resonant songwriting.
The album traverses themes of gratitude, longing, freedom, and self-belief — from the dust-particle opening of "Gratefully" to the live-recorded power ballad "Melbourne Blue" (which she describes as what would happen if Missy Higgins and Julia Jacklin had a child), to the fully instrumental piano piece "A Storm In April".
"Devil Woman" — written during a family jam session in Brunswick East and debuted live in front of 5,000 people at Edmonton Folk Music Festival — has become the crowd favourite. She recorded it twice because the first version didn't slap hard enough.
The Road
SOLD-OUT SHOWS
ON FIVE CONTINENTS
Before Feel Alive was even finished, Steph had already played Rolling Stone Weekender in Germany, Woodford Folk Festival in Australia, Hillside and Edmonton Folk Festivals in Canada, and Les Escales in France. She opened for The Cat Empire, Vance Joy, and Ziggy Alberts on major international tours.
The 2026 World Tour is her biggest yet — North America in March, Europe in April, Australia in the southern hemisphere autumn. She is, as one reviewer put it, a musician's musician: guided by instinct, grounded in humility, and driven by a deep connection to her craft.
2026 World Tour
WHERE TO
FIND HER
Discography
Feel Alive
ARIA #17 debut · Produced with Tim Hart
Cradle Mountain
AIR Award nominee — Best Independent Blues & Roots
Lion
Environmental Music Prize nominee
Wildfire
Steph Strings Records
Allegoric Oceans
Debut release · Synesthesia Records
"I pinch myself every day that I get to make music and travel the world."
— Steph Strings