Seph Custer

Seph Custer is a singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist from Southwest Virginia. For his first 7 years in music, his career revolved around playing lead guitar, banjo, slide and mandolin for numerous rock, americana, blues, punk, alternative, and traditional bands. With a desire to combine his love for a wide range of music, and a shortage of musicians to perform the required parts, Seph embraced the role of front-man for the first time in 2014. Since then, he's fined tuned his sound over the course of two studio albums and over 600 live shows, combining his diverse music taste with his skill set from several instruments; all delivered with only vocals and a modified guitar. Seph Custer delivers high energy solo performances utilizing techniques from guitar, mandolin and bass to create a soundscape on a single instrument that rivals some 3-piece bands: no looping or pre-recorded tracks required.

Seph has been featured in The Floyd Country Store’s annual tribute concerts, covering Bob Dylan, Gordon Lightfoot, Carole King, and Paul Simon. In 2015, Seph's music was so well received at Callaway Brewing Company, they named a small batch German Wheat Ale "Sepheweissen." Seph Custer & The Papa Tom Band were included in Floydfest’s 2017 “Artists on the Rise” competition. In 2018, he became a member of Brackish Water Jamboree playing mandolin, joined them on tour, and performed alongside them in the “Rockn’ to Lockn” competition. He’s also appeared in Virginia Brew Hub Magazine, Appalachian Jamwich Magazine, The Roanoke Times, Blue Ridge Rocks, City Magazine, Roanoke’s Down By Downtown festival, The Nor-folk Festival, Pink Moon Festival, Blacksburg's Rock the Blocks and Steppin' Out Festivals, and WDVX's Blue Plate Special.

His first solo album, 'Where You Are' was released on January 19th, 2016. 'Where You Are' consists of 8 tracks, including 3 songs with violinist Laurel Brooke. It has been featured on 101.5 The Valley's Music Place, The Roanoke Times, and on various blogs online. 'Where You Are' was recorded, mixed, and mastered at Windfall Studios by Dave Fason in December of 2015.

Seph's sophomore album, 'Beginning to End' features 12 original songs, touching on many genres; Americana, Funk, Bluegrass, Singer-Songwriter, Folk, Blues, Old-Time, and Rock, all performed with only guitar and vocals. 'Beginning to End' was recorded live on November 1st at Windfall Studios - engineered, mixed and mastered by Dave Fason, all on site. It was released worldwide on November 18th, 2017.

As well as being a performer and composer, Seph teaches acoustic & electric guitar, mandolin, banjo, ukulele, bass, violin, slide guitar, lap steel, dobro, and music theory at Downtown Music in Rocky Mount, The Handmade Music School at The Floyd Country Store, and Fret Mill in Downtown Roanoke.