Bishop Briggs: The Best of What’s Next

Bishop Briggs is sinking to the bottom of a body of water. Her face is obscured as she submerges under the ripples, but you can tell it’s her by her double buns. A rimshot rings out—it doesn’t sound like a snare drum, but like someone banging on a door that’s been chained shut—and as the sound resounds, Briggs’ face appears on the screen.

This is the opening shot of the video for “River,” the 24-year-old singer’s biggest single. When we see Briggs, she is wearing round glasses and her ever-present choker, and a washed-out effect is employed to the video giving it an eerie effect. Briggs begins to convulse like a demon in Jacob’s Ladder.

“The director for that was Jungle George, and he’s such a visionary,” Briggs tells me. “Whenever we’re together, I feel like it’s the goth kids sitting in the cafeteria just coming up with these dark concepts and dreary visuals.”

The video’s Lynchian aesthetic, which features Briggs donning a bag over her head à la The Elephant Man, is a clear indicator that Bishop may be a pop star in search of a widespread audience, but that it is the audience who will have to adjust to Briggs’ vision and not the other way around. She is authentically uncompromisingly herself.

Briggs co-wrote “River” with her producers and bandmates Mark Jackson and Ian Brendon Scott. The song is about a passionate yet tempestuous relationship on the brink of destruction. This energy is realized by Briggs’ vocal performance during the emotional chorus in which she belts, “Shut your mouth, baby stand and deliver / Holy hands, ooh they make me a sinner.”

When I ask Bishop what moment in her career she’s most proud of, she cites writing “River.” It was the first time she collaborated with Jackson and Scott, and she sensed right away that they had created something special.

“There was no one excited about us. We were just in this little room. No one had heard of us, but it was a moment I was really proud of because it was something we had accomplished together, and I could have only have hoped that good things would come from it,” Briggs said.

Her hopes came true. “River” moved up to the number one spot on Hype Machine’s popular charts and reached number two on Spotify’s Global Viral 50. Six months later, and Bishop Briggs was making her television debut on The Tonight Show with the song. Briggs was all energy during the performance, hopping around the stage, never letting on that she was channeling her anxious energy into excitement.

“I want to say I’ve never been so nervous, but I did just play the Rose Bowl, so that was very nerve-racking as well. But it was just another surreal moment,” Briggs said of playing The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. “This year has been a complete whirlwind, and everyone that I have met—especially the whole Jimmy Fallon experience—was super kind and supportive, which I think helps my nerves but ultimately, of course, the nerves won.”

As if playing Fallon weren’t a big enough milestone, Briggs also just finished touring with Coldplay, hence the Rose Bowl appearance. Before the shows, band members would crowd around a communal ping-pong table, which is where Briggs first bumped into Coldplay singer Chris Martin.

“I was heading out to the stage, and that was my first time meeting [Martin], and he was so genuine. I think it’s always really crazy when someone like him says, ‘thanks so much for doing this,’ because you’re just like, ‘What?’ This is a huge dream come true for me, so to [work alongside] someone that down to earth and someone that’s made such a huge imprint on the alternative world is a huge blessing,” Briggs said.