Some singers accompany themselves on guitar. Others do so on piano. But Steph Johnson's instrument is her band -- a funk-based outfit that recalls combos such as War, Little Feat or Sade's backing band.

While the Encinitas singer and composer (opening for Poncho Sanchez at the Belly Up Tavern Feb. 8) relishes having a five- to six-piece combo backing her, she points out that it comes with challenges.

For one, she's still starting out -- so paying gigs aren't all that plentiful. And without paying gigs, keeping the band together on a regular basis can be tough.

"I don't believe in rehearsing every week, twice a week to do one show a month," she said by phone. "We don't have time for that -- we're all very busy."

But the desire to keep the band's sound honed to a fine edge also leads to some creative booking.

"I'll book a few weddings or private parties -- bar mitzvahs, lesbian Jewish weddings -- get them some good money."

It was only four years ago that Johnson began writing her own songs and taking her singing seriously. While she'd had music lessons as a kid growing up in Poway (with summers spent with her father in Arkansas), she said that experience didn't start out very positively.

"I kind of was forced to play instruments at an early age, which I didn't really latch on to too well because I'm not one to do well at being told to do stuff," she said.

"But I was always singing," she added. "My mom says my first time singing was when I was first talking and I sang 'Ebony and Ivory.' "

It was through her love of singing that Johnson eventually found her muse.

"The first time I really enjoyed music on my own was when I sang for the San Diego Children's Choir. I was about 9 years old."

If a love of performance was discovered through singing, the stylistic path she's taken was shaped by the music that surrounded her during her youth.

"My first album was a Michael Jackson album," Johnson said of her early explorations of popular music. "My friends and I would collect these cassette singles. They were into L7 and the whole grungy, dirty girl thing, so we listened to that all the time. Then I went from that into old '70s stuff. My mom would play old '70s stuff like Tower of Power and War, and old soul." Johnson also cited other '70s influences such as Pink Floyd and the Doors, before laughingly adding, "And then weird stuff in there, like Enya. Everybody had an Enya album."

Four years ago, Johnson decided she wanted to perform popular music -- and decided to start writing her own songs.

"I couldn't play anybody else's because I didn't know how to play," she said, laughing. "So I wrote my own."

She began honing her guitar skills so she could accompany herself at gigs, and met local bluesman Robin Henkel.

"It was the first time I had a music teacher where it didn't feel like a music teacher. So I learned a lot from that," she said.

Soon after she began tackling the music seriously, her band began coming together.

"It wasn't too long before I met my bass player, Sean Rose. He was the first person who played that I met in San Diego who got what I was doing," she said. "Since he was a working musician, he was my link to other working musicians."

Once the band was filled out with guitar, keyboards, drums and percussion, Johnson learned to sing some popular hits -- although often reaching back into the '70s for favorite material -- and they began playing in public.

"We started playing three-, four-hour gigs at bars where people aren't listening and doing cover tunes. When you're hired for a gig, they want to hear songs that they know. They don't mind my songs, and I think my songs fit in. But I don't have three or four hours of (original) material."

"I have probably, honestly, 10 songs that are my own that I can go play," she said of her songwriting progress. "We have another 10 that we're just about done with. We're going to start recording the next album this year." (The Steph Johnson Band released its first album, "Genessee Avenue," last year.)

Her immediate goal is to continue to try to build her band's following, to be in a position where she doesn't find herself performing solo gigs accompanying herself on guitar too terribly often.

"I'd rather sing and talk and laugh -- it's less stressful," Johnson said of fronting a band as opposed to being a solo performer. "I'm not a musician like those guys. If all I have to do is sing and have big girl drinks, that's easy -- that's cake."