BRONCHO’s frontman, guitarist and primary songwriter Ryan Lindsey is walking around a room in his new Tulsa, Oklahoma home with a yardstick over his shoulder while somehow conducting a Zoom interview. He explains that he is “hanging things on the wall that need hanging, along with some “light baby proofing” in the room, which he calls his “Imagination Station.” The drywall is unpainted and sealed with white spackle, and the recent father of two says he is considering keeping it that way “because whoever spackled that room did such a great job, I’d hate to cover it up.”
Lindsey is not a fan of ornamentation, and BRONCHO’s fifth full-length album, along with its title, Natural Pleasure, makes that clear. The record, which drops April 25, marks a major departure from the Tulsa-based band’s previous albums. Unlike its previous release, 2018’s Bad Behavior, which offered up a harder-edged blues-washed sound, or its bop-tastic 2014 indie classic single, “Class Historian,” Natural Pleasure is a hazy, dreamy, organic sounding confection where the music takes center stage, and the lyrics can be harder to determine than The Kingsmen’s version of “Louie Louie.” Although BRONCHO’s muscular rhythm section — drummer Nathan Price and bassist Penny Pitchlynn — front the mix, Lindsey’s whispery falsetto and his and Ben King’s gentle guitar work set the tone for a soothing, record that’s perfect for these troubled times. Edible optional.
As he wandered his Imagination Station, Lindsey told Billboard why five years elapsed between Bad Behavior and Natural Pleasure, how fatherhood has affected his artistic process, and recalled his trippy visit to Elvis Presley’s Graceland. (This interview was edited for length and clarity.)
It’s been seven years since BRONCHO’s last album. Why so long?
You know, it’s weird. When I hear that number, it sounds way larger than the amount of time in my mind that it took. I think the pandemic made time bend a little differently. That whole foggy period took up a big chunk of time. Part of it is also that my girlfriend and I had a kid in 2022. Building up to that, I was like, “OK, I’ve got to finish this record before he’s born.” I didn’t finish it. Then it took some time after him being born for me to get back in that zone. Then we found out we were having another kid, and I was like, “OK, I’m really going to finish it before he’s born.” Right before he was born, I was finished, and he just turned one.
BronchoHow does your artistic process work in terms of the other members of BRONCHO?
The songs live in my head first. They are on a loop in my mind and in my world for a while. Then at some point, either we get together, or I start recording stuff and sending it to everybody. Then we get in our friend Chad Copelin’s studio in Norman [Oklahoma], who we’ve done every record with. It’s just a couple of hours away. We see what makes sense in that realm, and it’s a mixture of adding things, maybe trying new versions of things and then coming back to the original tuff that really felt good. Lots of times we end up using a pretty good chunk of that stuff because we can’t beat it.
The album has a dreamy vibe. Where was your head at when you were writing these songs?
I was actually writing them was before I even knew a kid was coming. Like, “You Got Me.” It’s as though I was writing about my kids, but I hadn’t even found out we were having them yet. Weird stuff like that happens in the writing process.
You wrote the line “You’ve got me and you’ve got your mom” before you knew you were having your first child?
Yeah, I had no idea where it was coming from, but it all felt so right that I figured, maybe it’s about our cats. Then Jessica tells me we’re having a kid, and I was like, well, that’s crazy. I just wrote him a song. I think something from somewhere was giving me the heads up that he was on his way.
A lot of songwriters and artists say that their work seems to flow to them from some sort of divine power.
Every time I hear someone speak that way, it makes total sense to me, because I think the process is about being open and letting something come in. I don’t know if it’s come in from my own mind or from the other side of the veil or wherever. But I’m open to it, and things stick around in my head and loop over and over. Whatever lasts the longest through that period is the stuff that ends up being used.
Your bio for this record says that the song “Original Guilt” is about inheriting Christian guilt from the part of the country where you live?
I grew up in a religious world, and so I think guilt is just something you just have. I feel guilty, and I try to have the most fun with that that I can. That song happened just like any of our other songs. When the melody feels right and is looping in my mind, or playing and singing dummy vocals over and over, certain words start to appear. For whatever reason, “original guilt” just came out, and I thought, I know this. It’s like you’re digging slowly for bones and trying to not disturb the bone that you want intact. But there’s a lot of stuff to swipe away.
That song is interesting, because when we started to get things together for this record, I found these videos on our YouTube page that I had no idea we had posted. And we were working on “Original Guilt.” That was the second record, so it’s like 2013. It blew my mind that that song had been around for a few records. That happens with a lot of stuff for us. A song will get kicked to the side and then kicked up to the next record. This one had been on that roller coaster until this record.
It feels like it belongs on the album. The songs all fit together, even though some are danceable and some are cerebral and moody.
I never could have planned that. You just have to experience it and decide in that moment whether it makes sense. It was this moment where you know that your project is late, and you know you’ve missed the extension on your project. You know, you’re in a freefall, and suddenly you realize you’ve already done the project. That’s like doing records for me in general. The last time we were in the studio, we had left with the sense that, “Okay, we’ve got a lot of work to do — we’ve got to do this and this and this” — and then I had this moment where I realized, “No, it’s already there.” It felt like I won the lottery.
You’ve chosen to stay in the Tulsa area. How does that environment influence your music?
Partially, it’s having the space and time that I might not have somewhere else. Things can be slow here if you want them to be, and I take advantage of those moments where I can get lost in something. There was a period where I had all the time in the world. Then it was, maybe I’m taking too much time, and now I have to get it done. The decisions feel the most right when I’m suddenly hit with, “I’d better do this, or it might be another couple of years.” A lot of the record didn’t change much from when the first songs were recorded.
“Save Time” is the only song I can think of that changed. We slowed it down a bit and added a guitar part that Chad played, which tied the thing together. With some songs you just go on a little adventure until it all falls into place. If we hadn’t gotten there with it, it would be on another record down the road. There are songs that I thought were definitely going to to be on this record that didn’t end up on it. I can only imagine that they’ll be on another record when they start to really click.
You often have to listen to BRONCHO songs closely and several times to determine the lyrics — especially on this one. Is that intentional?
I wish people could understand me quicker. My mom would say, “Enunciate.” Ultimately, I’m not thinking necessarily of the vocals as communication in the language sense, but more of a communication emotionally. There are times where I’m like okay, let me try to really pronounce these words, and it never feels as good as when it’s in the moment and I forget that there are any rules I’m supposed to follow. So, I guess, apologetically, I wind up in this place where maybe I’m not understood that well, but I feel better about it. And then, my hope is that maybe someone will discover what’s being said in the process and that excursion maybe makes them closer to the song.
How has parenthood changed your artistic process?
So far, it’s been great for it. I tend to work or create as I’m on the go. If I have a ton of time and I’m by myself, things don’t always happen. It’s when I’m doing stuff that things seem to start happening in my head that excites me. And in that respect, it’s been good. But also, this record was started before I knew this was happening, so I’ll know more maybe the next record. I’m still writing songs, and I’m excited about stuff that is next. I want to be inspiring to my kids and that inspires me to keep doing what makes me happy and being myself. That’s ultimately the most powerful thing that I can give or show them.
Are you going to tour behind the album?
Yeah. We’ve carved out these times where we could knock some shows out, see some people, come home, change some diapers, be with my family and go back out. I want to be here, but I also want to play shows. It’s all an experiment.
The Flaming Lips are also Oklahoma-based. Do you ever hang out with Wayne Coyne or any of those guys?
Yeah. Wayne texts me pictures of his kids a lot, and I love having that connection with him. We’ll send each other kid pics. I’m friends with a lot of that crew. Some of my good buddies are in the band and they’re good big brothers to have here — and inspiring, because they work hard, and they keep going. Seeing somebody do that locally on such a large scale is very motivating and inspiring.
The music business has changed a lot since your last album. What has become easier, and what’s harder?
I don’t have personal social media, so my only interaction is if we make a short little clip for the band’s [socials]. I like being on that side of creating the visuals. You can visually let someone see where you’re coming from — paint a picture of where the sound is coming from. So, we’ve gotten to a place where we’ll do all the artwork ourselves and pretty much all the video stuff on this record.
Those were my questions. Anything else you’d like to talk about?
I went to Graceland in 2017 or 2018. My girlfriend and I just drove there. And I had a magical experience there. You’re walking through the house, and you can look upstairs. You can’t go up there, but you know Elvis’ room is up there. I could just feel that he was in there. It could have been the edibles, but I’m almost positive he was up there. And when we went out to his racquetball court, I had another little experience there. He’s got this indoor racquetball court, and he’s got a piano out there. They have his music cranking through these speakers in there, and that’s where he was before he went in [to his bathroom] and ultimately died. He was out there in the racquetball court, and they were like, “Elvis, we’ve got to go play Buffalo.” It was the last plane out of town — but it’s his plane, so ultimately, he can go whenever. Then he made his way into the house.
Are you a big Elvis fan?
Well, I took the tour. I am mesmerized by something that is so big. He’s so iconic it’s hard to wrap my mind around the full mystique. You go see the place, and you’re like, “It’s a house.” But you can sense the spirit there of this entity that had such an impact on the world. in a way that is very interesting to me. Here in Tulsa is The Church Studio, which was Leon Russell’s studio. It’s now a museum and studio that you can tour and book studio time. We recorded a good chunk of our first record in there. We had some buddies with the keys to the kingdom, and they let us in there. We found boxes in the basement that had tapes labeled “George Harrison,” “Brian Wilson,” “Tom Petty,” “John Lennon,” etc. that we figured were sessions Leon had done there with these guys. If you ever find yourself in Tulsa you should definitely go see it, I highly recommend it, and think it’s a magical experience.
What other musical artist falls in the Elvis category for you?
I want to go to Dollywood. That’s my next thing.
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