Q&A: Broncho’s Ryan Lindsey on the Ease of ‘Natural Pleasure,’ Their First Album in Seven Years
INTERVIEW
INTERVIEW
☆ BY JANET HERNANDEZ ☆
RYAN LINDSEY KNOWS WHEN A SONG IS COMPLETE — The BRONCHO frontman will sit with a melody, words will come to him, and by the end of the process, the song feels good — and so does he. Sometimes it’s almost instantaneous; many songs on Natural Pleasure are close to their original versions. Lindsey can hardly believe it’s the first BRONCHO album in seven years.
Building on Double Vanity’s sonic direction, Natural Pleasure is a reverb-drenched record, described as “Kid A through a haze of pot smoke.” The band’s sound has gone through many iterations, from the raucousness of Can’t Get Past the Lips to the swanky Bad Behavior. But Lindsey pays no mind to labels.
“I don't think any one record should define what we do,” he says. “Let's do what feels right and what makes sense, and then let all that collectively define us.”
With no deadlines for the album and no record label to report to, BRONCHO had the freedom to create whatever they wanted, at their own pace. The pandemic forced the band to hit the brakes on touring, but gave everyone the time to reset, create, and in Lindsey’s case, parent.
He speaks about the band’s upcoming tour when a single bubble floats into the room. Under the Oklahoma sunshine, Lindsey’s son Oscar plays with his bubble-blowing lawn mower in the background. In another room, Lindsey’s one-year old son takes a nap.
“Leaving town for the first time was really hard for me,” he shares. “Then I had to get on tour for a second, and everything hit me again, where it's like, ‘Oh yeah, this is what I love to do.’ This feels good, and I also miss my family. I can have both those things and deal with them.”
Lindsey and his bandmates Nathan Price, Ben King, and Penny Pitchlynn will hit the road in June, and perhaps celebrate 15 years of BRONCHO down the line. After all, Lindsey doesn’t plan on retiring anytime soon. “Penny [Pitchlynn] did mention we can be 60 and playing shows. And I was like, ‘Yeah, we can do whatever we want.’”
LUNA caught up with Lindsey to reflect on BRONCHO’s legacy, the end of their recording hiatus, being a frontman and father, and the otherworldly story behind “You Got Me.”
LUNA: What was it like to hold the secret that album five was on the way? I'm sure you've heard a lot of fans asking where it is.
RYAN LINDSEY: Well, I'm not good at keeping secrets. I was pretty loud about it to anybody within earshot, and it's something I've been working on since 2020. Nothing really changed from 2020 to 2025. And then there's some songs that took a second to hit for me. “Save Time” had a couple different versions. “Original Guilt” on the other hand is a song that we've been recording since our second record. That blew my mind, because I didn't realize it went that far back. But yeah, I would send all my friends that I thought might be cool with me sending them a demo, the song. I've kind of been sharing the record for five years, in pieces. It's nice to actually have it done and get to put it out.
LUNA: Folks call this period a recording hiatus, but you were playing a couple of shows and working on the record quietly. But I'm wondering what led to your decision to step back from the studio for a couple of years?
LINDSEY: It wasn't really a conscious decision. We ended our last tour cycle right as COVID happened. We were planning on working on a record, and that just slow burned that whole time. Which was good for me, I kind of needed to stay in one place. I really loved that, and so I guess I took my time. It's a way I would love to write all the time, just let the songs dance around in my head. The fact that it's been four or five years kind of is insane to me, because it felt so fast. We had two kids during that period. Oscar was born in 2022, I knew he was going to be born in January. I was like, “OK, I need to finish this record.” That didn't happen, and so I kept working on songs, but then our second son, Rocky was born a year ago. So I knew, “OK, before Rocky is born, I gotta finish the record.” We got it done. We're putting out this record ourselves, so it kind of leaves you with unlimited time. You don't have a timeframe and need to put stuff out, which I totally understand. But it's just like, “Whenever it's done, we'll do it.”
LUNA: To your point, I think there's a huge pressure in the industry to keep churning out music and feeding the algorithms. That kind of cycle can get very difficult. So it's nice that you were kind of able to shut out some of that pressure by doing the record yourself.
LINDSEY: Yeah, totally. We've played some shows, and that helps too with resetting. It’s great to even get the four of us together. Sometimes time flies and you haven't seen your buddies in a minute. The hang was just as important as anything else. Even if we're not necessarily getting any tasks done, I think we end up getting a lot done just being together, because you start thinking creatively in a way that you don't when you're by yourself. I think both of those times are important. I like being by myself, and I love being with people.
LUNA: I bet you had a lot of solo time during the pandemic, and were also yearning to see your buddies again. What was the transition like, coming out of a tour and then being still?
LINDSEY: I loved it. I really needed it, and wanted it, and I do really have two sides of me. Then we did a tour in the summer of ‘22. It was scary at first, because we just had Oscar, so leaving town for the first time was really hard for me. Then I had to get on tour for a second, and everything hit me again, where it's like, “Oh yeah, this is what I love to do.” This feels good, and I also miss my family. I can have both those things and deal with them.
LUNA: Speaking of family, I wanted to talk about “You Got Me,” since it feels so earnest and precious, a very sweet song. My assumption is that it's about fatherhood. Was that a big theme for you?
LINDSEY: It's crazy because I wrote that before I found out [my partner and I] were going to have a kid. So I kind of was like, “I have no idea where this came from.” She might have already been pregnant at that point, but I don't know. I was trying to figure out where it came from, what it meant. At that moment, I could only think that it had to do with my cats. It's kind of a song for anyone that I got, you know. My cat, my kids, I guess those two, because it's talking about their mom. Cats are kids.
LUNA: Sonically, I saw someone described Natural Pleasure as “Kid A through a haze of pot smoke.” I heard the singles and thought to myself, “They should totally book Desert Daze.”
LINDSEY: I love Radiohead, so I'm way cool with being mentioned anywhere near them.
LUNA: I know you said melodies come first. What drew you to this kind of hazy sound?
LINDSEY: Throwing reverb on stuff can feel really good, especially on slower stuff, which is what we did on Double Vanity, too. Double Vanity was slower compared to our other records, and when we got this big reverb unit, we just threw everything through it, and it immediately felt like songs were done. Natural Pleasure is a little bit different from Double Vanity, but kind of the same. You know, it's like, how does this feel best to me? And sometimes ambiguity feels best to me.
LUNA: I want to shout out your producer, Chad Copeland. You've worked with him for all your records.
LINDSEY: I think it's special when everybody's involved, because people's interpretation of whatever is in my head can be, lots of times, way better than what I was imagining. I like to be fluid, and in those moments I don't want to hold really tightly to the original idea. I just want to hold whatever feels really good. The way that Chad can interpret what I'm bringing in is very magical, and I'm really appreciative for him in the process. And everybody in the band, everybody's interpretation, I love. It's like I'm talking to them in one language, and they're interpreting in their language. For Chad, another great part about working with him is just us getting to hang out again. We all have been friends forever, and we all work on a bunch of different things together. It kind of feels like camp anytime we're all together. When we didn't fully know what COVID was, it was like, “Oh, should we all be in a room together?” But we found our moments to get together through the pandemic and then coming out of it. Then it was like, “Oh, we can do whatever we want now. Let's all share this queso,” or whatever.
LUNA: I want to acknowledge that it's been 15 years of BRONCHO. You formed in 2010, and now it's 2025—
LINDSEY: I'm going to go off your stats, because I never know. And so that's cool, all right. I never know what to say. I'm like, over 10 years. I know it's been over 10 now.
LUNA: 15 is huge, though. Some of the bands you've played with no longer exist, which is kind of crazy to think about. But do you think you'll commemorate 15 years in any way? There's a lot of bands that also go on a tour and play a record in full, or something like that. Any conversations about that?
LINDSEY: Yeah definitely. We've talked about, “We should do a Double Vanity tour.” It kind of opens things up. I don't think you necessarily need a reason to tour anyway, but I've always heard, other friends I have are like, “Yeah, we just want to tour.” And somebody's like, “Why? You haven't put anything out.” But I think it's like, who cares? Just go play. But we do have reasons now, because we can be like, “Let's do the Double Vanity tour,” and we play that all the way through, or the Hips [Just Enough Hip to Be Woman] tour. Or Bad Behavior at some point will, when we run out of things, we'll be like, “Oh, it's been this long now. We got an excuse! Let's do it.” So, yeah, we do talk about stuff like that. And it's nice to hear you say that. It's like, yeah, somebody else says we can do it. It's OK.
LUNA: I want to see the Bad Behavior at 50 tour, something like that.
LINDSEY: Penny [Pitchlynn] did mention we can be 60 and playing shows. And I was like, “Yeah, we can do whatever we want.”
LUNA: For sure. I wanted to wrap up by asking you, what have you learned through Natural Pleasure, either about yourself or the project of BRONCHO?
LINDSEY: I think it further ingrained what the process already was, which is just having a song and making sense of it, and doing that over and over until you got a record. That's what I've done every record. Keeping it simple like that is the way that I'm able to function. Leaning into that more and more, and really stepping back and seeing how each record can be different is proof of that process. I'm not thinking that we have to sound any particular way. I just want it to feel as good as possible. However those things shake out, do these songs feel good to me? And if they do, then it's done and this is a record, at least in that moment to me. It's about ultimately making a decision, saying it's done and feeling okay about that.
LUNA: Listening to your intuition about the song and the record.
LINDSEY: Yeah, just not think about if it makes sense or think broadly, “Is this us?” I don't want to go there because I don't work well that way. It's not as inspiring. Our first record was kind of punky. And then the second record was different enough that I remember hearing some of that chatter, just in my peripheral, you know. I knew at that point I didn't want to go down that path. I don't think any one record should define what we do. Let's do what feels right and what makes sense, and then let all that collectively define us. So maybe we're more complicated than we try to pin ourselves down to, which I like. I'm okay with being complicated. I like things that are complicated. I think I'm more attracted.
