SPOTLIGHT: Chris Beland
INTERVIEW
INTERVIEW
☆ BY NOA JAMIR ☆
Photo By James Collington
A TROUBADOUR IN THE TRADITION OF BOB DYLAN, JACKSON BROWNE, AND NEIL YOUNG—singer/songwriter Chris Beland has weathered teen pregnancy, homelessness, and finding his biological father at the age of thirty-two. Love, grief, music and faith are elements that have always been part of Beland’s life, which is why when a friend offered Beland a gig playing for folks in hospice, he was happy to oblige. That experience of playing songs for people living out their last days on earth inspired Beland’s latest EP, The Waiting—a gorgeous, earnest reflection of the singer’s innermost world, colored with his experiences of love and loss (released August 1, 2024 via Santa Barbara Records).
The Santa Maria native possesses a sincerity that translates to his songwriting. When he sings, you believe him, and you want to lean in and hang onto every word. It’s this very quality that makes his songs feel so personal and captivating, as if he’s singing them only to you. Beland makes music for the dreamers of the world— for the people who stare longingly out the passenger window on long drives and get lost inside their daydreams, for the people-watchers at the park, for the person sitting alone and journaling at the cafe, for the gardeners, collectors, and tender-hearted romantics.
When Beland and I connect over Zoom for our interview, he’s sitting in his car in the parking lot of a San Luis Obispo brewpub. It’s his birthday, and to celebrate, he’s agreed to do a last minute gig playing guitar at the pub with one of his dear friends. “This is my first ever Zoom call,” he shares, “Can you believe it?”
Chatting with Beland feels like catching up with an old friend, as if we’re picking up right where we left off. Beland speaks intentionally. He gives each question an equal amount of contemplation and reverence. He’s not afraid of conversational silence. Instead, in true storyteller fashion, he gives it a seat at the table.
In this in-depth conversation with LUNA, Chris Beland opens up about the profound experiences that have shaped him into the extraordinary artist he is today as well as the stories behind his upcoming projects and collaborations.
LUNA: If it’s okay with you, I’d love to start from the very beginning. What is the first memory you have with the guitar?
BELAND: The first memory I have is with my grandpa, I called him “PoPo”. One day, he walked me out into his man cave, which was the trailer in the backyard. Inside the cave was beer and cigarette smoke. I remember walking in. It was really gruff. He reached up to the top of the shelf and pulled out this little dark brown guitar. It looked like an old Martin, but it didn’t have a name. It was really small. It was about my size. I think I was only five years old. I still remember it vividly because I took it everywhere. I have these memories of hearing songs on the radio and finding the notes on one of the guitar strings. I would start playing the song with just that one string. Eventually, my brother Jason was like, “You need to play with more than one string”. My brother gave me my first guitar lesson. He gave me the first few chords I needed to learn, and then the whole world was my oyster.
LUNA: What was some of the music you were playing along to as a kid?
BELAND: When I was a kid, my family would put “On the Road Again” by Willie Nelson on the radio, and wherever I was in the house, I’d make my way towards the speaker and sit down. That was the first song I learned on guitar. I think after that, I learned all the three-chord songs, like “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” and “Every Rose Has Its Thorn” and just whatever else I could figure out. Then I ended up getting really into drums. I took drum lessons and I got a drum set. The drums were more of my main instrument when I was a teenager. I played drums in a punk band. It was a really cool band because there were all these different ethnicities in it. The lead singer was Jewish, the guitar player was Korean, and our bass player was only fifteen but he looked like he was forty-five. [laughs]. Drums were just always so much fun to me, so when I started playing the guitar, it kind of went hand-in-hand for me since they’re both rhythm instruments.
LUNA: When I looked into your older music, I noticed there was a point where your last name changed from “Chabot” to “Beland”. What was the reason or story behind this name change?
BELAND: That story is very pivotal for me. My stepdad adopted me when I was five years old, and he gave me his last name, which was “Chabot”. I knew it was my adopted last name, but I always thought my biological father was my brother and sister’s dad. He disappeared out of our lives before I was born. He would come back once in a while to see my brother and sister, but then he would disappear again. When I was thirty-two years old, I drank a lot of wine one night, and I had enough courage to start asking questions. I ended up tracking down my so-called biological father. He told me over the phone that he never thought I was his son, and that’s why he was never in my life. So I said, “Let’s do a DNA test”. It turned out that guy wasn’t my dad. I had already started working on my second record, and that’s when the truth came crashing down.
My mom confessed to having gone to a Ricky Nelson concert in ‘78—my dad was the guitar player. They had a one-night stand, but she wasn’t sure if I was his son because it was just a one-off thing, and she was married. She tracked the guitar player down and emailed him, and then he reached out to me and told me, “If I’m not your dad, you’ve gained a friend for life, but if I am your father, then I’m the happiest man in the world”. We did a DNA test while he was in Australia. He flew all the way to Bend, Oregon to meet me after finding out he was my dad. Ever since then, we’ve been best friends. As soon as I found out my last name was “Beland”, it ignited a calling. I’ve always known I loved music, but it confirmed to me that I was supposed to do this.
LUNA: That’s incredible. It must’ve been so affirming to find out that your dad, your literal DNA, is a musician just like you. Have you and your father worked on any music together?
BELAND: We’re doing a new project with Santa Barbara Records, and next month we’re playing together with a symphony. It’s a tribute to David Crosby, and there are five other artists in the collaboration. My dad and I chose “Eight Miles High”, which is a really psychedelic, innovative song. I didn’t know how we were gonna be able to pull it off because it’s such a cool song and I didn’t want to ruin it. But my dad sent me his version of it, and it was beautiful. That ended up being the template that we recorded with. Tariqh Akoni [director of A&R at Santa Barbara Records] is one of the most amazing producers, and he’s putting all these rad guitar parts on it. Then, there’s an original song that I wrote for the album. It’s about my paternal grandparents that I never met. My grandpa was the family matriarch. He and my grandma were in love; they were the quintessential couple. They both passed away really close to each other. When I first met my dad, he sent me a picture of my grandpa, and I used that picture to write a song. The song turned out so beautifully because my dad is singing harmony on the chorus, and he also wrote some of the lyrics in the chorus. It’s like there’s three generations inside of one song.
LUNA: That’s so beautiful. What, if anything, do you think you’ve learned from your father, whether musically or just in life in general? Do you notice yourself emulating certain things from him?
BELAND: Gosh that’s a good question. When I was younger I think I could’ve answered that question quicker than I could now [laughs]. Right now in my life, I’m going through a divorce, and all my kids are out of the house, and it’s just me and my dog, Dixie. I’m living on my own for the first time since I was fifteen. I’ve always had a muse for my music. I was always writing songs for my wife. Now, I’m journaling and writing about what I’m going through as far as these new changes. I’m in a season where I don’t know what’s next, and it feels very new and uncomfortable but also exciting. I don’t know what I’m trying to emulate exactly, but I feel lighter and more joyful. I feel less inhibited. I’m learning how to play the harp. I have a garden. I’m trying to just enjoy life and write songs that are honest. I think that’s where I’m at.
LUNA: It sounds like you are your own muse right now, which I can imagine might be really hard because it’s such a big change. I’m really sorry to hear about everything that’s going on. I can relate just as a child of divorce, and I understand the pain of it all from that perspective. Speaking of, I know you have a few children? Would you say that they are some of your inspirations?
BELAND: They are always a part of the reason I get up in the morning. But now that they’re out of the house and living their own lives, it’s a little bit of a different scenery. My place in their lives isn’t so much being a provider and taking care of them. Now I’m just there for moral support or if they need any money or something [laughs]. My daughter, Harmony, and I are recording an album, and that’s been really fun. Her songs are beautiful. We’ve been writing together since she was five years old. Now she’s twenty. And my three sons– I just love them differently. They’re all very special to me.
LUNA: It seems music quite literally runs in your DNA. It’s something you, your father and now your daughter all share in common, which is beautiful and quite a rare thing to see. The fact that you’re working on two projects with them at the same time is really special, too.
BELAND: I’m actually working on three projects right now!
LUNA: Oh wow, that’s a lot going on!
BELAND: It’s insane, but I’m balancing it all out. There’s no deadline or record label telling me when to finish them, so it’s just kind of on my own time. The project with Santa Barbara Records is all mapped out, we did the tracking and everything’s being produced. They’re gonna have the record out in June. But with Harmony, I think it’s been a year that we’ve been working on our project. I think we’re on track seven right now. It’s been slow, but we’re going at her pace. And honestly, the recording process is just a good way to bond. I’m gonna be sad when it’s all finished. But then, I have my own project too. I have all these songs ready and there’s a local producer who’s getting all my demos for that.
LUNA: What aspects of your life is the new music exploring?
BELAND: Every time I pick up an instrument now, I feel like my fingers are on fire with something to say. If I just pick up my guitar and have my notebook in front of me, sometimes a song can come together in ten minutes. I don’t know if the music I’m writing is about me all the time. Sometimes it’s just about the things I’m reflecting on. It’s an endless thing; I keep digging into it.
LUNA: That’s wonderful. I read your bio, which mentions a little bit about your relationship with religion and how that was something you took very seriously for a number of years as a young adult. Where would you say you are now in your faith, and how does it influence your music, if it at all?
BELAND: That’s another question that I could’ve answered a lot quicker when I was younger. I got married at 15. And then at 16, I was homeless and I was taken into a rehab for youth. It was at a Pentecostal church where they spoke in tongues and music would go on for hours. That’s pretty much where I learned to play guitar. But with that also came some really harsh dogma and things that I carried with me into adulthood. There was a lot of stuff I had to unravel and reexamine. I donated a kidney about eight years ago. I was a dialysis technician, and one of my patients came to one of my shows. At the end of the show, I told her, “I think I’m supposed to give you my kidney”. I did all the tests, and I was a perfect match. After the surgery, I just began to believe God is love, and all of my questions and all the things that didn’t make sense to me about religion, I swept off the table and I just put what I believed on the table. It made my faith a lot more simple. I still feel very close to that side of me. I guess I’d call myself a mystic right now. I don’t belong to a church and I definitely don’t get on a soapbox and tell people that they’re going to hell if they don’t believe what I believe. I used to be confident enough to say that to people.
LUNA: That’s so interesting. I can kind of relate. I feel like I’m personally trying to overcome some deep-rooted religious dogma and trying to open my mind up from that experience, while at the same time still maintain a personal relationship with God and with what I believe. It can be hard to find a balance.
BELAND: You know what I found out though? I was calling myself agnostic, even an atheist sometimes. But after the surgery, I realized that you can’t leave God. It’s like trying to live without oxygen. You can call it by a different name, but that flame inside of you never leaves you.
LUNA: That’s really beautiful. I feel like I needed to hear that. Thank you for sharing that. We’re coming up on the last question here. Thank you for your time and for giving such thoughtful answers. If you had a birthday wish that you’d be comfortable sharing with readers, what would you wish for?
BELAND: If I say the wish does it still come true? [laughs]. Actually, I blew out a candle today, and I wished that my music would be taken more seriously and that doors would open up for me in ways that I’ve always dreamed about. It felt a little selfish to ask for that instead of world peace or something like that. But it’s something I’ve always wanted. I want to play shows where people come to see me and know my songs. That would be a great feeling.
LUNA: Do you have a favorite show memory?
BELAND: I played at a theater two months ago opening for John Hiatt. That was the most people I’ve ever played for. When I got out there, I was so nervous. I was shaking. Then I sat down in the chair. I could feel the energy of the room and the way the songs were landing on the audience. It gave me confidence. I felt like I belonged there. I felt like my music belonged there.
