The Nautilus Studio M31 Files interviewThe Lindells (part 1)

Studio owners Mr Bill (Nautilus Studio) and Yves LF Giraud (Studio M31) interview singer-songwriters Kim and Chris Lindell. (part 1)

For more info on the Lindells, please visit:
https://www.lindellsmusic.com/

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:28

Which is cool in a way.

SPEAKER_02 0:32

Okay, you guys peace, love, and all that good stuff. We're looking at the naughty naughty, the Nautilus Studio M31 Files, and today we have with us Chris and Kim Lindell, and the talent we have here in the southwest corner of Colorado. Just French is my mind. Oh yes. I'm sitting with them. You guys are right there, man. And uh met these guys, what, 20 years ago or so? More than that. 30. 20, 30.

SPEAKER_04 1:08

Time flies when we're having age. We're 31. Well, we yeah, we moved here 31 years ago. We met you just like a year later. Yeah. Did you guys meet here? Oh.

SPEAKER_02 1:18

Uh somewhere uh out on the uh 184 highway on a uh party that was going on.

unknown 1:24

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:25

I thought it was over at Melinski's right here.

SPEAKER_02 1:28

Uh that might have been at some point, but I recall, I think Bill Dale set it up, but like the Lindells need a drummer, and I just brought my set out and I learned how to you know. I know where that house is, actually. Do you?

SPEAKER_04 1:43

It's that one on the north side, it's always got a fire going because it's a it's not on fire though.

SPEAKER_05 1:49

No, thank you. No, no, no, on fire.

SPEAKER_03 1:51

What are they what are they burning on San Peter? Who knows? What's that? What what do they burn there? Oh no, it was just a cold house because on the north side of the Iowa.

SPEAKER_04 2:00

Oh, they have a fireplace. I thought they had a fire outside.

SPEAKER_02 2:03

No, no, no. Yeah. Fireplacement. Anyway. But we have some awesome real uh musicians here, uh bass player, uh female singing bass player. That's the best. That's you don't get any better now. I think you're beautiful too. You're a lucky dog there. Oh thanks, Bill. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:28

You're a good looking guy, too. Who owes money? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:36

So we've been catching up on old times here, and we're trying to uh jog our brains on all of the things we've done since we've uh last talked. I know. It's been a long time.

SPEAKER_05 2:49

I'm so glad for the reconnection. Yeah, me too.

SPEAKER_02 2:52

Yeah, so we now are connected again. So you'll have to come out and see my little studio, which is the Nautilus Studio part of the Nautilus Studio M31. I can't wait.

SPEAKER_04 3:04

I'm a studio geek. Yeah, you'll love it. I'd love to gig in.

SPEAKER_03 3:07

Have you never been to this thing? No. No, no, no. Well, because I have what was it, 15 years ago you built it? Oh no, no. Was it built when you still knew each other? Don't ask me about the past.

SPEAKER_02 3:19

I know what one.

SPEAKER_03 3:20

I love asking you about the past.

SPEAKER_02 3:23

I know one week in the past, and I'm looking at one week in the future as my life.

SPEAKER_03 3:28

You have said that more than once. I know. Hey, um, so let's let's organize this slightly. Uh I would love to know where you guys individually and together eventually are from. This would be a great story, all right? Okay.

SPEAKER_05 3:42

Well originally we were both from South Southern California, which is where we met in high school in a rock climbing, technical rock climbing club. And uh we would take our uh guitars out um after we climbed till our fingers bled and hands because perfect timing to put your fingers on the train. You just need something to do, you know.

SPEAKER_02 4:10

What were you rock climbing? Uh the um the eclipse over at uh Lahoya?

SPEAKER_05 4:17

No, no, this is was um in Joshua Tree. Joshua Tree, Idlewild, and eventually Yosemite. Um both in the in the um Yosemite Valley and then up in Chihuahua Meadows. Beautiful area. Yeah, just gorgeous. So we spent a lot of time in the hot country. I can you can't take the mountain out of the girl, and you can't take the girl out of the mountains, and so here I am. Um but we wanted to make up songs um as we went along, and we taught ourselves how to play guitar and write songs, and here we are. Yeah. We met in 1981.

SPEAKER_03 4:55

1981. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 4:57

Somebody gets to do the math.

SPEAKER_03 4:59

What down were you guys in?

SPEAKER_05 5:02

A place called Glendora, California. Yeah, it's in the San Gabriel Valley. Okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 5:08

I can fill in just a few gaps, maybe, because you you told the story, but um, you know, I was uh born in 1966, and then by 19 uh eighty-five we were leaving Los Angeles. I was 18 and a half, and we left Los Angeles for a road trip climbing trip. We had like the big jars of peanut butter and all kinds of flour and got choppies and stuff. Yeah. And so we traveled we traveled around California and finally ended up settling that fall in Mammoth Lakes, California, and became uh just engraved in that scene of uh it was the some of the earliest local music that they had, and so we were a part of that, and then we eventually moved in '95 uh to come out here. Come out here uh 31 years later. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:04

Okay. And that that's a a ski resort up there, and so you guys were in the fast lane uh up there, weren't you? Or was it that fast lane?

SPEAKER_05 6:12

Neither one of us ever worked at the ski area. Oh, yeah. We were backcountry skiers, telemarket skiers, yeah. For your yeah, for your mom. Yeah, lots and lots of backpacking, and um I I think I vlogged maybe less than a handful of days on the ski area. Oh, really?

SPEAKER_02 6:29

Skiing. So you didn't jump off the corners there at all. No, I'm not that brave.

SPEAKER_05 6:33

No, I I I like living. Yeah, did you, Mr. Bell?

SPEAKER_02 6:37

You sound like I jumped off the corners. Oh good, you did my own. I used to live in San Diego and uh learned how to ski in um uh Utah, but uh when once I learned how I went up to Mammoth here and there. Yeah, it was beautiful. And uh so there was a a music scene there in that uh little town, and you guys were probably a big part of it. We tried to be. We tried to make a music scene. Yeah, it was a more churches.

SPEAKER_04 7:02

It was rumors, you know.

SPEAKER_02 7:03

Back then, boy, I betcha that did a turnaround uh at some point.

SPEAKER_05 7:07

There was a curious um mentality for a lot of the clubs venues uh there that if you weren't a um hair band Yeah, or expanded cover band covering that you couldn't really get gigs. So we were kind of like an alternative folk rock, psychedelic kind of um we're not covering really anybody else's music, we're making up our own.

SPEAKER_02 7:33

I know that's what makes you guys so awesome.

SPEAKER_05 7:35

So we did a lot of shows in the park for the arts council and that sort of thing, and that was really fun.

SPEAKER_04 7:40

I bet um I always remember the guy that's like you'll never make it in this town if you don't play covers. Yeah. And I'm like, okay. And I he's right, I never made it yet. But I never played covers either. Yeah, there you go. That's the thing. The whole season. I have to say we can really speak to you for that. That is awesome because I'm we've never done that.

SPEAKER_03 8:01

And yeah, I've done plenty of it, but I hate it. Yeah, it got me to leave Florida because of it. So yeah. You got your sons. We love it. Your sons are beautiful. Well, thank you. And so do yours. So all yours.

SPEAKER_02 8:18

Words are easy for you to say. So what kind of drugs have you been doing this morning?

SPEAKER_03 8:23

Uh it's called H2O. I recommend it. It's really good. We're all on water right now. Yeah, water. Yeah, actually, it's funny. Sometimes I have a scotch. I don't say it.

SPEAKER_05 8:33

But that's after a heavy day of work the night, you know, the day before. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 8:37

Oh, sleepless night, you might as well just keep going. Right, there you go. There you go. Oh my gosh. So um it's funny. I didn't realize. Um I was born in '66, too. So you're kidding.

SPEAKER_00 8:48

I thought you were your. When's your birthday?

SPEAKER_03 8:50

Uh February 1st. Okay. I'm I'm August 9th. Okay, so you gotta call me sir. Oh I'm your elder.

SPEAKER_05 9:02

I'm a ma'am.

SPEAKER_02 9:03

Yeah, exactly. We don't need to know though. He looks like he's 40. Yeah, I I know he's a youngster. And you can call me Gramps. Oh, Bill.

SPEAKER_03 9:13

Mr. Bill, just fine. Yeah, okay. So I'd I'd like to go a little bit back slightly on on your youth and what got you into music? Was it when you met that you both decided, hey, why don't we know, right? You already had You already had.

SPEAKER_05 9:32

Although no, you said you learned. You want me to go? Yeah. Yeah, well, you tell your story.

SPEAKER_04 9:36

She was already fairly entrenched in music with her family from a very young age. When I entered the picture, she was president of the high school rock climbing club, and I they had an old Yamaha classical sitting in the living room. Okay, because her mom was a uh She injured her wrist at work. She stuck a big piece of glass in her wrist. That's okay, I can tell my story. But um so she stuck this thing in her wrist, and she was this guitar guitar was supposed to be therapy. Okay. And so uh I started playing it while I was waiting for her to take her to school in the morning because I was I was sixteen, she was seventeen, and so I'd play this g this classical every day.

SPEAKER_03 10:27

So now yeah, so neither one of you had any kind of train classical. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_05 10:35

So um I don't remember when I haven't been singing. Okay. Um so as a child we could have been horsepacking in the backcountry for a fishing trip with my grandparents, uh, we could have been on a car trip to go camping, anytime we went anywhere. We could be riding horses and we're just gonna all start singing. And so my brother and my sister, and whoever else is in the car, and everybody has a harmony part, and we just make it up as we go. And thankfully we all had a pretty good ear for how things should sound. Um, and it sounded pretty good. And so that just kind of morphed into playing piano at the age of six, and then um that went away for a little while, still singing, and then uh into grammar school, and I got to pick up a saxophone as an old really amazing software saxophone. Um I don't think it's in the same key as well. For some reason, I needed to get some more information about that for somebody who actually knows I do. I do. Yeah, but in this environment everything's dried out and it it doesn't really work anymore. Um but that was my first love, and then I went to baritone saxophone, and this was in um our school orchestra. You played a berry? I did, I played a baritone saxophone. It did, it did. They put me on a really tall, tall chair. Um the funniest part about it was that we didn't have a bassoon in the guitar in in the orchestra, and so the conductor would transpose the bassoon parts for me to play on the baritone saxophone. So um, yeah, walking to school. Oh god. Oh yeah, it's gotta be heavy. No wheels on those wheels on it. Yeah. So after the orchestra thing, um, you know, you have to go to do competitions and sight read, and you know, they're like, here, do this. And then you're like, I didn't know you could do that. I can't do that anymore, and I'm not sure I want to.

SPEAKER_02 12:37

Oh no, you definitely don't want to, but to have that in your quiver of having done it, that's uh all a cumulative assuming it doesn't work. Really good training, I think.

SPEAKER_05 12:47

Yeah. And I think the most important part was just being able to learn how to hear where your part is in all that. And I and I have to confess, I um I got kicked out of orchestra because I got tired of reading the music and I would put my odd jazz parts in. Nice. And the first chair saxophone player, he's like, Fire and get her out of here.

SPEAKER_02 13:12

You're like Lisa of the Simpsons. Yeah. I I think so. Pretty much.

SPEAKER_05 13:17

I mean, my Grammy would play, she would play all these beautiful jazz greats, you know, and everything, and I would try and play along with them when I was a good one. Heck with those little flies. I love jam. Yeah, I'm gonna jam. I know. It was so much fun. I'm not sure the neighbors appreciated it, but that's awesome. Yeah, it was fun. And then um, no music for a while, and and then my mom had her accident at work and um got the guitar, and she didn't really ever really pick it up, unfortunately. But I did. And I would sit out on the front porch and teach myself all my favorite funkies music and how to sing so that I could have just have something to do.

SPEAKER_02 13:58

And so when you guys got together, you probably both played guitar, and then when you decided that we want to go gigging, we need a a bass. That's the thing.

SPEAKER_05 14:10

Well, there was two drummers, three guitarists, four, if you count me, as a guitarist, and then nobody to play bass. And I'm like, fine. The drummer had a bass and a beautiful fretless ibnest. Oh nice. So I'm like, sure, I'll pick up the bass. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 14:27

Yeah, it was obviously it worked.

SPEAKER_02 14:29

And I think uh when I saw you guys, I think you were playing a fretless too. I recall something really going, wow. I don't know. Do you do that anymore? Yeah, fretless.

SPEAKER_05 14:41

I I all my basses now are nope, no, the B bass. The B bass is a five string and it is fretless. And it's one of those crazy funky things that three octaves. Yeah. Do you play it?

SPEAKER_04 14:52

Do you bring it to game or is it uh is that for reloading? No, we we don't allow her play at it, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 14:59

It's for recording. It's for recording, it's it's for um songwriting. We need to get it there. You know, I mean you get a certain tone, a certain sound that you really want to you want to play with. And um it's like you know, sketching.

SPEAKER_02 15:12

Yeah, new new tunes, that kind of thing. You got the heart of a bassist. So many people get thrown on bass and they go, okay, I'll play bass well. I think I can play guitar better in this guy. Oh, no, no, no, no. You know, but uh to to really get into the bass, the bass is awesome. Oh, I love the bass. I do too.

SPEAKER_05 15:32

I feel like it's this this connection to the earth, this really deep resonant sound. Uh my brother played timpany, so th there's those low tones that are just in my in my DNA at this point, and then he gets to do all this filigree. He he he jokes sometimes that that I taught him how to play guitar, which isn't really true, but um he taught himself how to play guitar. But as far as a lead lead playing, yeah, he did teach himself, which is really cool. She's gonna keep you then.

SPEAKER_03 16:04

Oh, I will, I will. We'll do it for each other. He's a good one.

SPEAKER_04 16:08

But um So there's an interesting side point here is that like you're I know we're gonna do a a live song coming up here, but uh that song uh was written by me and Kim, but uh it was recorded at the mixed in Mankus last year, last March. So they just released a video yesterday of the song that we're gonna play today.

SPEAKER_05 16:32

So just kind of uh a strange coincidence because it was like, oh what song do we want to play on Eve's interview? And I'm like, I don't know, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. Let's do this one.

SPEAKER_03 16:42

So at the time, did you know this this thing is gonna be a little bit more?

SPEAKER_04 16:46

No, that came in yesterday morning and they they kind of messed up a little bit of editing and I we updated it, but it's on YouTube, so it'll be it'll be interesting to see if it'll come in.

SPEAKER_05 16:55

It was a the credit search just needed some polishing.

SPEAKER_03 17:01

Yes. Go ahead. But we won't end the name of the song.

SPEAKER_04 17:08

It's called Wire the Circuit's Open. Okay, why is the circuit? Wire the circuit's open. But you could think about W-I-R-E. But this is wire.

SPEAKER_02 17:20

Yeah, I got you. I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 17:22

I wrote it somewhere. Uh are you an electrician?

SPEAKER_03 17:27

I think so. Electrician. Electrician. Electrician. All right, well, guys, let's let's get the stuff. Get your axes.

SPEAKER_04 17:35

Okay. Get our axes together. Yeah. What do you want to say about this song?

SPEAKER_05 17:40

I think this is a beautiful song that Chris wrote. Um it's called Wire the Circuits Open. And I think it speaks to uh when we fall down and mess up and how we can get back to photography, and how we can love each other better, and uh show up better in the world. Yeah, yeah. I'll just I'll leave it there.

SPEAKER_04 18:07

Sure. It was uh written uh in November of 2017. Why are the circuits open? There we go.

SPEAKER_01 18:37

It's about a day. It's other things, it's about a day, it's about the two, it's about the day, it's other two, I'll give it to the day, but then we'll just go.

unknown 22:41

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 22:43

He keeps trying to talk to me while you're trying to talk to him. No, no, we gotta stop it. Well, because you guys knew each other, too, which is awesome.

SPEAKER_02 22:50

I know. Catching up. It's only been 30 years.

SPEAKER_04 22:53

Yeah, it's only 30 years.

SPEAKER_03 22:55

Yeah. We got a lot to talk about. It's beautiful, actually. Hey, so let me ask you one thing. So thank you so much for that song. It was beautiful. Um you had a date on when you wrote it, which is I I never thought of writing that 17, I think. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 23:09

November. I always write what the date is when I write a song and the location. So a lot of them are at Summit Range, which is where we live. Or it could be anywhere out in the in the desert or wildernesses of the West. I never thought of that I could, you know, preserve that.

SPEAKER_02 23:29

Yeah, yeah. And when you wrote those, you he had a memory, and now thank God you wrote that down because you need them now. I agree. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 23:39

I think part of it came from uh somebody who's important to me that we just saw is Bruce Coburn. Oh, I like Bruce Coburn. And uh we just saw him in T2 song. And he did he was 80 years old and tell you still. But he always would write where uh uh the date and the place where he wrote a song. And so we've been following him since 1988. So I kind of gave you that sense of I'm gonna be able to do it.

SPEAKER_05 24:09

Yeah, it's actually really cool.

SPEAKER_04 24:11

I think it's great, I just think it's a good idea. And so as a total aside, Bruce played in Mangus, and I got to all his manager guitars, his very expensive guitars, and we both had the same haircut at the time. We had this one. Yeah. And uh and we're setting up, I feel like we're really getting along. And then he goes, Chris, what's the history of Mancus? And it's like I was starstruck first of all. Right. Then I was like, Oh I think it has something to do with cows and apples and uh whether I'm and he was just like, oh god.