We’ve all heard of bands chasing the demo. But, indulge me for a second, and just picture all those cuts – chock-full of charm and flawed charisma – that have been left on the cutting room floor in the pursuit of perfection. Imagine if you could gather up an armful of those moments and conjure them into a living entity.
Tulsa, OK’s BRONCHO seems like a pretty good example of what you might get. A band that feels like a concentrated essence of ‘midnight demo,’ built around guitarist and frontman Ryan Lindsey’s distinctive, hip-shaking chug and mumbled vocals.
“It's always, ‘Let’s go back to that thing that feels good,’” he explains. “We duct tape it and make it work. Whatever magic stumbles into our laps, we try to exploit that as much as possible.”
Take new track Original Guilt as a case in point. The songwriter notes it’s “almost been on every record since our second” – but he refused to re-cut the guitar demo to make it work. Finally, 11 years later, that same take has crossed the line.
“I was like, ‘That’s all that matters here! To make sense of it we redid the drums, changed the tempo, slowed down the guitar part, and matched to the key that it ended up being in.”
You can imagine the conversation with the band: ‘The good news is my part stays!’ Lindsey admits: “Maybe I'm crazy! But I rely on that moment where it's like, ‘No, that’s the version. Fuck it. Let’s change everything else.”
A stuttering early sync hit – the earworm that is 2014’s Class Historian – tipped BRONCHO for wider attention. Since then they’ve evolved from brawling punk upstarts to dark stoner pop, and somehow making palm-mutes sound sleazily seductive. Along the way they’ve won fans, endorsements and support slots with everyone from Queens of the Stone Age to Jack White and, at one point, Billy Idol.
Now their fifth album, Natural Pleasure, sees Lindsey – still armed with little more than a battered Silvertone and a tiny amp – take the punk jitter of their early material into a slower, blissed-out, and occasionally acoustic world. It’s all underpinned by that swirling, hypnotic chugging style that makes him one of the indie world’s most uniquely enchanting players.
What were your main guitars for Natural Pleasure?
“My main guitar that I’ve used pretty much from the beginning is my Silvertone 1448. It's a ’62. It’s got one lipstick pickup, a chambered body underneath, so it’s like a hollow body and flat wounds. I do 0.11s, kind of that lighter vibe; and I throw a 0.16 on the B so I can bend it – so I end up buying a bunch of 0.16s.
“My acoustic is a Mexican-made classical guitar that my dad had. I stole it from him at one point, early in Covid. I always loved playing it when I’d go over to my parents’; at one point he just let me borrow it and I never gave it back. Imagination, I Swear, Surely and Way into Magic are all with that guitar.
“Then this Ventura bass is [producer] Chad Copeland’s bass. I didn’t see him playing it a lot, and I was like, ‘Can I borrow that?’ So ‘the Borrower’ still has that. Most of my gear is like, ‘Hey, can I borrow that?’ I’ve pieced together all my friends' gear, except for my guitars. I bought those. Everything else seems to wander in –and then I keep it!”
Why do you think the Silvertones have worked so well for you?
“The size was the first thing. I like how small they are. I love the way they look. I found one on Craigslist in like 2008 for like $150 – before they started going up in price – but it was all bent and crazy.
“A friend of mine was like, ‘Dude, you should take it to Joe Bob in Oklahoma City.’ So I get this address and I go up to the store, and there’s this camera; bars over his door. I definitely feel like there's gonna be an altercation, like, ‘I’m going to have to really explain myself here…’
“He opens the door, and he’s the most peaceful older gentleman with a ponytail; inside he’s got this amazing library world. He sits down on the floor, takes my guitar, and he’s like [in a zen voice], ‘I can do this. I’ll call you.’
“It was so bent up; but he calls me the next day and says, ‘It’s ready.’ I’m like [awed], ‘Thank you, Joe Bob!’ I’ve been playing it ever since – I’ve got low action on them. They play real easy.”
For your brand of chug, that pickup position between the neck and middle is ideal, isn’t it?
“It is perfect for my world. And it really kind of created my world, in combination with Chad, who has these little 10-inch Kingston solid state amps. A lot of our records are the Silvertone through that little Kingston. The way it breaks up just felt like the best distortion. For tour, there was a time where I was having heavier amps, and now I've got this Vox. It’s just a little 12-inch amp and it breaks up really easily.
“With this record there’s a little bit more cleanliness going on. So I’m trying to figure out how to take some of that off in moments where I don’t want it to be so distorted. We played a benefit show in February and all my new, clean stuff was breaking up like everything else. So that’s my next thing – to figure out how to do that dance.”
How are you handling the acoustic challenge? A lot of people struggle with acoustic tone live.
“Yeah, there’s just so many variables. It takes a lot for it to be like, ‘Oh, that acoustic sounds cool.’ It’s never happened for me. But recently I got an acoustic pedal. My buddy has a store, Tulsa Guitars, and I saw this acoustic pedal in the cheap bin, but I was too embarrassed to get it. I bought one anonymously online, so nobody knew! I had to go on the dark web to get an acoustic pedal. And I love it.
We got on the Billy Idol tour. The first moment we walk out, some voice from the crowd said, ‘You suck!’ It was perfect
“When we started practicing for our show in February, I ended up just leaving it on the whole time. So that's where I’m experimenting currently – my Silvertone, that chambered body, going through an acoustic pedal. And I like it. The only thing that doesn’t happen, which I miss, are the finger squeaks. I wish some company could make an acoustic pedal that has the squeaks.”
You’ve played all manner of shows and support slots across your career. Have you ever crossed paths with any bona fide guitar heroes?
“We toured the whole US with Billy Idol and so I got to watch Steve Stevens every night. On and off the field, he’s awesome – a really great, nice guy, and also just a killer on the guitar. He’s a part of so many songs that have really meant something to me.
“It’s so long ago now that I can't remember specifics, but I spilled a beer on his pedalboard. It’s all coming back to me… Im like, ‘Maybe there’s some trauma that I buried’ – and it was spilling my beer on Steve Stevens’ pedalboard. I wiped it up and didn’t tell anybody. It’s foggy in my mind – I’m like, wait, I need to do that hypnotic regression therapy!’”
On the time you spilled a beer on Steve Stevens’ pedalboard…
“Yeah! I’ll be hypnotized and be like, ‘I spilled a beer… Steve Stevens…’ ‘And how did it make you feel? ‘Terrified!’ But we had a lot of respect for them. They are legends. And that tour was so great.
“The first show, we drove from Oklahoma straight to Philly and got on the Billy Idol tour. And I do remember this: the first moment we walk out, I hear some voice from the crowd saying, ‘You suck!’ It was the perfect way to start the tour!”
You played with Jack White earlier this year. How did that go?
“That was perfect. It was one of those shows where we were hit up out of nowhere. I get a text the day before: ‘Do you want to play Cains Ballroom tomorrow with Jack White?’ We’re getting ready to release a record and doing all those things, so we don’t have any gear ready. Last time I talked to [co-guitarist] Ben, he’d sold all his guitar pedals!
“He was like, ‘I think I can find some pedals…’ So in 24 hours, we got together and played, then got to watch a Jack White show. It was a good time. He’s just on a whole other level. Josh Homme from Queens of the Stone Age [another former tourmate] is on another level, too. Those dudes, they're ‘real’ guitarists, you know?”
There’s an almost mythical atmosphere around Josh Homme’s tone. The Peavey Decade is supposedly his wonder amp.
Peavey goes all the way back with me. It’s like very blue collar, the cheapest thing you can get
“Yeah, they got a lot of the old Peavey stuff. The first time Josh saw us, I had a Peavey 212 Reverb – Peavey’s version – and I just loved it. It was kind of like a chorus reverb. I toured with that forever. It was so heavy!
“We were playing the Teragram Ballroom in Los Angeles, opening up for Guided by Voices. Josh came to see us; I remember opening the back door and running into Josh. We’d talked on the phone but we hadn't met. I immediately hugged him!
“Some of our first convos were about Peavey. He loved that I was playing Peavey – and when we ended up touring with them, I saw why. Their whole guitar world is a lot of cool, old Peavey.
“My older brother, Jake, his first electric guitar was a Peavey Patriot, and it came with a little Peavey 10-inch combo. So Peavey goes all the way back with me. It’s like very blue collar, the cheapest thing you can get. It’s cool to come around and be like, ‘Oh, I like the way that sounds.’”
You’ve truly developed your own sound. What advice has helped you get there?
“I think getting comfortable with what I’ve got with me, and relaxing. That’s when I tend to feel right on the guitar. When I first started with Starlight Mints, it was the first time I was playing electric, and I was really uncomfortable. When I realized that I needed to just relax and dig in, that's when I felt most like a guitar player.
“Now, if there’s something new, it’s like, ‘How do we get to that place quicker?’ And this is coming from playing live or performing it. That’s different from recording – then it’s just calm chaos where it’s like, ‘Let’s just try this…’ Something that I like happens there. But actually performing it is knowing it, relaxing about it, then digging in. I like solving that problem.”
- Natural Pleasure is out now.
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