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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.”
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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.
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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.
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How 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.
Shane Boose says that, if a piece of music can be described as “alternative” or “indie,” he’s probably going to enjoy it. “My favorite band of all time is Radiohead,” Boose, who records as Sombr, tells Billboard. “And I’m a big fan of Jeff Buckley, Phoebe Bridgers, The 1975. I listen to a ton of alternative music — it’s my genre.”
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Those influences help explain why Sombr’s two fast-rising hit singles, “Back to Friends” and “Undressed,” have not only exploded on streaming services as crossover pop hits, but have also minted the 19-year-old singer-songwriter at rock and alternative platforms that have been starving for fresh new talent. On this week’s Hot 100, “Back to Friends” leaps up 14 spots to a new peak of No. 56, while “Undressed” jumps 12 spots to No. 84; meanwhile, “Back to Friends” hits the top 10 of the Hot Rock & Alternative Songs chart for the first time, bumping up to No. 9 with “Undressed” close behind at No. 13.
Sombr has been on the road over the past few weeks opening for Daniel Seavey in the U.S. — watching each day as his streaming totals grow (through Apr. 17, “Back to Friends” had earned 40.7 million official on-demand streams, while “Undressed” had earned 19.5 million streams, according to Luminate) and his crowd sizes swell.
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“They 100 percent break my brain,” he says of the streaming totals. As for the crowds, “You don’t usually get to see it happening in real time, increasing every show, but being able to see that has just put it into perspective. When I’ve had moments in previous years, they’ve never been like this. And I’ve never gotten to visualize it while it was happening in real time.”
Boose grew up on the Lower East Side and attended the prestigious LaGuardia High School, where he studied vocals while tinkering with GarageBand and Logic in his bedroom. “I made the first few songs in a more shoegaze vein, and most of those songs aren’t even out,” he says. “And then I made the song ‘Caroline’ after listening to Bon Iver’s For Emma, Forever Ago album, and I’d like to think that’s the first good song I ever made.”
Released in mid-2022, “Caroline” is indeed a sparse, wrenched folk song that Boose posted to TikTok before going to bed one night, and woke up the next morning to find thousands of reactions. He dropped out of high school, signed a deal with Warner Records in early 2023, then spent roughly two years trying to get lightning to strike for a second time with a string of singles, to little avail.
Sombr, who still writes and produces all of his songs, says that he never got impatient while awaiting his breakthrough following his major label signing. “I was just making music,” he says, “and I’m a really hard worker. I like to think that, if you really put in the hours and manifest what you want, it will happen.” On the day that he made “Back to Friends” in his bedroom, he played the finished chorus back, and felt that, with this song, it was finally going to happen for him.
Released last December, “Back to Friends” is a swirl of shakers, dramatic piano chords, fuzzed-out vocals full of post-hookup anxieties and harmonies that lob out rhetorical questions on the chorus. Along with March’s “Undressed,” a ghostly warble-along with an equally outsized chorus, Sombr has reinvented his sound over the course of two songs, moving on from the hushed singles released post-“Caroline” and toward slick, slightly swaggering alt-pop.
“I think they gave me a platform to make more upbeat music,” he says of the two tracks. “Before ‘Back to Friends,’ all my music was very ballad-y — there was nothing with a beat. I was so tired of that. I feel like this is a lot more free, as far as the music I want to create. And I wanted my show to be more exciting. I didn’t want to just do ballads forever.”
After wrapping up his tour with Seavey last week, Sombr will next hit the road with Nessa Barrett, joining for a month-long European run that kicks off on May 26 in Dublin. Earlier this week, however, Sombr announced a fall headlining tour across North America that will start on Sept. 30 — and thanks to the surging momentum from “Back to Friends” and “Undressed,” pre-sale tickets apparently sold out within seconds. (“The response has been insane,” Sombr posted on Instagram. “I hear you all. I am working on upgrades and new dates. Stay posted.”)
And while Sombr says that a proper debut album is “definitely on the horizon,” he’s trying to savor this singular moment. “The last show in New York, it was the loudest it’s ever been, and I got it in the pit,” he says before letting out a quick laugh. “It’s getting wild, and I love it. It’s all I’ve ever wanted.”
Telemundo and HYBE Latin America are set to debut Pase a la Fama, a music competition series focused on discovering the next great Regional Mexican band. Launching on June 8, the show will feature contestants vying for a $100,000 prize and a record deal with HYBE Latin America. Explore See latest videos, charts and news […]
Step by step, New Kids on the Block are taking their fans 35 years backward in time. On Thursday (April 24), the boy band announced that an anniversary reissue of Billboard 200-topping 1990 album Step By Step is arriving this summer, celebrating 35 years since the quintet’s fourth studio LP. Featuring bonus material, unreleased tracks […]
In the new trailer for the third and final season of The Summer I Turned Pretty, Belly and Jeremiah live happily ever after — or do they? Luckily, Taylor Swift has songs for either outcome.
Released Thursday (April 24), the minute-long teaser features two of the pop superstar’s most beloved tracks, starting with Lover album closer “Daylight.” The ethereal ballad plays over an ooey-gooey montage of Lola Tung and Gavin Casalegno’s characters picking up where they left off in season two — as a couple, despite Belly previously dating Jeremiah’s brother, Conrad, who is nowhere to be found for almost all of the trailer.
As the two frolic through their college campus, make out in the library and slow dance at a party, Swift’s voice sings, “I don’t wanna look at anything else now that I saw you/ I don’t wanna think of anything else now that I thought of you/ I’ve been sleeping so long in a 20-year dark night/ And now I see daylight.”
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At the very end, however, #Jelly’s romantic fantasy is interrupted by a certain intruder: Christopher Briney’s Conrad, who shows up at the brothers’ beach house and delivers the only spoken line in the entire trailer.
“Hey,” he says as a shocked Belly opens the front door on him, while “Daylight” abruptly switches to a line from a very different Swift track. “Loving him was red,” interjects the 14-time Grammy winner’s voice on 2012’s Red title track.
The new trailer is far from the first time The Summer I Turned Pretty — which is based on the Jenny Hahn book series of the same name — has featured Swift’s music. In fact, the singer-songwriter has been one of the biggest musical contributors to the show since it premiered in 2022, with “The Way I Loved You,” “Exile” featuring Bon Iver, “Snow on the Beach” with Lana Del Rey, “Sweet Nothing,” “This Love,” “Last Kiss” and several more Swift tracks finding homes in various episodes.
The final season will put an end to the messy love triangle that has fueled the show from the beginning, with the description reading, “It’s the end of her junior year of college, and Belly’s looking forward to another summer in Cousins with her soulmate, Jeremiah … until some core-shaking events bring her first love Conrad back into her life.”
“Now on the brink of adulthood, Belly finds herself at a crossroads and must decide which brother has her heart,” it continues. “Summer will never be the same.”
Season three of The Summer I Turned Pretty arrives on Prime Video July 16. Watch the trailer above.
Cornell University has canceled Kehlani’s upcoming performance, which the singer was slated to perform on campus at the university’s annual Slope Day on May 7. According to The New York Times, Cornell president Michael I. Kotlikoff emailed students and faculty on Wednesday (April 23) to make his decision to cancel Kehlani’s performance official. Explore Explore […]
Bad Bunny is hopping back over to 30 Rock to make his grand return to Saturday Night Live, with the show announcing Thursday (April 24) that the Puerto Rican rapper will perform on its season-ender episode following a musical guest debut from Benson Boone two weeks prior. SNL‘s 50th season will officially wrap May 17 […]
Five For Fighting‘s Grammy-nominated “Superman (It’s Not Easy)” became an anthem of solidarity and a No. 14 Billboard Hot 100 hit in 2001 after it was repurposed as a tribute to the victims and first responders of the horrific Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks. The gentle piano ballad on which band mastermind John Ondrasik sings “I’m more than a bird, I’m more than a plane/ I’m more than some pretty face beside a train/ And it’s not easy to be me” in his homage to heroes who have the right to bleed provided succor at a time when Americans were wounded to their souls over the deadly assault.
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Now, Ondrasik’s song has gotten a second life as a means to call attention to the estimated 59 Israeli hostages still being held hostage in Gaza in the wake of militant group Hamas’ murderous Oct. 7, 2023 attack in which around 1,200 Israelis were murdered and 250 were taken hostage.
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Ondrasik told NPR on Wednesday (April 23) that he re-wrote some of the song’s lyrics at the behest of the mother of 24-year-old hostage Alon Ohel. “When they reached out, I’m like, ‘of course. I’m honored to do this.’ And very quickly, it became clear that ‘Superman’ should be the song,” Ondrasik said, noting that some original lines, such as “Find a way to lie about a home I’ll never see” didn’t fit the assignment.
“I couldn’t have that line, ‘a home I’ll never see,’ because we all hope and pray they will see – and many of the hostages have come home,” said Ondrasik, who traveled to Israel last April to perform the song in Tel Aviv’s so-called “Hostages Square” on Ohel’s piano; he also released another song, “OK (We Are Not Okay)” last year to honor the hostages. The new “Superman” lyrics find him singing: “Found a way to fly to a home I will soon see.”
Ondrasik, 60, who is not Jewish, told NPR that for him, “this is a moral issue. It’s not political. It’s not religious. Everybody should be demanding to release the hostages. It’ll put much more pressure on Israel to end this war.”
The singer uploaded a new video for the song to YouTube on April 14 — two days after the start of the Passover holiday — with a message of hope, writing, “The strength and perseverance of our hostage families, while enduring over seventeen months of unimaginable torment and devastation, often seems Superhuman. I am honored to collaborate with current hostage Alon Ohel’s mother Idit, brother Ronen, and family and friends with this new version of ‘Superman’ to support Alon and all hostages and their families.”
Check out the new video Ondrasik recorded with footage from Hostage Square below.
Miami’s long-running festival III Points has announced the phase one lineup for its 2025 edition.
The two-day fest will feature sets from artists including 2Hollis, Michael Bibi, Peggy Gou, Darkside, Barry Can’t Swim, Indira Paganotto, Nina Kraviz, Sean Paul, Anotr, Ca7riel and Paco Amoroso, Denzel Curry, L’Imperatrice, Mk.Gee and Turnstile.
III Points 2025 will happen Oct. 17-18 at its longtime site at Miami’s Mana Wynwood. Tickets go on sale Thursday (April 24), with lineup additions to be announced in the coming months.
2025 will mark the festival’s 11th edition since it launched in 2013. The festival was founded by a trio of Miami natives, and over the last decade, has become a standout event on the U.S. electronic festival circuit, while also helping elevate Miami as one of the crown jewels cities in the country’s electronic scene.
The festival, which partnered with Insomniac Events in 2019, has a strong focus on local culture, typically booking many acts from the Miami scene and bringing in food and craft vendors who reflect the city’s thriving local culture.
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“I think it’s just very authentically Miami, and a real time capsule of Miami sonically and visually right now,” III Points co-founder David Sinopoli told Billboard in 2023. “I think people feel that when they come.”
“We’re thrilled to be bringing III Points back to Miami for its 11th installment”, Sinopoli adds in a statement. “It is not easy navigating a forward-thinking, multigenre festival in the North American music landscape nowadays 一 but I believe our commitment to our Miami music community has been the guiding force for us.”
See the III Points phase one lineup below:
III Points 2025
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Katy Perry must be feeling nostalgic for her brief time in space, as the pop star brought two fans dressed as astronauts up on stage with her at the kickoff show of her Lifetimes Tour Wednesday night (April 23).
In a clip from the show posted on X, Perry chats with her crowd at Arena CDMX in Mexico City between songs while walking around on stage when she spots two fans wearing blue NASA suits. “You guys look so good,” she gasps. “You just got back from space!”
“I want these gentlemen to come on stage, because they are dressed like my most current timeline,” she adds as the rest of the audience cheers, later snapping a selfie with the fans on stage.
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Wednesday’s show marked the first of more than seven months’ worth of performances blocked off on Perry’s global trek, which supports her most recent album, 2024’s 143. She also played several hits from past albums — while dressed in various spacey outfits and at one point suspended from the ceiling by wires — such as Billboard Hot 100-toppers “Dark Horse,” “E.T.” and “Roar.”
It was also the former American Idol judge’s first concert since returning from her 11-minute trip to space, with Perry joining Gayle King, Lauren Sanchez and more passengers on Blue Origin’s first-ever all-women flight crew on April 14. While hurtling through the edge of the Earth’s atmosphere, the musician sang part of Louis Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World” and filmed a video revealing the Lifetimes Tour’s setlist.
Upon returning, Perry emerged from the rocket, kissed the ground and told reporters that the expedition had been “the highest high.”
“It is surrender to the unknown, trust,” she continued. “This whole journey is not about just going to space. It’s the training, the team, it’s the whole thing. I couldn’t recommend this experience more … It’s about making space for future women and taking up space and belonging. And it’s about this wonderful world that we see right out there and appreciating it. This is all for the benefit of Earth.”
But while Perry has said that she views the flight as being empowering for women, many people — from Emily Ratajkowski to Olivia Wilde — have criticized the trip as a waste of resources. “What’s the point?” asked Olivia Munn on Jenna & Friends. “Is it historic that you guys are going on a ride? I think it’s gluttonous.”
The “Firework” singer hasn’t directly addressed the hate, but at Wednesday’s show, she reportedly asked the crowd, “Has anyone ever called your dreams crazy?”