The first time I call Ryan Lindsey, he doesn't pick up, so I leave a voicemail. 15 minutes later, he texts me and asks if he can call me back in an hour. I say of course. Once we're finally on, I ask him what he's been up to.
"Oh, I was rollerblading through my house," he responds, naturally.
Lindsey is the guitarist and vocalist of Broncho, the Norman, Oklahoma, based indie art rock quartet whose music you've probably heard ... even if you didn't realize it.
From the HBO series "Girls" to a Kate Hudson commercial to Netflix's "Santa Clarita Diet" series to the recent Ed Helms and Christina Applegate reboot of "Vacation," Broncho prove you don't have to be Los Angeles- or New York City-based to be commercially successful in music.
"I love living here [in Norman] -- the fact we get to travel and see a bunch of other places makes it nice to come home and chill.... I think you can use it to your benefit in certain ways, because you're not like anybody else, you know? For me, if there's a ton of the same thing, I get bored. I've always been okay with being different," Lindsey said.
"But there's times where I'm not sure that we are that different," he added.
When you first listen to Broncho's new album, "Bad Behavior," you might not think it's all that different, either. Dig into it a little, and the subtleties and oddities of Lindsey's songwriting will start to reveal themselves, landing him somewhere between the weirdest bits of Mick Jagger and David Byrne.
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"I was the youngest of three brothers.... My parents really encouraged us to do multiple things ... choir, little league -- a mixture of a whole lot of things; I sang, acted. I got a lot of different things going on. It's fed into being in a band and being able to create whatever we want to," Lindsey explained.
But don't mistake rollerblading through the house as a flippant gesture. If anything, it's indicative of Lindsey's micro-politics and representative of the feeling of liberation he embodies.
Maybe that's also what makes "Bad Behavior" such good driving music.
"We believe in these things, in social justice, we live that life ... being fair to people and treating people with respect. I figure that would come across if anybody were to meet any of us," Lindsey said.
"Where I see us getting to, is to a place where all is equal and fair and everyone can be playing on equal footing. In a lot of ways, we're pretty lucky to be where we are and being able to do what we do.... That is pretty unique, and it's something I don't take for granted," he added.
Broncho headline Casbah on Wednesday, Feb. 13. Get tickets here.
Rutger Ansley Rosenborg has been with NBC SoundDiego since 2016. Find out more here.
