David Brymer

Chris Beland

Harken

Jesus Birthday

When Chris Beland picks up the phone to do an interview for this bio, a friend is having a baby in the living room of his home as a chorus of roosters crow in the background. It’s an apt thing to happen to Beland — not only because his life has been anything but traditional, but also because his forty-plus years on this Earth have been replete with beginnings and endings, a constant cycle of rebirth.

The California native has weathered teenage pregnancy, drug addiction, and finding his real father at age 32 to create a discography of gorgeous work that both grapples with and pays homage to his history. From 2005’s ode to his wife and loved ones, Outer Space, to 2012’s Danger of Love, which he made with his biological father, Beland’s music traces his biography through becoming a father to losing his faith to finding it again.

When the pandemic hit, Beland became even more introspective — especially since musicians were no longer able to tour or play shows. “I wasn’t sure if I was ever going to play music again,” Beland says, explaining that it was then he decided to undertake the most ambitious record of his career thus far, “If this was the last thing you were going to hear from me, it was going to be really good,” he adds.   “It felt like I had something to speak into this generation,” Beland says of the upcoming album as another generation comes into the world in his living room. “I want to bring people together instead of divide.”