Few of Brendan Lynch's friends took him seriously when in 1993 the budding singer-songwriter told them he would get a record deal. Then, he was waiting tables for a living in Santa Barbara.
"Nobody believed him when he said he was going to L.A. to be a rock star,"says MItchell Sjerven, who worked with Lynch at the restaurant Acacia in 1993 and who now co-owns Meritage. "Now, wow, here he is."
Lynch promised he would return in six months, which stretched to four years. This month he finally made it back to town. He's not quite a rock star yet, but armed with a major label record deal and a debut album produced and co-written by Glen Ballard, things are certainly looking up for the ambitious 27-year-old. Ballard is one of the hottest movers and shakers in the business since his association with Alanis Morissette. Lynch, whose self-titled CD was released Tuesday, has spent the month performing at "residencies" at various clubs in Southern California. Remaining Santa Barbara dates include Monday and Sept. 30 at Emerald City.
Sjerven brought some friends and co-workers to Lynch's first gig in town earlier in the month, which was attended by a handful of other friends, a couple of staff and contest winners from KHTY, a few industry types and others who straggled in. By the end of the night, most were fans of Lynch's engaging modern rock littered with cynical yet poetci themes.
Lynch himself never had any doubts. In fact, he says, that's why he was a waiter.
"I've done the best I could to put myself in uncomfortable positions so that there wasn't any choice but to make it work," he says, laughing over a beer at the bar after the show. "When you remove choice, you better remove the doubt as well."
How things came together reads more like a far-fetched Hollywood screenplay than the result of a careful business plan. Lynch grew up in Los Angeles during the post-punk era of X, Go-Go's and the Blasters. "You know - the last time L.A. had a music scene," he says. Lynch learned about harmony singing Beatles tunes in the car with his mother, then at 13 started playing bass in punk bands. After high school, he drifted in and out of UC Berkeley, but left with only a year to go because "the diploma wouldn't have meant much, and this way I can still go back," he says.
He moved to Santa Barbara in 1993 on a whim to find the inspiration to write. "I lived on De la Vina (Street) behind the Arlington, not far from (the restaurant) Arrigato, which probably wasn't the best place for a starving musician," he recalls. Still the songs came, but the attention didn't. Lynch returned to L.A. and launched an ongoing cycle of composing then putting together bands to showcase the material and finally junked the whole thing when it didn't work out.
A couple years ago, while recording a self-produced album, Lynch hooked up with Kevin Messick, who at the time ran director/producer Joel Schumacher's film company and is now Lynch's manager. Messick, who had just received an advance copy of Morissette's "Jagged Little Pill," just picked up the phone and called Ballard. The conversation reportedly went something like this: "You don't know me, but I like the record you did with Alanis Morissette and I'm working with this new guy Brendan Lynch who you might like, too. He's playing tonight at Luna Park and maybe you wanna come by?" Lynch reports that Ballard told Messick he was lucky to even catch him (Ballard) at home, that he doesn't usually respond to such invitations and that he was busy that night. But, Ballard showed up at the gig, liked what he heards and within a week Lynch and the composer-producer hooked up to write a song.
With Ballard attached, Lynch was signed to Mercury Records. Lynch put aside his solo project and the two musicians wrote and recorded the new album whenever Ballard could grab a spare moment, often composing, tracking and producing a song in a single day.
"I'd never written with anybody before, but once we got over the initial discomfort, things took off out of trust," says Lynch, who now says he and Ballard are on the same wavelength. "No idea or stylistic approach was off-limits," Lynch says. " I just let him go where he wanted."
The result is a record that blends traditional pop arrangements with a '90s edge and a slew of modern production techniques ranging from loops to samples and synthesized treatments.
However, it's on stage in front of an audience where Lynch is truly in his element, a factor he attributes to years spent honing his skills in endless beer joints.
"When you're playing in front of people who don't really care, you get a real sense of what entertainment is. I wrung myself through that for years with just an acoustic guitar."
Despite the presence of only a couple dozen people, Lynch could barely contain himself at the initial Emerald City gig, now that he's backed by a full band, which he put together just a few weeks ago. He may not yet be a rock star, but dressed in a white shirt, tight black pants, a sweater draped around his waist, his jet black hair [Brendan actually has dark brown hair] slicked back, he's sure got all the right moves. During "Anybody Out There," Lynch grabs the microphone with both hands and lays prone over the drum rise, straddling the fallen mike stand. Later, while singing "Embryo" (" I want to be just like an embryo/I don't want to know what everybody knows"), Lynch crawls acorss the stage, then hands on the monitor, wringing every last emotion out of his lyrics.
Such gesturing might seem overbearing but Lynch makes sure humor is a part of everything he does. He peppers his stage patter with such winning [lyrics] as "I'm only a moment away from 15 minutes of American fame," and "Without celebrity, our lives are so ordinary." Still, it's a wonder his musicians don't slug him when he pet the drummer's hair or wraps his arms around the guitarist's leg.
"I don't ask permission and I don't apologize for what I do on stage," Lynch explains. "Most people coming out in music today are content to stand there and look at their sneakers and leave the rest to you. I can't do that. What happens on stage belongs in the moment."
Lynch doesn't object to the suggestion that he thrives on the fact that some of his antics put him in the same sort of vulnerable, precarious position a gambler faces with every toss of the dice or turn of a card. "Sure, you can get yourself in trouble. But that's not such a bad thing. I just roll with it and have fun, and isn't that what rock'n'roll is supposed to be about, anyway?"
With the hook-filled first single, "Wonderful" making waves at modern rock stations across the country, Lynch and Messick are busy arranging a fall tour, looking for a slot opening for a compatible artist. "I'm just itching to get going," the singer says. "It's like waiting for Desert Shield to turn into Desert Storm.[What an unfortunate analogy...] I'm ready to work."
But when the dust settles, Lynch says, he plans to return to the South Coast.
"It may have taken a little longer than I expected, but I'm coming back."
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Last modified on 10/20/97