Interview Circe Link & Christian Nesmith


"We are all standing on the shoulders of the prog giants who came before us"


(November 2024, text by Henri Strik, edited by Peter Willemsen, pictures taken from their Facebook pages)



Circe (pronounced as 'sursy') Link and Christian Nesmith hail from Los Angeles (USA). Interesting detail: Christian is the son of Michael Nesmith, former member of The Monkees. This couple has been working in the music industry for an exceedingly long time. However, only just recently they came into the picture by the progressive rock community thanks to the releases of their excellent prog rock albums Cosmologica (2021) and Arcana (2024). Despite that fact, they are still unknown to most people and therefore an introduction of this musical couple to the readers of Background Magazine and their great albums is well-deserved.



Would you please introduce yourself?
X
Circe Link
Circe: "Of course I will, my name is Circe Link. I'm a musician, muse and merrymaker of all sorts. I do all the singing, some of the melody making and almost all of the lyrics."
Christian: "Well, my name is Christian Nesmith. I am a guitar player, multi-instrumentalist, writer, engineer and producer."

How did you meet each other and became both a musical and a married couple?
Circe: "We met many years ago when I was looking for a pedal steel player for my earlier records in a style I call 'cowboy jazz'. Since that is one of the few instruments Christian does not play, we immediately found our love of music, film and philosophy to be more than sympathetic!"
Christian: "As well as our love for each other."

Christian, you are the son of Michael Nesmith, the famous guitarist and singer of The Monkees. What did you learn from your father and how is it to live and grow up in his shadow?
Christian: "Having a famous dad had its advantages and disadvantages, but I would never say that I was in his shadow. I've always pushed my own music, and he was always supportive of that."

In the sixties people said that The Monkees didn't perform on most of their singles at the start of the band's career. Is this true and if so, how is it possible that a son of one of the band members can play almost every instrument he lays his hands on? Did you educate yourself?
Christian: "I can assure you that The Monkees sang their respective songs right from the beginning and my father was also contributing as a songwriter. However, those guys didn't start playing the instruments on the record until the third album Headquarter, not because they couldn't play, but because they were not allowed to. It should also be noted that my father wrote and recorded many albums after The Monkees as well as writing songs for other artists.
X
Circe Link & Christian Nesmith (r)
So, the assumption that my father lacked musical education or talent is incorrect. But really, your question goes to the notion of nature versus nurture, something I've been asked about my whole life because my father was a famous musician. Personally, I don't believe that someone born to a parent with certain abilities will automatically be adept at those skills, be it musician or race car driver or dentist. On the other side, I was exposed to massive amounts of music from infancy and some of my earliest memories are of loving music. I started on piano and took a few basic lessons, played drums for a bit, and finally decided on guitar as my main instrument. Yes, I am mostly self-taught, but I also had the good fortune of being exposed to many great musicians and learned from them as well."

I'm deeply sorry for the mistakes I heard at the time! I'm glad you could put that straight now! You made many albums in the past, but when and why did you decide to record a progressive rock album?
Christian: "We've never felt restricted to one style or genre versus another. We've always followed our muse. We have a recording studio at home and I'm always recording ideas of all kinds of styles. But during the Covid pandemic we had the time to devote to an album that obviously took more effort due to the complexity of the music. We already had the song Cosmologica as well as few other ideas, so the time seemed right to make a concerted effort to do a full prog record."

On both progressive rock albums, you seemed to be influenced by the famous British band Yes. Are they an inspiration and which other bands have influenced you?
Christian: "Yes certainly was an influence but so were King Crimson, Gentle Giant, Rush, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Genesis, Kansas, Styx, and many others. If you're going to make a prog rock record you might as well take your cues from the best. We are all standing on the shoulders of the prog giants who came before us."

Cosmologica was released in 2021. Would you please tell me something about the content?
X
Album 'Cosmologica'
Circe: "When we made Cosmologica during the lock down in Los Angeles, the limitations we experienced of being in a new strange world provided the perfect lens for me to see the parallel metaphor of space travel to our situation at the time. Additionally, I saw this kind of introspection as a journey within while being without for the ultimate intellectual and spiritual exploration."

Christian, on Cosmologica you played almost every instrument yourself except for the organ solo on God From The Machine done by Michael Sherwood. Why did you choose him to do this? I think he passed away after the recordings.
Christian: "That was a song, or rather pieces of a song, that I had floating around before Covid. Michael Sherwood was one of my dearest friends and we created a lot of music together. He was a phenomenal writer, singer, composer, and keyboardist. Had Michael not passed away he likely would have played much more on the album. But as it happened, he was at our house and I was showing him the ideas for that song. Like many times before, I asked him to throw a solo down over this one section. I had no idea that it would be the last time I saw him. So, I'm very glad he was able to be a part of it and have his genius live on in our music. I still miss him every day."

Did you play on a real drum kit, or did you use drum computers or drum samples for the recording of this album?
Christian: "For Cosmologica I programmed the drums in MIDI triggering, a virtual computer instrument. For Arcana I did the same but then had Christopher Allis replaced them. Of course, his performance was far better than mine."

X
Album 'Arcana'
Your second album Arcana came out in 2024. What is this album all about concept wise?
Circe: "When I first hear Christian working in the studio on a song, I try and listen for its essence, I listen to what it wants to be and with the theme Arcana it presented itself, each song describing a trump card from the Major Arcana of a tarot deck. Each card is an expression of the archetypical symbology found in traditional tarot cards, specifically the Thoth deck, and we sought to find a sonic and lyrical way to honour that inspiration."

What was the reason that the progressive rock scene in Europe got only familiar with you after releasing the second prog album?
Christian: "I'm not sure. We had a lot of good reactions to Cosmologica from Europe. Perhaps the word of mouth from the first album was enough for people to anticipate and help publicize Arcana."

Why did you choose Christopher Allis to do the drum parts instead of doing it yourself, and how did you get Matt Brown on board to do the keyboard solos on The Chariot?
Christian: "I wanted Christopher to play on the first album, but because of the Covid pandemic it was not safe or practical. I've known Christopher for 25 years. He's a dear friend and a great drummer. I was so happy
X
Christian Nesmith.jpg
that we were able to use real drums on Arcana. There's an openness to the sound that you just can't get with virtual drums. Regarding Matt Brown, he plays the organ solo and Moog solos toward the end of The Chariot. I'm doing everything else. While I'm a fairly good keyboardist, I wanted a performance that had a confidence in it that only someone who's primary instrument are the keyboards could pull off. So, at a friend's recommendation, I asked Matt to come in and play."

Circe, I believe that you did the beautiful artwork on both albums. Have you been trained for this kind of work?
Circe: "Before I was a musician, I spent many years working on my own fine art and poetry, so my previous learnings informed the visuals of all of our records. The artwork on Arcana is generated by AI and took me thousands of iterations to make the images I felt truly suited the theme."
Christian: "I have never had anything to do with the artwork on any of our albums. That's all Circe."


So far, you released all your albums on your own label?
Christian: "Yes, we did, but happily we recently signed a deal with Think Like A Key and they'll be helping significantly with our distribution of certain titles including Arcana."

Are you thinking of performing your music before a live audience or is it only a studio project?
Christian: "I would love to perform our music live on stage, but as of now we don't really have a band. It would take many musicians and a lot of work to represent this music live. However, if the demand is there it might be an effort to put that together, who knows."
Circe: "That would be a dream come true."
X
Christian and Circe performing

Can we soon expect a third progressive rock album and what are your future plans?
Christian: "Yes, we're working on a third record now. It's in its beginning stages, but we feel a trilogy of prog records seems to be the way to go. After that, who knows."

How is the response so far on the two progressive rock albums?
Christian: "Everyone has been very complimentary and supportive. Also surprised given the kind of stuff we were doing fifteen years ago."

Would you like to say something else to the people who follow you and to the readers of Background Magazine?
Christian: "Many thanks for your support. Great to get love from prog fans, and we hope that they'll listen to some of our earlier records if they want to hear something different. I highly recommend Bird's Amazing Odyssey And The Meaning Of Tea."
Circe: "We hope you enjoy our offerings and that in some way we make the world a better place with what we do. I especially like to thank the prog rock fans for their amazing and discerning ears!"

Thank you for answering my questions!
"Thank you for having us!"

More info about Circe Link and Christian Nesmith on the Internet:
       Website
       bandcamp
       facebook

       review album 'Arcana'
       review album 'Cosmologica'






All Rights Reserved Background Magazine 2024