ifitbeyourwill Podcast #169 • Cindy

ifitbeyourwill Podcast sits down with Karina Gill of San Francisco indie band Cindy to discuss their forthcoming album Another Country, out May 2026. From stumbling upon an abandoned guitar in a basement to touring France, England, and an upcoming Japan trip, Karina reflects on the unlikely journey of five-plus records and a slow-burning, dreamy sound that keeps surprising even her. They dig into the organic, tape-recorded making of the new album — fresh takes, minimal rehearsal, and a subtle country spirit woven throughout. A warm conversation about music, nerves, and gratitude.

Transcript

Welcome And Band Setup

colleyc 0:30

Welcome back, everyone, to another episode of If It Be Your Will Podcast. Before uh we hopped on air here, I was talking with um Karina, who's our guest today, and we are in like completely different. So we're on we're in North America on West Coast, East Coast. She's in a heat wave, I'm in a frickin' snowstorm. Um and I do say that with a lot of anger because the snow is getting to me. I'm sure just as the heat gets to you as well, like these extreme weathers. I I digress. The band we're talking to today is Cindy, who has a great record coming out very soon called Another Country, coming to you in May of this year. Um I've gotten a listen to it, and you guys are gonna be excited about this record. It's really, really good. Um Karina is Gil is from San Francisco. Um, and if you haven't heard Cindy before, I mean they're very slow, corey, dreamy. I mean, do it yourself y. I mean, all of that basement-y. I just love it. I just love it. Karina, thank you. This is not our first cast together. Um, we had Flowertown on, uh, we were just saying in April 2024, uh, where Tony J was there. He was a collaborator, but now I have Cindy, I have Karina all here just to talk about Cindy and and what um is coming down this new record and how it all came to be. Um, Karina, thank you for a second appearance on this podcast. I appreciate you being here. Um, I guess my beginning of this conversation I'd love to have with you is you've put out five or so records so far, right? As Cindy, under under that band name. Um, how have you found this journey to be so far? Like thinking back to those early days, and you know, I'm sure there's lots of highs and lows thrown in there. You're coming to this next record that you're about to launch. Where is your mindset at with Cindy right now? Like if you're kind of looking back over that, um, how are you feeling that you're moving forward with the music that you create and you put out in the world?

Karina Gill 3:05

Um, I feel very lucky and very surprised, honestly. I certainly never expected to play music at all, much less make records, much less make a number of them and tour and get to have conversations like this um about music. So even though it's been some time now that I've been doing this, it's still it's still surprising. And that's that's nice. It's nice to feel lucky, I guess. Um certainly I've I've changed a lot in the time I've been doing this, and and everything's changed, of course. So it doesn't feel like one experience, it feels like many experiences, but certainly if I think about starting just kind of haphazardly because I found a guitar and then now you know being able to make records and play shows and go on tour, it's definitely yeah, I feel lucky, I guess. Lucky and surprised.

Stage Fear And Release Exposure

colleyc 4:15

And is it was it always like I guess like when you're first putting out that first record or first tour, or you know, it's also new and like wow, and like does that change as you stay in it over time? Like, does it become less um nerve-wracking and more like okay, this is a part of my journey now? And or is it always nerve-wracking before a show or before a record launch? Or like, does that do those feelings change the more that you are exposed to the process of of making music?

Karina Gill 4:55

Um, I'd say yes and no. I think certainly like the fear of getting on stage does mellow out over time. I still spend whatever day before I play a show wondering why I signed up to do this, but um the actual feeling is is more manageable, definitely for me. I was never a performer, so I wasn't used to that. Uh so I've gotten used to that over time. Um, in terms of record release, I think it feels does feel different, partly because that first record I didn't expect anybody to hear it. So the stakes are pretty low. I thought that all my basement forever. So it's changed in so far as you know, at least at least a handful of people that I don't know will hear this record. Also, it feels in some ways harder, maybe, because I guess it's more exposing to to to actually have an audience of on on some level.

Writing Songs Without A Target Sound

colleyc 5:59

Right, right. And what was like when you were first kind of like putting Cindy together in your mind, anyway, of you know, first engaging with a few songs. I remember the great story you told me about that guitar where you had moved in with a bunch of roommates and you found this abandoned guitar in the basement, and that kind of was your the starting point of hey, I'm gonna throw a few chords together and see what happens. When you were in that process of that first, those early moments of of figuring out your sound, what was it that you wanted sound like? Did you have that in your mind as to the direction you wanted to go with music? Or did that take some time to kind of work its way through?

Karina Gill 6:48

Honestly, I still don't think I have in my mind some direction I want to take with that music, honestly. I know, you know, a lot of I obviously have a lot of friends who are musicians, and I think that um people are, of course, very different, and some folks certainly have a much have a clearer idea in their mind of what they want to sound like or if they have some kind of reference point. Um and I can sometimes pretend like I maybe do, but I uh that's I don't actually. I think that I suppose one of the benefits of having been a total beginner was that I did do precisely what I could do. Um there wasn't some kind of plan to shape there, was just what I could actually do. And it still remains that way to a large extent, honestly. I I don't feel like I have an idea that I'm then or I don't have an idea of what I want it to sound like that I'm then trying to approximate. It's more like um something happens and it's either worth pursuing or not. But I'm not I'm not a goal-oriented person in general, and I guess that's true for for my music as well.

colleyc 8:15

Right, right. Um there must have been influences though, like like how do what's your what's your songwriting pro like I I remember this that you told me too that songs take a while to come to you. Like you've gotta feel it, wrestle with it, and then things start to happen. Is that still the case in your process when you approach a song to writing, or is that shifted at all since since we spoke last?

Karina Gill 8:45

No, I think that's still true. I mean, I I I think that you know, like I said, I don't set out with something I want to say. Um you know, usually there's uh a phrase with melody or even a whole series of phrases with a melody. Sometimes even just a melody, but that's less common. Um and then the song kind of grows from there. Um so I don't really yeah, that's that's still true for me. As for influences, I mean, certainly, of course, I I feel I feel bad because I'm terrible at uh sort of picking them out. I think that uh the music that I heard throughout my life just stays with a person. I never was a big fan. I didn't have like some teenage years of being a fan of one person or another. I think I may have made the joke with you before that, you know, I I had the bad habit of dating musicians. So mostly I listened to people I was dating. And perhaps making music myself was an attempt to to cure that. But yeah, no, I I I don't have that experience of like having loved a band and then wanting to follow in their footsteps. I did have some really formative music experiences when I was a kid. I had a pen pal, believe it or not, who made mixtapes for me. And they were incredible. And they just like really ran the gamut. I think the only thing that wasn't on there was probably contemporary country and Toyola Sunch, planning that wasn't on there, but there's a lot on there. And he didn't write down the band names or the song titles, so it was this totally naive kind of it's just music. I had no reference for it. I couldn't look it up eventually, like I could, but uh as an 11-year-old, I I didn't. Um so so yeah, I think I think I'm a bit of a kind of juggernaut, like I take in what's around me, and I've never had a specific genre or um band or person who was like my person.

colleyc 11:11

Right.

Karina Gill 11:12

Yeah.

colleyc 11:13

And you were saying before that the songs just slowly come to you and and the writing process, and it's what you've been working with the same lineup now for two records in a row. How does how does that bring your approach to putting a record together influence it? I guess I'm I'm trying to get at when you bring something to you know your musicians that you've been playing with now for two albums. Are there are there fewer guardrails or are there more guardrails the more you write records?

Karina Gill 11:52

When you say guardrails, what do you mean?

colleyc 11:54

Well, that you have certain things that you are like, no, this it has to be this way, or you know, oh yeah, I I would like you to try to find a line for that, or like that give and take between you bringing the songs in, they're your songs, you have this vision for them, but that collaborative aspect of having people that you've collaborated with for probably a couple a number of years now. D does that change over time? Like, I mean, I guess there must be a trust that you start to have where you know what your guys can do. Um, can you unfold that a bit for us?

Karina Gill 12:33

Yeah. I mean, this particular group of musicians, I feel just like so lucky that they are they're part of Cindy. And in terms of guardrails, yeah, I I I have total trust in them. And in fact, you know, I I feel like writing songs becomes a little easier because I know that they will make them better. Yeah. I there's even songs where I could make a solo demo, but the songs kind of presuppose the players who are going to elaborate them with me. So I don't really even want to make a solo demo. It just it's not what I'm doing. And these particular people, you know, I I feel, like I said, just really grateful and lucky that they're working with me. I feel like we get each other in a way that there's never a discussion about, oh, I'd like you to sound like this or like that. Sometimes there's kind of conversations around ideas. Um, like maybe Ollie will have more than one idea for a guitar part. Usually I like them both, and I tell them to choose, you know. Or sometimes Will will have developed a bass part on his own, listening to a demo, and then in the room with us, he'll decide to shift it because he hears something new. Or stage will come up with, you know, a vocal part for only part of the song, and I'll ask her to sing more, you know. But really, I mean, in terms of in terms of guardrails, there's really no need. I feel like they get the project entirely. And often they bring things that I wouldn't have even thought of, but are exactly right.

colleyc 14:31

You know. And and I guess on that flip side, when you're when you're writing the songs that you eventually are gonna bring in to the studio, like I'm sure you're thinking about, you know, your guitarist, your bass, like you know kind of that feeling of what they'll bring to the song.

Karina Gill 14:51

I don't think I'm that I don't think I'm that organized. Uh the songs, you know, the songs just are what they are, and I think the the I guess the great privilege really is that I know that my bandmates will be able to do something with this. But I I don't think I can remember ever having a time when as I'm writing the song I'm thinking about what others will elaborate. I suppose once I've finished it and then I I start thinking about what it could sound like, but not too much because I don't really want to impinge upon the possibilities.

When Music Makes Listeners Vulnerable

colleyc 15:36

Right, right. I love that. Like it it it makes me feel similar to your songs where you're not sure what emotion is gonna get triggered inside you, or what memory or experience is gonna start flooding in through listening to. And I think that's one of the powers that you have, this magic power. It's definitely a superpower, I'll tell you, that of opening people up to things that maybe they haven't thought about in a really long time, or a struggle, or uh you know, it it reveals I can't not open my heart when I listen to your music. Um, it just is needed, I feel. Um, because it demands it almost, and I mean that in the most beautiful way, that it demands your attention to figure shit out, you know, because I don't necessarily think that you give solutions, but you pose a lot of things and a lot of thoughts that then you let the listener try to work through. I was listening to one song in particular over and over, and I just want it, and it's not off your latest record, it was off of I want to get the name right. Why not now? Which came out in tw 2023, just a couple years ago. Called Playboy. Um, I think that's the song name. Yes, and it's just you and vocals, and you whistle in it. Um the frailty of it, you know, like just the it just brings me to this spot of like emotion, and I feel like when I listen to it, somebody could ask me anything, and I'll go off and to this deep reflective and it I mean it's not connected to the lyrics per se, but it's just that essence of what uh it does to you. And I guess my question is when did you know that your music was uh having such an effect on people's heart? You know, like had did you start to realize that early on when you were creating these songs of how they people could access these songs and open things up that they might have had closed for a really long time?

Karina Gill 18:01

First of all, thank you for saying that. It means a lot to me. That's your experience. Um sadly. Um because you know, not everybody responds that way. Some people say, Oh, songs are so sad, and I think, really? They don't seem sad to me at all, but you know, whatever.

colleyc 18:20

Me either.

Karina Gill 18:21

Yeah, thanks. Um I suppose I I have gotten that response or something like that response at times. And I mean that means a lot to me, of course. I guess I I kind of understand what's happening, I feel like. Uh like I can give an account of it on some level. So I don't really feel like it's something that is mine that I have, or some, I don't know, some some power, something like that. I feel like it's it's something that can happen. And I think I kind of get the ways in which that's occasioned. Um and it's not as though I set out to do it, but it's what I'm interested in doing and feeling and experiencing, and that's how I kind of am. So when it's I think that for me, what's been really moving is that before making songs, I never had any expectation that that could be a shared experience or could be something that's communicated. So that for me has been just great and a lovely surprise. But I don't feel like it's something that I have that I then exert. I mean, I feel like it's something that's available in human experience that I get. I get it, you know.

Making Another Country On Tape

colleyc 19:53

Yeah. I I guess it's you might be this gateway, you know, of through listening to Cindy, that gate opens or that bridge, you start to see it more clearly. And again, I don't want to like I love your lyrics, but it might be a word or two that pops out as that song's being played, and it just starts to recycle in your head, and then you know, all chaos could break loose, or you know, like your emotions become very raw, but truthful and real. And it's hard to find music I find nowadays that opens that gateway of of truth and rawness up uh the way your music does. And I mean that in like the most beautiful of ways, and your music is not sad, like I like I feel great joy sometimes listening to some of your songs, like even that song Playboy that I was talking about. Sure, you'd put it on a first listen, it would be like, Whoa, what's what's wrong with her? Like, she like, but to me, I just listened to it and I'm just like when that whistling comes in, my heart like starts to to beat faster, you know. It's like and such joy and clarity comes. Anyway, I digress. Um, yeah, it's I love the power of music, and I just love that that you understand it, you know, you understand humans, I think, on a level that that most of us don't think about, and maybe it's just your personal experiences going through it, but through your journey, you're helping other people with their journey. Well, I know you are because you helped me with my journey, so um, it's an it's a powerful thing, music. And I think when you catch something like you have done, that's why you're at you know, album five, or I guess it's five now, right? And plus all the collaborators and everybody else that just wants you to be a part of their journey as well. Um, I just want Want to end on this this this record. So another country coming out in May, as we said. Can you kind of paint a little bit of a picture? I love the cover out of it, first of all. Beautiful roses, but not but hoppy, but like it's subtle, like beautiful roses, but you know, it's not my image of a rose, but I love the way it looks. Um how did you assemble this record in particular? Because to me, and I'll just give a little few words as to my impression, because you were so gracious to let me listen to it before we talked here today. I find that I that your voice I can hear more. Um, I feel the tightness of the band more, like that everyone kind of knows what everybody's doing. Um and it feels a little bit more like too, like you had alluded to at the start of this, a little like of the a country. There's like this country, I don't want to say twang to it, but just this spirit of and it's not it's very subtle, but it has that like there's a heaviness, but also this lightness to it. Um how how did this record come to be? How did you assemble it? Um, I'm just so curious about the the the beginnings of this record and how it all happened.

Karina Gill 23:20

Yeah. Well, first of all, that those roses, I I found a photograph at a like a flea market in Brooklyn a million years ago, and just kept it all these years. So that's where that comes from. I think it must have been like a photography experiment because the lighting coming on. Yeah. And as for how the record came to be a good question, I think do I remember? In terms of the country aspect, I mean, I think that there's one song that I mean, I I I think it's fair to say is kind of a country song. And I did sort of think like, oh, you know, this song could be a country song, and we found uh a pedal steel player to play with us. And again, that's the luxury of having amazing players to play with. I can be like, hey, let's what if we do this? Um but the whole record, how did it start? I mean, I suppose that I just had I just had some new songs, and um Ollie, who plays guitar in Cindy, um, he has set up at home where he can record. So it's like a task form 388-track according to tape machine. And so it's it, you know, it's not a matter of booking a studio or scrounging up money, you know, it's it's it's much more organic than that. So I suppose that I suppose that I knew we were starting off to make a record, but it was a slow process. You know, we would record a song and then maybe six weeks later record another one. All the songs, I think all the songs, it's fair to say, I don't think there are any exceptions to this. Um, they all I I sent, you know, a a demo to Ment Band, and they listened and we got together on the day of recording, worked it out, recorded it, and that's what you hear. Um so they're all very kind of fresh in that manner. They haven't been rehearsed and fiddled with a lot. And yeah, I I don't it's funny because now I can't even really recall if there was like a plan. I don't remember there being a plan, but to make a record was yeah, I mean it was that's what we do, right? We make records.

colleyc 25:59

Yeah. I mean, you just came off of Swan Lake, which was an amazing record. That you know, like people loved it, like from what I read anyway. And it seems a little bit of a departure from Swan Lake a little bit, um, in some of the ways I described before. Um w what are your what are your hopes for this record and what's the journey next once it comes out in May? Are you gonna hit the road and um I guess obviously tour around a bit and and and showcase this record? Is that can you give us a little like what has happened in the rest of this year of 2026?

Karina Gill 26:44

Yeah. We are trying. I think we are definitely gonna go to Japan in the fall for the tour. So that'll be really fun. Barring that, I mean, we are really lucky we get invited to play fun shows both locally and sometimes a little further afield in the US. We were just in France and England for a brief handful of shows. That was great. Um, I actually love touring. I'm happy to do it. We just have to all be able to align schedules and and make things happen. But yeah, Japan in the fall if all goes as as planned.

Closing Thanks And Support Indie Shows

colleyc 27:31

I mean, Japan must be a huge follower of what you uh what Cindy does. I mean, they have such this shoe gazy little corey, like underground scene there. Um they must eat this up. I'm just thinking of yeah, yeah. Well, that's a great spot to go in. And I'm glad too that it's getting easier because it's tough being stressed, you know, all the time. Like it just it kind of eats away at you a bit. So if you can kind of subside that a little bit and tame it, it's uh much more enjoyable. I I speak in front of a lot of people a lot too, and it's you always get those kind of like anxiety attacks a bit before it always tends to go super well, and it's like, why did I feel that way? You're so silly. But yeah, this is how life well, I want to thank you so much for taking some time. I've I really love talking with you. I just feel like we could talk and talk and talk about your craft and what you do. I want to respect our time and I see that I'm pushing it here. So thank you so much for um sharing a little bit of the insight into uh your music and also this new record that's gonna be coming out. Um check it out, people, another country, May uh this year. Um, and if you can go check a show out, show some support to some of our indie artists, please go and do it. Um, Krino, all the best. Please come back and chat uh again. Uh, we got many more words to share.

Karina Gill 29:09

Yeah, thank you so much. Really appreciate the invitation. Thank you.

Cindy 31:54

So you can't do it.