Hello everyone, it’s your host Oliver from DULAXI, and today I’m delighted to be joined by singer, songwriter, and harpist Chris Kinkade.
Based in Perris, California, United States, Chris has spent years cultivating a musical identity that stands apart through its sincerity, intimacy, and unmistakable connection to the Celtic harp. While many listeners may recognise him through his work with the rock bands Parked Outside, Elsewaves, and King-Kade, his solo catalogue reveals a far more contemplative artistic voice, one rooted in reflection, imagination, and emotional honesty. His latest single, She’s in League with Angels, was released on June 26, 2026, blending singer-songwriter, new age, art pop, and acoustic influences into a serene listening experience that encourages listeners to pause, breathe, and embrace moments of quiet wonder.
Before we begin our conversation with Chris Kinkade, here’s what you need to know about today’s featured project.
ABOUT CHRIS KINKADE
For many artists, reinvention comes from changing direction. For Chris Kinkade, it comes from embracing every part of who he already is.
Although his musical journey has included energetic alternative rock projects and collaborative bands, his solo work exists in an entirely different space. It is deeply personal, drawing together decades of experience as a Celtic harpist, songwriter, vocalist, visual storyteller, and lifelong creative. Rather than pursuing commercial trends or stylistic expectations, Kinkade has consistently followed a quieter path, allowing instinct, memory, and imagination to shape music that feels timeless instead of tied to any particular era.
That philosophy is beautifully reflected in She’s in League with Angels, his third solo release in just eight months. Following his EP The Soul of the Beauty and the single Ode to an Autumn Day, the new release continues exploring the unique musical world he has carefully developed, where traditional Celtic influences blend naturally with contemporary songwriting, ambient textures, and gentle cinematic arrangements.
At its heart, the single explores hope through symbolism rather than certainty. While its title immediately evokes celestial imagery, the song avoids offering fixed interpretations, instead inviting listeners to discover their own meaning within its dreamlike atmosphere. Romance, mystery, vulnerability, and quiet reflection coexist throughout the composition, allowing each listener to bring their own experiences into the music. The result is a piece that feels less concerned with providing answers than with creating space for contemplation.
The recording itself reflects that same spirit of authenticity. Rather than constructing an elaborate studio production, Kinkade chose to preserve the emotional immediacy of a live performance. The recording heard on the finished release is the same performance captured for the accompanying video, allowing every subtle vocal inflection and every delicate movement of the Celtic harp to remain completely intact. That decision gives the song an intimate quality that feels remarkably personal, as though the listener has been invited into the room while the music is being created.
Outside of his musical career, Chris has spent more than three decades working as a massage therapist in Hollywood, dedicating much of his professional life to healing and wellbeing. That lifelong connection to restorative environments naturally extends into his songwriting. His music often feels less like entertainment and more like an invitation to slow down, reflect, and reconnect with oneself. Whether performing for yoga classes, playing harp for premature babies in intensive care, or composing music inspired by dreams, memory, and profound life experiences, Kinkade has consistently viewed music as something capable of offering comfort during life’s most vulnerable moments.
His artistic perspective has also been shaped by extraordinary personal experiences. Surviving a devastating car accident as a young man and later enduring life-threatening heart surgery fundamentally changed his understanding of existence, creativity, and time. Those moments do not appear in his songwriting as literal autobiography. Instead, they emerge through imagery that feels universal, exploring mortality, hope, transcendence, and the possibility that love may exist beyond what can easily be explained. Rather than presenting spirituality through doctrine, Kinkade approaches these ideas with openness, allowing listeners from every background to interpret the music in ways that resonate with their own lives.
Visually, he extends that same philosophy through self-produced music videos that complement rather than explain his songs. Gentle imagery, luminous landscapes, and understated symbolism become natural companions to compositions that favour atmosphere over spectacle. Every creative decision reflects a commitment to honesty, reinforcing the idea that authenticity remains far more valuable than following passing trends.
Despite working across remarkably different musical styles, from alternative rock to Renaissance-inspired harp compositions, Chris has never treated those worlds as contradictions. Instead, they represent different facets of the same creative identity. Whether performing with a full band or sitting alone with his harp, his focus remains unchanged: creating music that communicates genuine emotion without unnecessary embellishment.
She’s in League with Angels continues that artistic journey with quiet confidence. It is a release that embraces patience in an increasingly fast-paced musical landscape, offering listeners an opportunity to step away from everyday distractions and enter a space where imagination, vulnerability, and hope are allowed to unfold naturally.
Having this brief introduction to today’s featured project, I’m sure both new listeners and longtime fans are excited to hear directly from Chris. So, without further ado, let’s begin today’s interview.
INTERVIEW SESSION
Oliver:
Your solo music feels like an invitation to slow down and reconnect with something deeper, offering listeners a quiet escape from the noise of everyday life. Looking back on your own life, what personal experiences first awakened that desire to create music that comforts and restores people?
Chris Kinkade:
I have been a massage therapist in private practice in Hollywood for over 35 years. I have a huge collection of healing music I use for my work. I curate playlists and no client of mine has ever heard the same playlist twice so I think my familiarity with restorative music is kind of built into the DNA of my soul. Years ago when I was learning to play the harp I would play at a yoga center for classes. It was a great way to learn how to play around people. I also saw the effects that it had on those in the room. I also used to play my harp at the neo-natal intensive care ward at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Burbank, California for the preemie babies. Studies at Wake Forest University had shown that the music of the harp could lower cortisol levels in the babies who were in a high stress situation as well as the doctors and nurses on the floor as that ward was dealing with the tiniest and most vulnerable babies. So I have seen first hand how effective music can be as a healing modality and since my whole life has been in the profession of the healing arts it is natural for me to try to create music to resonate with this in terms of energy.
Oliver:
Long before releasing your own music, you had already explored very different musical worlds through bands like Parked Outside, Elsewaves, and King-Kade. How have those experiences shaped you as both a musician and a person, and what eventually led you toward the more reflective path of your solo work?
Chris Kinkade:
I have always been involved with creating music in one way or another and the rock stuff I have done has been very fulfilling as I have had the opportunity to work with amazing musicians. What is different about my solo work is of course that it is not a collaboration. It’s just me in a quiet room with my harp trying to get a feeling across. It feels more intimate and of course more vulnerable. I literally go from doing a song with my project “Parked Outside” which is sort of post punk/alternative in it’s vibe to writing renaissance dance songs that sound like they were written in the 16th century with my harp. I guess it just makes sense to me because I have a lot of voices and complex energies that I need to express and I just make sure my creative life has a flow that sweeps me away with it. I am releasing a crazy song with “Parked Outside” next month called “Sex Cliche'” and it is about as far away genre wise to “She’s in League with Angels” as it gets!
Oliver:
The Celtic harp has been your main instrument for decades, making it much more than simply a musical choice. What first drew you to the instrument, and how has your relationship with it evolved as you’ve grown both personally and artistically?
Chris Kinkade:
When I was 5 years old I saw a Marx Brothers movie from 1932 called “Horse Feathers.” In it Harpo Marx plays a harp solo to Thelma Todd who watches from a balcony. Harpo’s playing blew my mind, it still does. Watching that had such a huge impact on me. He was playing his harp like he was Jimi Hendrix or something. Used to be I’d have to wait until some TV station played that movie to see it, now thanks to YouTube I can watch it over and over again. I highly recommend people check it out. It’s that remarkable! Combine that with being very aware of my Irish roots and exposure to Irish music so the Celtic harp was a natural fit for me. I now have 3 harps, 2 acoustic and one electric. They give me a voice and bring me a lot of peace often just playing for my dogs and horses. They have had some of the best concerts!
Oliver:
Authenticity seems to sit at the center of everything you create, from your songwriting to your visual storytelling. In an industry where artists often feel pressure to follow trends, what does remaining authentic mean to you, and how do you protect that part of yourself?
Chris Kinkade:
I was fortunate enough to have been a part of the creative family of John Cassavetes and Gena Rowlands when I was young. Their son Nick has been my lifelong friend for over 50 years now. The ethic in that family was to be authentic and to live a creative life and surround yourself with creative people. To them that was the definition of “success” and it always made so much sense to me to use that as a template for anything I would attempt in bringing my artistic impulses to life. It defies any pressure that unrealistic expectations can have because if you are true to yourself you will always be at peace with what you create.
Oliver:
Your solo catalogue often feels as though it exists somewhere between memory, imagination, and spirituality, blending ancient influences with the present day. How would you describe your artistic identity, and what draws you to creating music that feels timeless rather than tied to a particular era?
Chris Kinkade:
It is not a conscious decision, it just happens that way although I will say I have had some pretty dramatic things happen to me where I was on the brink of death and entered dimensions I had no reference for only to wake up and find myself still here. Those deeply personal near extinction episodes do change you as you are suddenly face with an index of possibilities about everything that challenge the preconceptions you had before they happened to you. So in that way they are not tied to a theme or era but rather to an “experience.”
Oliver:
She’s in League with Angels explores an ethereal connection with angelic beings while creating an atmosphere of serenity and hope. Where did the inspiration for this song first come from, and what emotions or experiences encouraged you to bring that vision to life?
Chris Kinkade:
I am not a person of faith so they references which one might think are aligned with religious dogma are merely incidental. I will say however that I have experienced otherworldly phenomena during those periods where my mortality was on the line. I would say perhaps I use the imagery as a metaphor for “hope.” The “hope” that love itself is transcendent and the central vibrational force of all things. It’s a quasi-romanticized wish that beings of light will guide us. I mean it would be lovely it did happen that way (and I am certainly open to the possibility of it) and in the song I sing “soaring gently overhead, while I slowly die.” Perhaps it was just me hoping that while my life on earth was slowly slipping away that there was a grander dimension I was going to ascend to. Wishful thinking perhaps but a worthwhile dream to cast away the thought of being a flicker of light going down the drain of nothingness.
Oliver:
The title immediately sparks curiosity and leaves room for personal interpretation. What does She’s in League with Angels represent to you, and why did it feel like the perfect title for this piece?
Chris Kinkade:
When I create poems or lyrics or start singing a song I do so essentially just channeling whatever comes out of my mouth. I often have no idea what I have written or sung until I look it all over a dozen times and then and only then does it make sense to me. With “She’s in League with Angels” what I think it means, to me anyway, is that the love of a benevolent being will guide me from this life I am living now safely to another dimension where I experience the next phase of whatever this all is. I was in a bad car accident when I was 24. This was in 1981. I left my body and was embraced by an amazing energy that I never wanted to part from. Imagine taking the moment you felt the most loved and multiplying it 10,000 times, that is what it felt like. But it wasn’t my time and I woke up with my car on it’s side in a ditch in country road in Texas. This was before I had ever heard of NDE’s but since then I have reviewed many and my experience kind of fits those I have read about. Perhaps that is what the song is about, at least to me. I am happy to have anyone else interpret it in a way that suits them.
Oliver:
Rather than presenting spirituality in an obvious or literal way, your music often invites listeners to discover their own meaning within it. How did you approach writing this song so that it could feel both deeply personal and universally relatable?
Chris Kinkade:
I just try to be honest and let whatever words that are created connect with anyone that is open to them. I think since I am not trying to hammer down a point or shove my belief’s down anyone’s throat it makes whatever connection seem personal and relatable, at least that is what I think happens.
Oliver:
Your lyrics often leave space for imagination instead of explaining every detail. When writing this song, how did you decide what to reveal directly and what to leave open for listeners to interpret through their own experiences?
Chris Kinkade:
I don’t have a recipe and I don’t think too much about it. I just channel whatever my inner voice is compelling me to say. It’s really that simple. I have no idea if anything I create is going to connect with anyone so when it does I am often happily surprised. The act of creating something is just what I seem hardwired to do. I have no idea if there is an audience for it or not, I mean I am still in the realm of the relatively obscure and virtually unknown so it’s not like I am hitting it out of the ballpark with my songs but I have found a wonderful way to make myself happy and for me that is the reward in and of itself.
Oliver:
The combination of your voice and the Celtic harp creates an intimate atmosphere that feels almost cinematic. How did you develop the musical arrangement for She’s in League with Angels, and what role did the harp play in shaping the emotional direction of the song?
Chris Kinkade:
Every song I have ever written has just showed up one day in my hands. I am just the vehicle for the manifestation. My harp speaks for itself and I just transcribe the energy it wants me to reveal. It’s almost a spiritual experience. The recording of “She’s in League with Angels” is the exact live recording you see in the video. It is just me playing and singing live. I thought about recording it and laying the vocals separate but I liked this live recording and thought “This is it, this is all it needs to be.”
Oliver:
Alongside your music, you also produce your own videos, allowing the visual experience to become part of the storytelling. What inspired the visual concept for this release, and how did you ensure it reflected the same sense of peace and wonder found in the music?
Chris Kinkade:
Again, I used the actual video of me recording and performing the song and then I lucked into some luminous images that seemed appropriate to carry the visual cues of the song in harmony with the actual music itself. I am happy with how it turned out.
Oliver:
Releasing three projects within such a short period suggests a particularly creative season in your life. What has fueled this recent burst of inspiration, and has your creative process changed in any meaningful way compared to your earlier work?
Chris Kinkade:
I almost died from an aneurysm in my ascending aorta in my heart. It had been discovered in 2017 and for 5 years I lived with a ticking time bomb in my chest. Then in the summer of 2022 I was told I had about 3 months to live before it exploded. I had open heart surgery with the man considered the greatest cardiac surgeon that ever lived, Dr. Richard Shemin, the head guy at UCLA. I flatlined the next day but they never gave up on me. Still I was in the hospital for a very long time. So perhaps that is why I am creating so much, because I know that life is just a vacation from the very serious business of being dead so I want to express all I can before I can no longer express anything. Perhaps I sense the immediacy in a way based on what I have survived and endured. If I think about it that kind of makes sense because there does not seem to be enough hours in the day. Thankfully with all the wonderful tools available these days creating and recording music is easy for independent artists like me.
Oliver:
Every artist encounters moments of uncertainty while bringing a deeply personal idea into the world. During the creation of She’s in League with Angels, what challenges did you face creatively or emotionally, and what did those experiences teach you?
Chris Kinkade:
I wasn’t aware of any challenges or difficulty. I just set up a video camera, filmed myself in the hallway singing a song I had created with zero expectations of what it would become. The fact that it is out there now and people can experience it for themselves makes me happy. It is the unexpected gift of the process.
Oliver:
Your music encourages people to pause, reflect, and reconnect with themselves at a time when life often feels rushed and overwhelming. What kinds of conversations or emotional responses have meant the most to you from listeners who have connected with your work?
Chris Kinkade:
I have found joy in the fact that people have taken the time to listen and shared with me what this song has meant to them. This is a song that seems whispered into one’s ear instead of coming in roaring. In a world where most people are generally overstimulated it stands apart from the chaos of day to day life like an oasis that offers the refreshment of pause and wonder. I think some people appreciate an energetic space that does not polarize or require a reaction. It just is.
Oliver:
Looking ahead, how do you see your solo artistry continuing to evolve, and what kind of legacy would you like to leave for listeners who turn to your music as a place of peace, reflection, and hope?
Chris Kinkade:
I am just gonna keep creating whatever pops into my consciousness and give voice to whatever energies have found me to be a worthwhile vessel to collaborate with. As far as legacy goes I have no real devotion to crafting one. I have somewhat of a legacy as the quintessential “Hollywood Massage Therapist to the Stars” all these years, but musically I would be happy if my family found it comforting to listen to my music as a way to remember me when I am no longer here. It feels good to know that there are pieces of my soul reflected in the music I have created and if it touches anyone I am grateful to have had the honor to connect with them whether I am here or not.
Thank you for this thoughtful conversation Oliver, I am grateful for your time and for your wonderful questions.
Thanks & Praises!
“Some artists write songs to be heard, while others create spaces to be experienced. Through the quiet honesty of She’s in League with Angels, Chris Kinkade reminds us that music does not always need to shout to leave a lasting impression. Sometimes the gentlest melodies carry the deepest reflections, inviting us to pause, breathe, and rediscover hope within ourselves.”
~ Oliver (DULAXI Team)
MY EDITORIAL PERSPECTIVE
Chris Kinkade approaches songwriting with remarkable sincerity, allowing emotion to guide both composition and performance rather than technical perfection or commercial expectation. She’s in League with Angels succeeds because of its restraint, with the Celtic harp, understated vocals, and spacious arrangement working together to create an atmosphere that feels deeply personal yet universally welcoming. Speaking with Chris revealed an artist who values authenticity above recognition, making this release not simply a beautiful song, but a genuine reflection of a life shaped by healing, creativity, and hope.
~ Oliver (DULAXI Team)
CLOSING
Our sincere thanks to Chris Kinkade for joining us at DULAXI and for sharing the deeply personal experiences, inspirations, and creative philosophy behind She’s in League with Angels. Conversations like this remind us that music can be far more than entertainment. It can become a place of reflection, comfort, and human connection.
We encourage our readers to spend time with She’s in League with Angels and experience its gentle atmosphere for themselves. Whether you are already familiar with Chris’s work or discovering his music for the first time, this latest release offers an intimate glimpse into an artist whose commitment to authenticity continues to shape every note he creates.
Thank you for reading and for supporting independent artists through DULAXI. We look forward to bringing you more exclusive conversations with exceptional musicians from around the world in future editions.