Gilbert’s Stirling adapts to COVID life
Lindsey Stirling was on a plane to South America when all her plans for 2020 started falling through.
“It was very dramatic because while we were on the plane, we got the notification that your tour’s been canceled and you’re gonna get your bags, turn around and come home,” she says.
“So it was very strange to suddenly be back at my house with all my bags while I was still trying to figure out why I wasn’t on stage in South America.”
Since then, she’s been adapting to the ever-changing reality while finding new ways to express herself creatively and doing what she can to stay connected to the fans she’d planned to entertain in person through the end of 2020.
The violinist’s first decision was to spend some time with family, staying with her younger sister, Brooke, on her ranch in Missouri.
“I’m really glad that I immediately flew to see my sister,” Stirling says. “I was like, ‘I feel so displaced. I don’t know what to do.’ I wanted to go somewhere that feels really safe. It was the best decision that I could have made.” It was rejuvenating, Stirling says. “I was helping her feed the horses, chasing my nieces through the fields. It’s very different than my life in LA.”
Time with family was ‘a huge silver lining’
Stirling hasn’t always lived in California. She was raised in Gilbert, Arizona, a Mesquite High School grad who visited her alma mater just last year to entertain the students at a pep rally.
Her mom still lives in Arizona, but she flew to visit with her daughters in Missouri, where Stirling would spend her days working and then hang out with her family in the evenings.
“I got to in a way have the most balanced life I’ve ever had since I became a professional,” Stirling says.
“I had family dinner every night. We had movie nights, game nights. It was a time with my family that I was gifted, so there was a huge silver lining. It’s kind of reminded me of the core of what makes me happy and that is being with family and creating.”
Lindsey Stirling’s new podcast and feeling vulnerable
Among her creative pursuits has been the launching of “String Sessions,” an eight-part podcast series whose musical guests have ranged from Stirling tourmate Amy Lee of Evanescence to Johnny Rzeznik of Goo Goo Dolls and Jewel.
Each episode opens with an acoustic performance of a song by that week’s guest accompanied by Stirling on a string arrangement she’s created just for the occasion, followed by an in-depth interview.
It’s an idea she’s been meaning to explore for quite some time, having guested on several podcasts.
“It’s probably one of my favorite types of interview to do because I walk away usually feeling like I have this kind of friendship with the person that interviewed me,” she says. “It’s just such a casual, chill way to do an interview. And I thought it would be really fun to, I don’t know, curate my own.”
What held her back was worrying that she wasn’t cut out for the role of podcast host.
“I was a little bit intimidated by it, to be honest,” she says. “Like, ‘Oh, I don’t know if I’d be a very good interviewer. What if people don’t enjoy my personality on that side?’ A lot of times I could hide behind the violin and a bunch of lights and costumes, you know? So it made me feel a little vulnerable.”
Then the coronavirus hit and all her touring plans fell through.
“And suddenly, I found myself sitting at home, like so many people,” she says. “And I was just trying to be creative and figure out how to connect to my fans and keep my creativity alive in a new way and I kind of fell back to this old list of ideas I’ve had from the past and ‘String Sessions’ was one of them.”
She’ll be taking a break from the podcast after these eight episodes have aired.
“It’s time consuming to write full violin arrangements and research the artist,” Stirling says. “I’ve gained a lot of respect for interviewers and how much time it takes to prep well. So it’s something I don’t think I’ll be able to keep up on a weekly basis like I’ve been doing. But I think I’ll keep trying it and see how it does, especially when things calm down.”
The ‘Artemis’ comic book and meditation music
She’s also been putting the finishing touches on the comic book she wrote as a companion piece to “Artemis,” her latest album, that tells the story of the goddess of the moon and how she came to be.
“It’s been a very long process,” she says. “I’ve been working on it for over a year. And we finally just finished the script for the last issue. So that’s kept me really busy as well as ‘String Sessions.’”
Now that she’s back in LA, Stirling plans to start working on new music for her next release, a meditation album or EP.
“I want to write some music that helps people feel calm and connected,” she says. “I’ve felt a lot of anxiety through all of this, the ups and downs. I don’t normally struggle on a daily basis with anxiety. But I think a lot of people are feeling that same heaviness and anxiousness of just the world. So I thought I want to write music that helps people curb their anxiety and feel connected and strong.”
She recently released her second music video of 2020 — “Between Twilight,” a musical fairy tale featuring Derek Hough — and there’s a third one on the way. But those have been done for a while now.
“Thanks heavens,” Stirling says. “In January, I filmed that music video and another one to be released through the rest of the summer to kind of carry me through all those times when I was just gonna be on the road. So it’s been nice to have something that brought people a little bit of joy.”
‘I wanted to help people struggling from COVID-19’
In April, Stirling launched the Upside Fund, a charity outreach program that’s given hundreds of thousands of dollars to people in need of immediate economic assistance as a result of the coronavirus.
“I wanted to help people that were struggling from COVID-19,” she says. “Because I lost a lot in my own way. I lost the tours. I lost definitely some finances through that, but I’m in a place where I’m OK. And the reason I’m OK right now and I don’t have to worry about losing my house or buying food, is because of my fans. They’ve changed my life.”
If this had happened when Stirling was just getting started, she says, “it would have ruined me. Like, I don’t know if I would have recovered. I don’t know if I would have been able to continue being an artist. And so because of that, I just wanted to give back to the people that might be really hurting.”
Stirling says she never dreamed her touring plans would be on hold this long that day in South America when the reality of what it means to live through a pandemic was just starting to set in.
“I had really high hopes that we would still be able to do our U.S summer tour for a long time,” she says. “And when I packed to go to my sister’s, I packed for two weeks. I had no idea I would be there for four months. I just barely got back to LA.”
At first, she says, her thinking was “OK, I’m gonna wait out this coronavirus and then once everything opens up, I’ll go home.”
But over time, she says, that turned into “You’re gonna have to learn to live in this and work in this and thrive in this. And so I made the hard decision of all right, I’m gonna leave this wonderful family life and go back to building my life in a place that now I don’t know what the new normal is for the rest of this year and who knows how long.”
She’s already been brainstorming tons of ideas, she says.
“And I’m sure most of them will turn out very differently than I intended, but it’s gonna be this time of trial and error. And I’m just gonna keep giving myself pats on the back for doing things and moving. I’m a big believer in gold stars. You’ve sometimes just gotta give yourself a frickin’ gold star for waking up in the morning, you know. And I’ve been doing that a lot lately.”
She’s also been missing the stage. “I miss it so much and I know I’m gonna appreciate it even more when I get back there,” Stirling says.
“I miss my team, my crew. It was devastating to tell them all I couldn’t bring them on these tours that we had all been looking forward to, that they were gonna get paid for. That’s another reason as to why I think a lot of people are trying to figure out how can we keep shows and touring alive in a different way. So we can all hire our crews and we can hire our dancers.”
In the meantime, Stirling says, her thoughts and prayers are with the folks back home in Arizona, where COVID-19 cases have been spiking for weeks.
“I have a lot of family and friends there,” Stirling says. “And I know it’s a little rough there right now so my thoughts are with you.”