When new Christian folk duo Benjamin “Bino” Peck and Chelsea Lindstrom first met in college, they had no idea their lives were going to change. The married pair, known professionally as Mr. & Mrs. Something, admits it wasn’t exactly love at first sight.
“We were both actually interested in other people,” Bino tells Guideposts.org, with a laugh.
The duo who just released their debut album Setting Sail served together on staff at Pacific University for a year before a “light bulb went off” and they decided to pursue a relationship.
Chelsea and Bino had both grown up in church and shared a love of music. They started fiddling with songwriting while dating. Bino, who’d served in several bands with family members and friends, asked Chelsea – a skilled musician in her own right – if she’d play a concert with him early on in their courtship.
“That concert was, by far, the most fun I had ever had,” Bino says. “A lot of the bands I had played with were with some of my best friends and those were all great, but this concert with Chelsea, it was just magical.”
Setting Sail – a cross between Christian rock and soulful folk – features a love song, “Home Will Be,” that describes the magic of their relationship. Bino wrote the song for his future wife on her birthday, while the two were still dating, and at a time when their relationship was in flux. Chelsea was considering leaving the country for mission work and the two were struggling with accepting that God may have separate plans for their lives. The lyrics are:
So baby stay in // But if you must go, please go / I won’t hold you back / We’re taking it, oh, so slow / And I’m just fine with that / But babe, please know / That I’m hoping for a day / When we no longer say / Call me when you’re home and safe from harm / ‘Cause home will be right here in your arms
“That song was my way of telling her, ‘I love you enough to let you go,’” Bino says.
When Chelsea’s overseas mission work didn’t work out, Bino ended up using “Home will Be,” to propose to Chelsea shortly after. The two even incorporated it into their wedding day festivities.
READ MORE: ONE WIDOW’S BEAUTIFUL ‘MONUMENT’ TO 59 YEARS OF LOVE
“We decided we weren’t going to do any dancing at our wedding,” Chelsea explains. Instead, “we ended up performing that song at our reception.”
It wasn’t until after the two became husband and wife that they seriously considered pursuing music as a career. Playing on the name of Bino’s band with his brother, The Something Brothers, Bino and Chelsea chose the name Mr. & Mrs. Something for themselves.
“I felt like the only way I’ll fail now is if I don’t try,” Bino says of his desire to follow his passion, “and it just seemed way better to try with Chelsea than not.”
While the band name is rooted in Bino’s past, the album’s title, Setting Sail is rooted in Chelsea’s. Growing up in the Northeast, the singer spent many days out on the ocean in her family’s boat. She describes their new musical journey as an exercise in patience.
“Part of sailing is not really knowing if there’s going to be wind but setting out and going for it,” Chelsea explains. “[In our music career,] we don’t know how it’s going to end up, but we want to try it because the Lord has made a way for us to do it so far.”
The duo’s debut album is filled with banjo-heavy beats, lyrics laced with metaphors and the couple’s propensity for playing multiple instrument. Its subtle style of praise may seem a little different from what you’ll hear on mainstream Christian radio and that means the songs can be played any and everywhere: in church, a coffee shop or even the local pub.
That’s exactly what the husband and wife team hope to do – bring their faith and their passion to people from all walks of life.
“The songs we write are really just an effort to encourage people and to reach people wherever they are,” Chelsea says. “We want to be that light in the darkness.”
“Sometimes, in order to do that you have to go to dark places,” Bino echoes.
Though working together creatively while married presents, as Bino says, it’s own “set of challenges,” the singers have discovered being able to be open and vulnerable, especially in their songwriting, has made their marriage even stronger.
“The ability to work together and be patient with each other has probably just pushed us to learn better teamwork that we wouldn’t have learned … yet at least,” Bino says.
They hope their album can encourage others, not only in their walk with God, but in following their own dreams.
“We want something that goes beyond just a surface level enjoyment of the music, that gets people thinking about what the lyrics say,” Chelsea says. “We love inspiring people to do what God created them to do.”
