Music is second nature for Luke Brindley. From growing up in a music-centric family in North Jersey to studying the art in school, it’s almost as if music is the sun and Brindley lives in its orbit.
“My parents were amateur musicians,” Brindley explained, “and I played in a duo with my brother. Music, and especially live music, was always a part of who we were as a family growing up… Everything I’ve done since I was a kid has been focused around music in some way or another.”
Live music followed Brindley into adulthood, where he toured as a singer-songwriter and guitarist for years. Weaved into this traveling was recording; the guitarist has released nine records since 2007, the most recent being A Hidden Wholeness in March 2025. Though his music focuses primarily on intense lyricism, Brindley’s creativity has shifted to fingerstyle guitar work.
“[Music] has always been my first love, and it’s always been a part of what I do since when I studied in college and everything. But a few years ago, I started posting more of just the fingerstyle guitar stuff online,” Brindley said. “It really resonated with people, which was great for me because I really have a blast posting it.”
“Resonated” is a humble understatement: Brindley’s Reels on Instagram have garnered hundreds of likes each, with some of the posts climbing past 70,000 views alone.
The videos themselves range from bluesy-based riffs to melancholy ballads, with perhaps an even more impressive collection of guitars showcased, as well. However, each clip demonstrates one thing in particular: Brindley enjoying every second of it.
He elaborated, “I basically would challenge myself to write an original short fingerstyle guitar piece, between 15 seconds and a minute long, every day. It was a great way for me to challenge myself creatively and produce something that felt finished and complete, even though it may have been short. A lot of them ended up turning into longer compositions as well. I’ll definitely be playing some of them in March.”
On March 25, Brindley stands among other fingerpicking guitarists, Johnny Kasun and Pat Guadagno, in RiverJAM Music’s latest Listening Room event. For Brindley, though, the event with RiverJAM is a reunion of sorts, as he originally met the RiverJAM team during their overlapping tenures in Washington, D.C.
“I mentioned that I’ve had a few jobs and other music-related things, and one of those things is that my brothers and I started a live music venue in the Washington, D.C., area,” he said. “That’s how we know the people (Meredith and Dan Kasun) who run RiverJAM… They asked me to play, and it seems like they have a really cool thing going on. So I’m really excited about it… I’ve done a lot of these sorts of events, in the round or with more intimate storytelling, behind-the-music sort of vibe, and I really enjoy them.”
The Jersey Shore venue for the RiverJAM show is a welcome return to where Brindley’s spent much of his time while growing up. In this type of environment, too—one where the focus is the music itself—his music thrives. “It’s because of the way a lot of what I write is more lyrics-focused and intricate guitar work,” he said. “It means a lot to me as an artist to know that people are listening intently and hopefully connecting with the music.”
With such a hefty discography, it’d be understandable to get lost when choosing songs for a shared stage. Brindley says, though, that his choices for the Listening Room are, for now, to be determined. “I have a handful [of songs] that I feel like are my go-tos,” he said, “but usually, heading up to a concert or a tour or something, I go back to some older music and see if anything is resonating with me. It’s a combination of playing some of the older stuff, some of the stuff I kind of always play, and then playing new materials is always exciting as well. There’s no substitute for playing new music in front of live people.”
Brindley concluded with thoughts of what listeners can expect on March 25: “I think a lot of my songs are maybe thoughtful or, like I said, lyric-focused. They tend to deal with bigger questions in life: love, family, that sort of thing. I hope that shows people maybe new ways to see things and new ways to think about things, and maybe, ideally, they see something of their own experience in my writing.”
Images taken from www.lukebrindley.com | Interviewed on February 4, 2026
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