🎙️ Episode 28 – Chris Pelonis 🎸🎚️ MR. STUDIO SOUND - (Lost Chord Guitars, Chris & Pitts BBQ, Jeff Bridges Band)
Chopping It Up with Keith Saarloos · Released January 14, 2026 · Santa Ynez Valley, California
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About this conversation
This one felt hidden in plain sight.
Right here in Solvang, California, there’s a guy quietly shaping how the world sounds — and most people have no idea.
Chris Pelonis owns Lost Chord Guitars, an intimate room built for listening.
But that’s just the ground floor.
Chris grew up inside Chris & Pitts BBQ, helped shape how generations remember food, then climbed into music — early exposure to the Rolling Stones, the Sound Factory, one microphone, one room, one truth.
What followed was a life spent listening deeper than most:
Designing hundreds of world-class studios
Shaping sound for Sony PlayStation, Dolby, and beyond
Touring as a guitarist with Jeff Bridges
And always coming back to the same idea:
not louder — truer.
This wasn’t a résumé conversation.
It was about craft.
About patience.
About building rooms — and lives — that translate emotion.
We talk about:
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Growing up inside Chris & Pitts BBQ and the accidental lessons of entrepreneurship
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Early encounters with the Rolling Stones and the Sound Factory
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Why one microphone can beat ten
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Designing nearly a thousand listening spaces around the world
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Touring with Jeff Bridges and building a real band
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Why great sound is about honesty, not perfection
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And why slowing down might be the most advanced technology we have left
Chris isn’t selling anything.
Neither am I.
This is just a reminder that the best conversations still happen
when we listen long enough for the truth to show up.
If you love music…
If you care how things are made…
If you miss when craft mattered more than volume…
This one’s for you.
🎧 Chopping It Up — Chris Pelonis
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Saarloos + Sons archive host Keith Saarloos. Context photograph; not a portrait of the guest or a photograph of this recording.
