LINCOLN — The hills of Lincoln are certainly alive with the sound of music. 

That’s in part due to the 2023 reopening of Pepperbox Studio, a recording studio run by Lincoln resident and record producer Kristina Stykos that she originally founded in Chelsea. Since May, Stykos has welcomed a variety of musicians to the rural recording space, which is connected to her home on French Settlement Road. 

At Pepperbox, Stykos lends her musical expertise to artists from throughout the state and beyond, offering a range of services from songwriting assistance to hiring session musicians to play on tracks.

Her work with clients is informed by decades of experience as a recording engineer, as well as a musician, songwriter and performer. 

“I’m sort of a musician-for-hire, as well as an engineer and a producer. It’s kind of a package deal with me,” Stykos said during a recent interview. 

STUDIO ORIGINS  

Stykos, 66, originally opened Pepperbox Studio back in 2004. At the time, she was living in Orange County and operating the studio out of her home, then in Chelsea. 

“It started as a project studio for my own music. Then I started producing some of the bands I was in,” Stykos recalled. “Then people just heard about it and started coming to me.” 

One of Stykos’s first projects at Pepperbox was producing a CD of stories with author and storyteller Simon Brooks. Over the years, she’s collaborated with artists like guitarist Doug Perkins, singer-songwriter Patti Casey and Grammy-nominated pianist Philip Aaberg. 

Stykos has produced more than 30 albums at Pepperbox, some of which she’s released on her own label, Thunder Ridge Records. She’s also recorded and released several solo albums, most recently “River of Light” in 2019. 

Stykos describes her personal music style as Americana — a little folky, a little rocky. 

“I play a bunch of instruments, so when I produce records, a lot of times, I’ll play parts for people; guitar, mandolin, bass, keyboards,” she said.

LINCOLN STUDIO 

Stykos relocated her studio to Lincoln in 2021. The move was motivated by a desire to be closer to her three children, all of whom have ties to the town.  

The new location also offered closer reach to the bigger music market in Burlington. 

“I had just enough work over in central Vermont, but it felt like being closer to Burlington would be great for tapping into the music community,” Stykos said. 

Stykos spent her first summer in Lincoln living in a yurt on the property while her home was renovated, and construction on a two-story building to house Pepperbox got underway. 

“When I decided to move to this part of the state, I saw that it was an opportunity to start from scratch and really make the studio the way that I’d want to instead of working out of my house, which was the case before,” she said. 

The 1,500 square-foot building is connected to Stykos’s home via a bridge on the second floor and features an outdoor deck for hosting events. Upon entering the building, visitors are greeted by a cozy hang-out space on the bottom floor, complete with a wood stove and a small stage for live concerts. 

“It’s nice to have a space where a band can hang out and relax and have a meeting, while maybe somebody is doing overdubs upstairs,” Stykos said. “It gives us more flexibility in terms of spreading out and being able to even sleep somebody for the night.” 

Upstairs is where most of the magic happens at Pepperbox.

Vibrant rugs line the floor, guitars and mandolins hang on the walls, and western-facing windows offer views of the surrounding mountainous landscape. The recording space features state-of-the-art equipment, a drum kit and amps for visiting artists, and an isolation booth. 

The studio also offers something you won’t find in the busy music cities of Nashville or even Burlington: a rural location devoid of most human-made sounds and distractions. The recording space is located a stone’s throw from the Catamount Trail in the Green Mountain National Forest and sits at the end of a winding dirt road that is at times subject to Vermont’s volatile winter weather. 

Artists who want to fully immerse themselves in the Lincoln landscape can opt to stay in one of two Airbnb lodgings on the property. A one-bedroom cottage and a rustic yurt are available to visiting musicians throughout the year. 

“If you come out here, you get a nice rural, relaxing, ‘sit on the deck with a cocktail,’ sort of experience,” Stykos said. 

WORKING WITH ARTISTS

 When an artist arrives at Pepperbox, Stykos is able to offer a variety of services to help create their ideal project. 

“Some people come in and they’ve organized the whole production in their mind in advance, so they know who they want to play on the album, they have a polished performance ready to go,” Stykos said. 

Other times, singer-songwriters come in with a collection of songs and need help putting the other pieces of the record together. From there, Stykos can either play on those records or hire a session musician to record backing tracks. 

Stykos helps record, arrange and mix tracks for clients and then sends records off for mastering. 

While she’s well versed in the technical components of recording, Stykos’s approach to producing is focused on letting an artist’s music shine on its own as much as possible. 

“I think recording engineers fall into two camps. They’re either musicians who learned how to record to have more control over the process, or they’re people who love music who are also super geeky and love electronics,” she said. “I would say I fall into the first category, where I came into it as a musician and then learned what I needed to know so that I could produce myself and my friends, and then it expanded into paying clients. My approach is musical first, technical second.” 

Stykos also aims to offer artists “professional, affordable audio production” at Pepperbox. She typically charges around $75 per hour, depending on the project, and offers a sliding scale as needed. 

“I always encourage people to fundraise because it’s expensive to make records,” Stykos added. 

Stykos has worked on a handful of projects since reopening her studio this past spring. Recent collaborations include working with Abenaki singer-songwriter Bryan Blanchette and recording an album of original songs by local guitarist and vocalist Mark Pelletier, a member of Deb Brisson and The Hay Burners. 

Over the past year, Stykos has also been working on creating an album with her eldest daughter, Freya Yost, who is a singer-songwriter. 

Pepperbox is among just a few recording studios available to local artists. Stykos noted there are a couple of other studios located in nearby Bristol and Middlebury, though available space can be hard to come by at times. 

Stykos said she’s connected with a variety of other musicians since moving to Addison County, including studio assistant and singer-songwriter Lutalo Jones, a fellow Lincoln resident who has started recording music at Pepperbox; Tony award-winning musician Michael Chorney; and Adrianne Lenker of the indie folk band Big Thief. 

Other recent collaborations include working with Ray Paczkowski and Russ Lawton of the Addison County drum and organ duo Soule Monde, both of whom have played on recent Pepperbox projects as session musicians. 

Looking ahead, Stykos has a handful of projects on the horizon. Upcoming endeavors include working with a band based in Montpelier and releasing a new album by The Cousins Project, a collaboration between Stykos and her cousin Steve Mayone.

Stykos said working with different artists is one of her favorite parts of running Pepperbox. 

“I think it’s just the feeling that I’m supporting other people’s creativity and I can actually help people to feel more confident,” Stykos said. “The technical challenge in making records is like doing a really hard crossword puzzle. I like that intellectual challenge of the technical part.”

In the upcoming year, Stykos is also looking forward to filling the Pepperbox building with much more than music. She said she envisions the bottom floor of the studio as becoming a “community space” of sorts for the neighborhood and a spot for hosting different kinds of events. 

“We’ve run a yoga class, we’ve done movie nights for the neighborhood,” Stykos said. “We have such a great neighborhood, and it’s just a nice space for people to come and do things together.”