Interview by Vinnie Chaffee Photography by Becky Gilreath
If you’ve listened to a Brian Buckley Band album, then the man himself is exactly how you picture him: laid back, friendly and open. The most amazing thing about someone as talented as Brian Buckley of the Brian Buckley Band is how absolutely humbled he is by being thrust into the world of Supernatural fandom, so much so that he agreed to an extremely last minute interview with WinchesterBros.com right before his show at Creation Entertainment’s 2011 Salute to Supernatural Vancouver Convention. After being detained by customs and having to rush to the hotel venue for sound check, Buckley still took the time to sit a bit with us and tell us more about himself, his band and his music. Pressed for time, we jumped right in.
WinBros: Thank you for sitting down with us, we know it was last minute
BB: It’s my honor.
WinBros: Here we go. In your bio you list Dave Matthews Band and Radiohead as prominent influences, so my challenge for you is, name you favorite DMB song and your favorite Radiohead song.
BB: That is really difficult, you’re putting me up against a wall here.
WinBros: I know, I know, those are hard to narrow down.
BB: Radiohead, I would have to say… oh man, that’s tough. I would have to say “All I Need” from In Rainbows is probably my favorite. Any time that song comes on I just get teleported to another place. Dave Matthews, that’s an easy one actually, “Number 41.” It’s a phenomenal piece of work and he has soaring vocals in it. Those are two songs that, when I need to “go home” so to speak, I listen to those tracks and I feel more relaxed.
WinBros: Sounds like those are your go to songs to decompress to.
BB: Yeah, any anxiety just disappears and you just feel at peace. We have so many influences y’know? Elbow, Bloc Party, Radiohead… we’re all over the board. The Animals, Genesis, we like everything, but Elliot Smith, Dave Matthews Band, Radiohead and Elbow are our main ones. Of course Dan would disagree with me.
WinBros: Oh really? Why is that?
BB: We all have such different influences.
WinBros: I noticed that. Your bios definitely reflect an eclectic mix in tastes.
BB: Very different. (laughs) Very different.
WinBros: You’ve been songwriting for the past 10 years, so what I want to know is now that you’re 31, what did 18 year-old you think you’d be doing by now?
BB: Wow. Well, 18 year-old me thought I would never, ever play music to be completely honest. Eighteen-year-old me thought that I was going to be, I don’t know what, but something else. For a long, long time I had no confidence in my music and my best buddy, who passed away, was the one that really pressed me about it. When he passed away I thought, ‘Yeah, I think maybe I should do this.’ I had met Jared (Padalecki) about a year before that and Jared took me aside and said, ‘Look, don’t be stupid’ and I thought to myself, ‘Well now that’s a fairly good point, I don’t want to be stupid.’
WinBros: Do you think that without those two influences you would have ended up in a more corporate environment or would you have still pursued something artistic?
BB: I would have still been artistic in some way, shape or form, but I think I’d probably have more of a normal, white picket fence, 9-5 type of life. At least, I would assume. Only because the odds are so stacked against you as an artist that you step into it with either your head completely in the clouds or your feet completely on the ground feeling like it’s too much. It takes all your courage and I got to the point where I was so scared that the fear is what drove me. It’s an interesting space to be in.
WinBros: Here’s my moment of honesty; my favorite Brian Buckley Band song is “Such a Shame, Andy Dufresne.” What inspired you to write such a powerful and meaningful song about a fictional literary character?
BB: Wow, thank you! I’m so glad you like that song, not a lot of people bring that one up, so that means a hell of a lot to us. Shawshank Redemption has always been one of my favorite films and the first novel I read as a kid was Cujo, so I’ve always been a big (Stephen) King fan. I was going through a moment in my life where guilt was playing a large part in what I had become. It was a terrifying place to be in. I began writing this song about redemption and I wanted to write it in a way that expressed guilt as a driving force, much like the character of Andy Dufresne; everything that drove him was guilt, even though he hadn’t done this terrible thing everyone thought he had. That was the place I was at. I titled the song ‘Such a Shame,’ then changed the lyric in the studio. It’s all about the guilt and burden that you try to cleanse yourself of, all the weight, nonsense and expectation.
WinBros: As a fellow King fan, the title stood out to me and the song itself has stuck with me. I’ve been curious from the first time I heard it.
BB: We definitely wanted to pique people’s interest. It’s the idea of what he is, what he tried to do and the idea that tried to escape from. It was what I was going through. It’s the idea of living your life with a guilt that makes you question, can make you believe, that you can do terrible things, even if you didn’t actually do them.
WinBros: This is the question every musician has to answer: studio or live?
BB: Oh man… both? That’s such a ridiculous answer.
WinBros: It’s the one I expected though.
BB: But it’s like cheating on a test, y’know?
WinBros: In that case: benefits of each?
BB: I guess the beauty of the studio is there’s nothing you can’t do, especially with today’s technology. I started as a singer/songwriter and as much as we’re trying to keep those roots, we’re also trying to shed them. We hold on to them and fight them. In the studio is where you can always get another take. It would be like asking Jared (Padalecki) the difference between acting in the theater and acting on film. One of the beauties of film is they can yell, ‘cut!’ and try it again another way. On the other hand, the beauty of playing live is that you can’t escape it, everything just goes out into the wind. If you look out into the crowd and you see people messing around with their phones or wondering about their lunch, you think, ‘No, I want to convert these people. This is it, right this second,’ but in the studio you have to convert yourself. That’s intense. You have to convince yourself and the other band members and the producer and the engineer. It’s a different pulse though, the difference between studio and live, the atomosphere of live, it’s…
WinBros: Chasing the rush?
BB: Yeah, the rush, the energy, you start to understand why rockstars OD. You get home from a show and you don’t know what to do what to do with yourself. It’s addictive; you’re playing your guitar at 5 a.m. without realizing it. If it were up to me though, it’d be five days a week in the studio tweaking songs and those same five nights playing them live, that’s heaven.
WinBros: The band’s sound is really eclectic and that’s something I and others gravitate to and enjoy, but does that lead to battles between the four of you about how a song is going to sound in the end?
BB: We’re a complete democracy, I bring in the songs and they layer on how they feel creatively based on how they connect to the songs emotionally, or now they bring in the music and it allows me to write on top of their stuff. I’m bringing in stuff so I already have an idea of what how I want it to sound and so do they. I know it’s hard to believe, but 95% of the time there’s no in fighting. We have such great communication, silent or otherwise, that we don’t get in each other’s way. We try everything, even if it takes hours. Of course, there’s that 5% of the time where we can look at each other go, ‘What are you talking about? What are you hearing? You’re crazy,’ but it’s like being in a relationship, the fighting hopefully leads to a better dialogue and something productive. The problem is, I write endlessly, so we have nine or ten albums worth of material on demos that no one’s even heard yet.
WinBros: Are you a “napkin writer?”
BB: (laughs) Sometimes, sometimes. Though I have to say I always hate my lyrics so I burn them a lot of the time.
WinBros: Have you ever written a song that now, being introduced into the world of Supernatural as you have been, you look back on and think that the song eerily fits into the theme of the show?
BB: Yes, actually, we did a record that we finished, but for various reasons wasn’t released and that was pretty scary, it was like, I don’t know, losing your child. At least that’s what it felt like. Although, I’ve never lost a child. I don’t mean like lost dead, I mean lost can’t find them at the supermarket. (laughing and shaking his head) Sometimes I say things and I shock myself.
WinBros: How about, ‘where’d I put my guitar?’
BB: Yes! Thank you! So, there’s a song on that record called “Brother” which is a dark, heavier, Tool meets AC/DC type of style. It’s a song about loss and a song that I can hear playing as we see them climbing into that beautiful black car of theirs and screaming at each other.
WinBros: Final question, and we’ll take it easy on you.
BB: Not how many girlfriends have you had? (laughing)
WinBros: We could go with, does your wife make you speak Spanish at home?
BB: Oh I wish. I’m the one at home going ‘hola’ and then she shakes her head. She’s hilarious.
WinBros: She’s really cool.
BB: (smiles) Yeah, I think so too.
WinBros: Actual question; I’ve gathered from some of your answers that you watch Supernatural.
BB: I do, I absolutely do.
WinBros: Do you ever watch it with Jared? And do you get to share reactions with him?
BB: I don’t really get to watch it with Jared, because normally when it’s airing he’s shooting, but we do text back and forth about episodes. When he was playing Lucifer I sent him a text about his true colors showing and he came back with a snide reply. Sometimes Gen and I will text back and forth, like after the one where she came back on and played herself. After I watched it I sent her a text, but she hadn’t seen it yet so she asked how I liked the episode. I thought she was hilarious because she is the antithesis of that person she played. She was great. Jared and I, we go back and forth about the show, but in the same way that he’s really respectful about my music I try to be respectful about his art, in that, if I send him a song I normally wait until the whole record is finished so he can see the entire scope of it. I do the same thing; I try to keep my thoughts to myself til I see the entire season. He puts so much work into it, just like we put so much work into our music.
WinBros: So you see his season as an album.
BB: Yeah, like a portrait.
The Brian Buckley Band will be playing at the Viper Room in Los Angeles tonight, September 16th, 2011. If you have the chance, go check them out. They put on a show that never disappoints.
WinchesterBros.com would like to thank Brian Buckley for taking the time to chat with us. Check out the Brian Buckley Band’s current album ‘Hysterical Blindness’ on iTunes and look out for the soft release of their follow up album next year.
For more information on Brian Buckley Band please visit:
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