Mick: So, we’ll start with the obvious question: how did you all come together? This is your first album and your initial introduction to the world. How did you all get together?
Andy: This is a question for Dom.
Dom: So, the six of us are all good friends, and we've played in bands for a long time. We’ve played in different bands. Half of the band played as a wedding band for a while. They had some success with that. Then, towards the end of that, they wanted to do a bit more on the creative side. So, we got together to make something of our own. Andy had an idea called “The Buffalo Men” as a label for him to play with other musicians, for playing local gigs, and trying to record some songs. However, it was a loose label, but not like a set lineup.
Then, a few years ago, we started to play together more. We were six friends, and we decided we all wanted to kind of take it just a bit more seriously, and maybe even try and work towards an album. That was a specific goal, and something to work together on.
Over the last few years we became a proper band, by getting a set lineup, with, sort of, set positions. That gave us a bit more drive towards the album. Then, actually, by doing that, Andy had written a lot of songs that we had on a kind of short list. When we started to jam more, to work towards some gigs and recording, naturally, there were wee ideas started to come out. Different people brought things to the table, and then through that, a few tracks started to make the album. When we were starting to become a band, we started to have a bit of our own sound coming across. Some really good tracks started to emerge, and then ended up easily, I would say, making the cut, really not disputed. Once we played them, we thought “you know what, they're really good quality, and probably trump the other ones” and we can then bump them onto the list. So, that's a summary for you.
Mick: That's fair. So, when it came to making the album, was there anything that was harder than you first expected it was going to be, or is there anything that was easier than you first expected?
Ally: We've got one song called Heartbeat, which was a single. Basically, Andy always had wanted to get a choir involved, and me, being the recording engineer with a tiny little space. I'm like, “how are we going to record a choir, Andy boy?”
Andy: I was like, “we've got a choir, it's fine”.
Ally: Andy was not for letting it go, no matter how many times I told him I was going to use that space. So, it ended up being that I would set up a couple of condensers, and we got six or seven rounds from the community choir. So two microphones each recorded it. Then layered the parts, and you know what? Actually, I just put them in a wee chamber of reverb, and it just actually sounded really effective. So, that for me, I was worried, that was a big one for me!
There were loads of things, really. This is the first time we recorded our own album. I've played and recorded albums with my father-in-law, and I've done albums with other bands as well, but this really is the first one I've recorded, pretty much every instrument on it, and that alone brings its own challenges. As for the space, I've got an old garage that I converted, and having a really low roof and small walls, it's a work in progress. I've still got a lot to do with it to get that space right, but it meant I had to spend a lot more time on the production side of things. If I can get it better at the time of recording, it will save me doing a lot of post-production, but that's where we're at at the moment. It's just getting used to the space, learning about that space, and getting better at how to control that space, but we're getting there.
I think we all learned a lot working on this album. Multi-tracking is not an easy thing to do, and we all had separate sessions for laying down the tracks. It's difficult for the band when you're not all in the same place. You can rehearse all you want, but when those other members aren't there with you, and you only have time to play that bit of music… It's hard for the guys to do that, and I fully respect that. However, coming through the other side of it, I think it's made us a lot stronger as a band. We're all on the same page a lot more when it comes to writing songs and how we go about it.
Mick: Has anybody else got anything to add to that, any personal challenges you thought were coming during the production?
Andy: I think because there's six of us, the hardest thing I found was organising six guys that have families, getting them in the same place, and we had to jam the songs and write them, which was difficult, but it was fun at least. Getting each person up to record their tracks, sometimes we were doing it at midnight, sometimes it was nine in the morning, that was a challenge. But as you say, it's just one of these things, you just need to work together.
Ally: I think the biggest idea was having that plan in place. We always had to ask, “Can you be available tonight?” or “Can you be available that night?” You just have to go with it and do what you can that night. If you don't get it done that night, we can go again. It wasn't the end of the world, but we were working towards a deadline. We really wanted that album out last year. So, between February and March, we probably got most of the tracks done on the album. We did it in the space of about 4 to 6 weeks. That was all the tracking side of things, and then after that, we were fortunate enough to have a good friend who used to record the band many years ago, called Marshall (from San Francisco), to help. Basically, he's got the same setup as I do, so I was able to send him the whole Logic file (which is what we recorded it all in). Then we could go on a call, and Marshall would take over the software. He's got a programme called Audio Movers, so we could listen to what he was doing. He was actually live mixing it, and that was really super helpful, because it’s almost like we’re in the same room, but he's on the other side of the world, if you like, and we just had to work with that.
Dom: I totally agree with that, and I think Marshall knows the band as well. He's an old friend of ours, and he had a recording studio for nine years in Scotland. He recorded a lot of bands in the Town Mill, and really developed quite a craft for the recording. The mixing and mastering, so he definitely did a great job with the tracks when we sent them over to them. Ally does an immense job from the recording point of view, and almost gets it to a point, then Marshall comes in with fresh ears, and then just tweaks it. Then, almost every time it comes through, well, of course, we go back with the versions, and we add notes to what we want to tweak. Fundamentally, you can feel where he's going with it, and it really adds a lot to the final product, once it's been through that additional creative process. He’ll sometimes say, “Do you want me to take a bit of creative licence?”, and we were like, absolutely!
Mick: That's really cool! Moving on, I've sent the album to a couple of friends now, because I think it’s really impressive. They come back to me saying, “Oh yeah, these guys are great, shame they're from America. I told them, they're not!” So, I just want to get into the Americana influence. You've clearly done your homework on how to recreate that kind of authentic country sound. Where do your influences lie? Do you enjoy country music or southern rock in your own time?
Andy: So that’s the interesting thing about the album. I started writing this album a long time ago. So some of the songs you'll hear on it are maybe a bit more indie rock-influenced. As we wrote the album, I would meet up with Ally, as he lives next door to me, and we share a lot. Ally loves southern rock, Americana, and blues, and I've got right into it with him. I think the real country song on the album is called I'm Doing All I Can. Ally came to me and said he'd had a few wines, and he said, “Andy, I want you to write a country song, just a pure country song. So I was like, okay, the pressure's on! I think a couple of weeks later, I came back with a home song written on an acoustic guitar, and we were all like, yeah, let's do it, and the band turned it into the fast-paced Americana song that it is today. We all got right into it.
Ally: I think what helped with that as well was that the track wasn't actually cut here. We actually cut that track with a gentleman called Roddy Mac Audio. He is another amazing engineer, and he basically does all live recordings. So we did three tracks off the album I'm Doing All I Can, Vultures, and of course the single Breakdown. We did those three tracks on one Sunday afternoon, live at his studio in Paisley. I think it was really good, especially doing that country song live, because you hear the speed of it, it's not like a usual country song. Again, that's where the differences in styles come across, because I'm a massive southern rock fan, as Andy pointed out. Just as a side note, I actually do my own radio show now. I started in December at a community radio station in Avondale. I just love talking about country influences and blues influences, and how that creates a whole style of southern rock. Southern rock is an amalgamation of styles: jazz, blues, gospel, country, rock, you name it. So I can actually talk about any artist I want, really. In my opinion, that's what I was trying to bring with the band. I think that's how we've got that sound going at the moment, really.
Also going to see live bands as well, the last few months Andy, Dom and I have been to a few gigs. We've caught up with an act called 49 Winchester, whom I've seen a couple of times now. They're an incredible band. They're more country than southern rock, I would say; they push different boundaries. I've seen Blackberry Smoke over the last year. I went to see another act called The Red Clay Strays in November. There are just all these amazing American bands out at the moment; they just tour and tour. Release after release. They’re really hard-working bands, and I guess that's what really inspires us.
Mick: Yeah, definitely, as someone who, I mean, I started on country music, and then I got into rock and metal through country music, because that was my journey personally, so for me it was capturing all those little things that brought me through my journey, and that's why I really gravitated to the album quite well. I feel like you do absolutely nail quite a bit of the gospel and blues elements at times in that record. Is there any particular song from your perspective then, that you really really admire, the construction of that song, and how you've taken that into your own writing?
Andy: Yeah, I think we've robbed a few ideas from time to time, so I would say. I went through the stage of loving Blackberry Smoke, and there's quite a few songs that they do, and I just love the way they did it. The song Waiting for the Thunder. It's a phenomenal tune, I love the way it had gaps, the vocals coming through, it had nice wee different guitar solos, going into almost a different key, and I think that's where Breakdown was born from. We definitely took parts of the more rocky Blackberry Smoke, into some of our newer songs like Breakdown, and Doing All I Can, and yeah, I would say that was probably the biggest influence for me.
Dom: There's quite a lot of influences in terms of what people like in the band. I think that sort of blues and country. That sort of southern style is probably what unites the band. That is a genre everybody in the band likes, that kind of vibe of bands. Then, probably some maybe more singer-songwriter type stuff, Andy's a wee bit more into those types of jams. I think we're all probably united in a lot of the classic bands, like The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Fleetwood Mac. All the major classics like Led Zeppelin. That probably unites the band, but they splinter off quite a bit and listen to quite a lot of different things, and every two or three months I get sent something that becomes my band at the moment, because I've never heard of them, I've no idea who they are, and they're always brilliant, so that goes on my Spotify for my travel to work.
Mick: Yeah, it's good to have a bit of an eclectic range, I've been speaking to a lot of bands in that area, and I do like bands that bring multiple influences, and that's something I definitely picked up on. So, how have you translated some of the more complicated songs on the album to being in a live show?
Andy: I like to think of us more as a live band, and I hope that comes across in the record. There's a lot of emotion, a lot of drive. So, I think recreating the album, we actually played an album launch night locally, which sold out, which was brilliant, and we played the whole album, because why not, we can do it. We did a lot of rehearsing on it, but it really brought us together as a band. We didn’t try to recreate the album exactly, but it did come together very well. We also had the choir live on stage for Heartbeats, so we didn't need to compromise on that. The audience seemed to have a great time, they were all dancing and loving it. Personally, playing live, there's nothing better than playing live at a packed out place.
Ally: There is no compromise, and that's exactly the answer to your question. That album, as Andy said, we tried to create it as live as we could, albeit only three tracks were recorded live. As far as I'm concerned, the way we approached the multitracking, we made sure there were two or three guys playing at the same time on that recording, and you still get that emotional feel, that tie that we're all together.
Going forward, that's the way we’re going to be. We don't hold back in our live performance, and that's what we wanted to come across on the album. That's why we did the album, we wanted to show what we're all about.
Mick: I feel like, because we're at the start of the year, I feel like I need to ask this. What's the New Year's resolution for the Buffalo Men? What do you hope to achieve this year as a band?
Andy: I think there will be more live shows. I think we've got four booked in now, but we want to do more live shows and maybe a couple of festivals. Just to get our sound out there and keep writing tunes. We've got a few in the pipeline. We've rehearsed a few of them already, they're sounding really good, quite that country rock kind of feel. Excited to get them out there, possibly get a wee EP out there this year as well. Just play as much as we can, really.
Ally: Ideally we will try and release a track quarterly, that's very ambitious at the moment. We've got no plans for another album this year, we just released that at the end of last year. But maybe an EP in the spring is certainly on the cards. My other goal, we shared that with the band, was to try and get involved in festivals. My father-in-law, we're lucky enough, runs two festivals in our hometown. Very small festivals. One is in his own amphitheatre field that he built over the course of ten years. There's about six or seven acts during the day. There are a couple of signed acts, not massive acts, signed under local labels in Glasgow. That's a good gig, it's called Cloverhill. Hangarfest, we've got every pub in Straven, you'll have about six or seven acts all day. We've been a part of that since the get-go. Those two festivals are there. I'd love to go to another festival. Last year I was fortunate enough to play with my father-in-law at Belladrum and Buickfest, which are really big festivals in Scotland. This year, unfortunately, Buickfest was cancelled. Belladrum is super difficult to try and get into if you've not done it before. My father-in-law has done a couple of acoustic sets over the years and that's how you get involved in those sorts of gigs. I don't know if we can do it again. It comes back to the band's availability. If we get a date for a festival and we can do it, then for sure we'll be in there. At the moment, the festivals are filling up so it's quite difficult to try and get in. Without having a lot of contacts in that line of work, it is difficult.
Mick: Fair enough. This is my final question. I ask it of every band, every artist I've ever asked. What is the hardest thing you've had to overcome, personally or professionally, and how did you overcome it?
Dom: Good question. Can we get a job at the end of this?
Andy: Firstly, for me, I think the boys know. It was a really bad car accident nine years ago. I was very unwell for a good couple of years. Overcoming that, I was having my first childhood with my wife. It was a very difficult time to overcome. A lot of the music had to take a back step. Getting over it and getting back into playing live and writing songs, the whole music thing helped me so much. It's what I love. It's like therapy sometimes. That was the biggest thing I've overcome.
Ally: For me, I've always been a bit part on an album production side. Having recorded every instrument, all three tracks we did live with another engineer, it's a massive achievement from my point of view. I've never been fortunate enough to have the reins and do that and try and get all the sessions booked and record it and edit it and stuff like that. That was massive for me. It gives me a bit more confidence to say, we've done that well, but how can we do it better again and move forward on the next record? That's what it should be all about.
Dom: I think probably for myself, I probably had some personal struggles maybe about 12 years ago. Probably got caught up in the lifestyle of heavy drinking and so on and so forth. I had a rock bottom moment and decided to change things. Probably from that moment on, I just changed the trajectory of my life and feel like I went in a much more positive direction. Not perfection, but just progress in different ways ever since that point. That's probably continued to this day. Again, not perfect, no finished article, but always making progress and doing things with a bit more control, a bit more positive person out the back of that turning point about 12 years ago. That's probably mine.
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