Mind Noise Network
Interview with Andrew from Buffalo Summer
Hailing from South Wales, Buffalo Summer are showing off their own style of classic rock. We had a chat with Andrew Hunt after their set at The Slade Rooms in Wolverhampton. You can read our review here.
For people who don’t know who you are, who are Buffalo Summer and what do you do?
Well we formed in 2010 and I’m Andrew the singer, my brother Gareth is the drummer, Darren the bass player I went to school with and I went to college with Johnny the guitarist, so we’ve all known each other a very long time. Myself and Johnny bonded over a love of bluesy classic rock, you know The Black Crowes and the usual suspects Zeppelin, Sabbath, Skynryd etc. From there we just wrote some songs, put a band together and here we are today.
I saw you guys on the Lords Of The Riff tour earlier in the year, but you seem to have been quite quiet since then.
Yeah, that tour was a great bunch of bands, Monster Truck and Scorpion Child are brilliant. We also went over to mainland Europe with Buck Cherry and Skid Row and did a few shows over there. Since then we’ve been keeping ourselves busy recording a new album.
You played a few new songs in your set earlier, they sounded really good. When’s the album due out?
The beginning of next year (2015) hopefully. We’re at the mixing stage at the moment, just finalising who’s going to do that. We’ve had a few tests done and as soon as that’s in the bag we’re going to speak to a few labels and hope that one of them gets on board. If not, we’ll just go DIY like we did with the last one.
Shouldn’t be too much of a problem to get someone on board with it. You mentioned earlier touring with Buck Cherry & Skid Row, you’ve also toured with Walking Papers and Ugly Kid Joe, how was it touring with those guys?
Well in the beginning when we started doing these shows we were very much in awe of all these people, especially when you’ve grown up liking the band and you’ve had posters of them on your wall. But literally every band that we’ve been out with has treated us really well and been really supportive. Duff was a really nice guy and we actually ended up working with Barrett Martin, the drummer from Walking Papers, who was also in Screaming Trees and Mad Seasons. But all of them were really nice. We’re actually meeting up with Skid Row on our day off on this tour.
What would you say is the best venue you’ve played at or crowd you’ve played so far?
Download Festival was a bit of an eye opener for us when we played in 2013. We weren’t sure how many people were gonna be there, but we walked out and the tent was full. That was an amazing gig. We did Hyde Park for British Summer Time, we weren’t on the mainstage but on the bill was Sabbath and Soundgarden. That was a good bill to be on.
Sounds great! How has this tour gone so far?
Well tonight is only the third show but it’s been really good. The lineup is really good too, three bands really steeped in classic rock but playing different variations of it. Considering the price of tickets for some of the bigger bands it’s refreshing to get three bands who are giving it there all for just over £10. It’s good to see people supporting live music by coming out in the middle of the week too.
Have you helped Massive settle in on their first UK tour?
Ah man, they’ve just taken to it. I don’t think the British way of life is much different to the Australian way of life apart from the sun. They’ve been sampling some of the beers over here for sure.
Yeah I noticed that they had a few on stage. You’ve got 15 shows on this tour. Is it difficult trying to get geared up for that many shows in a row?
For me, I just try and look after my voice. No crazy rock n’ roll stuff for me, I leave that to the others cause I’ve gotta sing every night.
You don’t want to hurt your tambourine arm either!
No, gotta keep that intact.
So you’ve been Buffalo Summer for 4 years, did you think you could get on to the tours you have done without having been signed?
Not really, no. We just set out doing it because we loved playing live, it was just a fun thing. It still is a fun thing, we do work hard at what we do, but we keep our feet on the ground and whatever we get is a bonus. If we get a reward every once in a while that’s excellent, that’s our outlook on it.
You still pop up with the odd headline show in Wales, are there any local bands that you think people should be listening to?
Yeah actually there’s quite a healthy amount of bands from down there. We’re from a town called Neath and johnny is from Swansea. But there’s a number of bands from all sorts of different genres. I think that maybe because we’re in the South West of the country the area sometimes gets overlooked. But in terms of classic rock there’s Texas Flood & Beautiful Strangers. There’s heavier stuff like Sons Of Thunder and Tidal. There’s a band called New State Radiowho are a Manic Street Preachers meets a kind of grunge vibe. It's a really healthy scene down there.
Where do you see Buffalo Summer in five years?
We're just keeping our feet on the ground and working hard. If we were able to do this and make a living off of doing it, which we can't at the moment, well that's the dream. We're just taking it week by week rather than year by year.
Finally, what would be the ideal gig lineup for you guys?
On behalf of the band - just to be able to see Hendrix would have been amazing, let along be on the same lineup, he was so far ahead of his time as we all know. Zeppelin in their prime with Robert Plant in his lovely blouse and Jimmy Page in his dragon suit. We were lucky enough to be on the same lineup as Soundgarden in the Summer. I would have loved to have seen Alice In Chains with Layne Staley. Then there's The Black Crowes, Tom Petty. It's turning into a three day weekender now, sorry. But yeah, any of those would have been great.
Excellent, well thank you for taking the time out to talk to me.
No worries, thanks very much.
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