Buck-O-Nine
Archived
Buck-O-Nine trombone player Dan Albert is optimistic about his band’s future with the release of the long-awaited major label debut Twenty Eight Teeth on the New York-based TVT Records. Just listen to this testimonial: “This project has a variety of different styles we’ve incorporated. It still has the Barfly-type sound, but we’ve also done a rockabilly song (“Rock At Billy’s”) — which will be released independently but was recorded during the Twenty Eight Teeth sessions — a campfire song (“My Tiny Tummy”) and a traditional reggae dub instrumental song (“Peach Fish”). It still has punk rock on it as well as ska, it’s pretty cool.”
It comes as no surprise that TVT would hire veteran producer David Kershenbaum to re-work three of the band’s new songs. Based on his long list of credentials (Madness, Elvis Costello, Duran Duran, Bryan Adams and Tracy Chapman), Kershenbaum lends a commercially viable touch to Buck-O-Nine, horn player extraordinaire.
Albert elaborates: “We’re trying to incorporate our live concert sound and a more polished approach to our recordings now. We did extra stuff on the album, like us horn players doing some background things vocal wise, but we’re playing at the same time. So to do it live we’ve got to choose which one we’re going to do. On this album we did not want to hold back anything.”
In an attempt to get the inside scoop on a potential single, Dan is pressured to let us in on his favorite track on Twenty Eight Teeth: “I like everything about this album. We all really feel that we’ve put heart and soul into the making of this album. You know, this album is Buck-O-Nine. The one song that really stands out is ‘My Town.’ It’s about living in San Diego and how we love San Diego and being home. It’s like a good feeling for us. Being on the road, we’ve seen so many towns that you actually enjoy your town that much more. For me, the weather is great here, people are real laid back, and it’s just a cool place. There’s all kinds of things to do. You’ve got the mountains, the beach, the desert, and Mexico is right next door. You’ve got everything here. I mean you can’t go wrong.”
And that name, is it some kind of Wu-Tang Clan‘s numerology trick; something that’s predicting the end of the world waiting for the twenty-eighth day of the birth of the seventh son of a seventh son? Not quite. While no one would ever dare utter Buck-O-Nine and the word “boring” in the same sentence, boredom is exactly what this album’s (title at least) all about.
“Twenty Eight Teeth is about being super bored,” says Albert. “John wrote the lyrics on the road because one time I think we had a fourteen hour drive or something. Put eight guys in a van for 14 hours, and you get pretty bored. He really counted his teeth. He was that bored.” But get them out of the van and on the stage and you’ll know one thing: a Buck-O-Nine live show is a force to be reckoned with. Despite their rigorous touring schedule, which has included an average of 200 live shows annually for the past two years, Buck-O-Nine manages to keep their concert appearances fresh.
“We stick by the set list every night, but we throw in songs the crowd wants to hear,” says Albert. “I mean, they came out to our show, and if they want to hear a song we’ll play it. We just like to play music, and we like to play live. We get up there and have a good time. Hopefully, everyone is happy that they came to the show. Playing live keeps us going.”
Despite being original and unique in their songwriting, Buck-O-Nine are known for their share of cover songs including “Sound System” by Operation Ivy, “Pass The Dutchie” by Musical Youth (both featured on Barfly), “Teenagers From Mars” by The Misfits and their newest addition as heard on Twenty Eight Teeth, “I’m The Man” by Joe Jackson. Other Buck-O-Nine oddities include a video offering of their life on the road. “We’re coming out with a home video type of thing of us on tour…just us on tour with some footage of us in Japan,” says Dan. “We were there for a week supporting Voodoo Glow Skulls for a couple nights. Ska is really big there for some reason now. It was weird because you’d be walking down the street and people would just come up to you and go “BUCK-O-NINE!”
Citing reggae as a major influence on the band, Rasta Dan meditates: “I listen to a lot of reggae. We listen to reggae all the time when we’re on tour in the van. My main reggae influence is Don Carlos (of Black Uhuru fame). But I don’t hold any boundaries for music. I listen to everything, and pretty much everyone in the band does too. I like classical, punk rock, jazz, I like it all. Horns have always been an important part of the band. As far as horn players go, I like Rico (Rodriguez). That guy can play.”
As far as the Buck-O-Nine songwriting process goes, it’s a team effort. It’s a big band and one which isn’t afraid to tap into its collective skulls. “All of us are writing songs,” says Dan. “This is how a typical song comes to us. Scott (bass player) or Jonas (guitarist) come up with a structured song on guitar. Then Steve adds more bass and guitar parts. From there we incorporate more, like writing horn parts. When we’re writing music, it’s weird. Someone’s idea generates another one. Sometimes guitars are telling us like ‘Why don’t you try this on your horns?’ Sometimes us horn players go ‘Hey, try the bass like this or try the drums like that.’ So we’re all throwing out ideas for each other’s parts, or we’re coming up with our own. If you asked us who wrote a particular song, I could tell you who came up with the original idea, but all of us write the songs.”
Songwriter Dan identifies what he considers to be notable tracks: “‘Tear Jerky’ is one of the few love songs we’ve ever written and probably the most emotionally charged songs on the new album. ‘My Town’ is a mid-tempo kind of tune. The punk edged ‘Round Kid’ and ‘Jennifer’s Cold” — a song about a girl who over exaggerates the severity of her cold — are real cool. ‘Record Store’ — a tune about when Jon (singer) used to work at a record store — is right on. ‘Twenty Eight Teeth’ which goes from a reggae groove into a power kind of feel to it, is there. ‘Peach Fish’ — a reggae dub instrumental which guitarist Jonas named after reading the title somewhere showcases my Rico horn influence. ‘My Tiny Tummy’ serves as a cool outro to the album. It came about when our guitarist was looking at lyrics the singer had written. He wrote a song to the lyrics and came up with that campfire style. Then everybody contributed to the song.”
After performing at the infamous South By Southwest Music Conference in Austin, as well many other cities in the south, the band returned home for a short week-long break before embarking to Canada as the support for Victorsville’s face to face. After a month of exhausting tour dates, Buck-O-Nine returned to California for a CD release party at Some Live in their hometown of San Diego much to the delight of fans. With the third full-length now firmly under their belt, Buck-O-Nine is certainly music you can sink your teeth into.
Read more interviews from the SLUG archives:
Brad
Vallejo
Having a jolly old nostalgic 90s time in the archives? Consider becoming one of our donors!
