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 INTERVIEW Against The Wind Songwriter and guitarist Richard Buckner is the kind of performer who likes to do it his way--even if that means driving his own pick-up truck across the country on tour. |
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Richard Buckner with Fernando and Luther Russell, Ian Moore, Joseph Arthur Satyricon 125 NW 6th Ave., 243-2380 10 pm Friday, March 12 $6 Visit Richard Buckner's unofficial Web site at: http://home.earthlink.net/~doubters/buckner.html. Richard Buckner makes music for dark moods, heavy drinking and quiet, painful contemplation. On both of his still-in-print albums, Devotion + Doubt and last year's Since, the songwriter/guitarist sings gravel-voiced stories of restless drifters, broken-hearted romantics, lost drunks and trashed relationships. His arrangements are pure Americana, but hardly traditional--an earthy, brooding blend of country, folk and rock that ditches melody in favor of hooks that stick in your brain for days like a haunting hangover. WW caught up with Buckner in Kansas as he was touring the county in his pick-up truck. WW: Are you touring with a band? Richard Buckner: No, I'm touring with my girlfriend. She's playing drums with me. It's just guitar and drums. That's interesting because your last album, Since, was the first time you really plugged in and played electric. What prompted that change? It was really just the way I heard the song arrangements in my head. I hadn't played the material very much before I recorded them, and I had some weird band-sound thing in my head. Are you being affected at all by this Polygram purge? Oh, in a positive way. Positive? They dropped me. Are you kidding me? Uh-uh. It's a good thing. I also assumed the relationship [with MCA] would be over after Since because that's the kind of deal we had. They just took a while to tell me about the roster cuts. I think I want to stay clear of the bottom feeders for a while, so I don't plan on signing with another label. Major labels or all labels? I'm not sure if I want to go to a label at all. I'm not sure what I want to do. I don't trust anyone anymore. I mean, as far as independent labels, I never got paid off from [his debut] Bloomed and still feel used from that, so, I don't think it has to do with a major or minor label. It has to do with the overall thievery of the classic record company-artist relationship. Are you saying you're never going No, I'm going to make records. I have an 8-track at home. I just don't know about future stuff. Well, I may be off base here, but since your last two records dealt with your divorce or coping with depression, and now you have a new girlfriend--is it blocking you up? [laughter] No, I don't think the records were about dealing with romantic depression. I was just writing about stuff, not about me dealing with my horrible life. It was a bunch of fucking songs, ya know? These songs aren't autobiographical? Well, everything is to a certain extent, but that's not me in all of those songs being some fucked-up loser, all right? OK. What made it feel autobiographical is not just the presentation of the words, or the music, but on Since your lyric sheet actually reads like one large letter. There's no division of songs or song titles. It feels personal. Well, that's how I write. When it gets down on paper, it's not usually in the form of how the song's going to be. It doesn't really matter what kind of phrasing or pentameters or style because the words are separate from the songs. When you put words to music, the music always imposes some mood on the words that wouldn't normally be there. And when you sing, your voice has a certain emotion to it. So when I was making the booklet for it, I didn't want there to be an indication of where one song began and ended; I wanted it to be one large piece. Your lyrics are unique--the songs are often fragments, you use odd punctuation, like quotes that don't come from narrators. Well, after I've written something, I often go back through and over-punctuate because I think grammar rules are fucking stupid. When I was studying English in college, it was really hard to get your point across and then have some professor say, "That's wrong." Well, it's not wrong, asshole--it's some rule that's been brought down and has no bearing on any literature at all. So, I did a lot of things to piss my professors off. You also like to make up words. It's necessary. The more new words out there the better.... Rules are necessary to a certain extent, but so much of it is the way you breathe and talk and think while you're talking that there's no correct way you can write a story using proper grammar rules. That's why I do that E.E. Cummings, ya know? I've found the best way to listen to your stuff is to grab a bottle of whiskey and-- That's a great way to do anything. [laughter] Well, yeah. Your stuff is definitely soaked in alcohol. You're a creative drinker. It helps. It does work, so it's not bad. There's nothing wrong with that shit. People have started lumping you in with the alt-country genre. How do you feel about labels such as these? I think the No Depression [the 'zine] people use it to make money, to make a living, by lumping a bunch of shit together as if it's some sort of fucking movement. I don't like all that crud, and I try to avoid it as much as I can. It's a real embarrassment to the artists that play the music. You say these are just a bunch of songs you write, but is making this type of music a cathartic experience for you? I just do it. Yes, there's something that goes on inside you during
a show, an emotion that's unexplainable. Okay, if I'm able to have a
good show--if the club isn't full of stoner sound people and the audience
isn't a bunch of loud, dickhead frat boys--then something goes on inside
myself, and it's great. You walk offstage, and you need some time to
calm down, and it feels great. It feels like you've been beat up.
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