LOOK TO THE SKIES Buffalo Tom
Apr 26, 2011
The beloved Boston band serves up the comeback to their comeback and it's aces all around.
BY JOHN B. MOORE
It took Boston's alt rock heroes Buffalo Tom four years to record Skins, the follow up to their comeback album Three Easy Pieces. But to hear frontman and guitarist Bill Janovitz describe the process, it's amazing the album every ended up getting made in the first place.
With nearly a decade lapsing before the release of Three Easy Pieces, the band - which also includes drummer Tom Maginnis and bassist Chris Colbourn - was well out of the record, tour, repeat cycle and had settled into other commitments like family, jobs and pretty much day to day life as grown-ups. But somehow, the group managed to get schedules aligned long enough to get a dozen or so tracks on tape (or the 2011 equivalent of tape) and have finally put the album out on their own label - a first for the band.
Janovitz, while waiting to get his hair cut recently, was kind enough to take some questions from Blurt, discussing the current mindset of the band, the status of the music industry and why it took him so long to finally record a song with Tanya Donelly.
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BLURT: You guys just got back from a European tour right?
BILL JNOVITZ: Yeah, we did about two weeks or so - seven shows in eight days, so it was pretty intense.
Are you getting to play any of the new songs off of Skins to these crowds?
Yeah, some of the die-hards had picked up copies (of the album) that week and we sold a lot at the shows. .. The songs that we've sort of been concentrating on are "Guilty Girls," "She's Not Your Thing," "Arise Watch," "Don't Forget Me." I'm reading the boards on the Web and Facebook and a lot of people are talking about "The Big Light," "Here I Come" so it seems to be all over the map. I'm not quite sure ultimately what's going to pan out.
It's obviously been a few years since the last album came out, so I assume it's been awhile since you were last out on the road. Is it starting to feel like you're getting back to the routine of touring behind an album?
Well, we're not going to be on the road for too long. We can only do little jaunts. That two weeks (in Europe) is probably going to be one of the longest times we go out. We're going to do sporadic shows. The west coast will be like five dates. You know, it's not like we're going to hit the road for six week tours like we used to. I'm not sure if that's going to affect how the relationship has evolved or not.
Let's talk for a minute about the break between Smitten (1998) and Three Easy Pieces (2007). Did you officially break up or were you just taking time off to try some different things?
Exactly. We still kind of kept on playing through those years. We had an A Sides record and a B Sides record and we sort of had a hit, well it was a number one single in the UK, "Going Underground," a cover of the Jam's song for a benefit record. You know these things kind of brought us into the early 2000s and we kept playing around Boston about once a year or so. It's more like a break from the touring and recording cycle... specifically from the recording cycle. I think it was sort of like a soft breakup. But maybe from a marketing perspective it would have been wiser to break up and then reunite like a lot of these bands are doing. It might have been wiser.
When you got back into writing and recording with Three Easy Pieces did it feel different at all having come off that tour, record, tour cycle? I know it was the same three guys it's always been, but a lot has changed presumably.
It's weird; years go by fast. We were all embroiled in other things and with Three Easy Pieces we really eased into it. It was sort of like let's see if the band is still clicking. We know we were still clicking in a live way, but that was kind of the impetuous for doing the recording. We didn't really have much time. We were doing it in Boston, so we sort of just did a few songs at a time and whenever we could find time and rehearse and write together, we'd go in, work on arrangements and record a few more. That was the idea, but it ended up taking awhile. Summer comes and everyone goes away. It's not like we'd go away for four-to-six weeks at a time and make a record like we used to do. It ended up taking awhile and there was a point where I wasn't really sure if it would ever be finished or not.
Was that Skins or Three Easy Pieces you're referring to?
Skins. You know, there were a lot of starts and stops. Well, one big start and stop. We started on it and it took awhile for us to get going and the momentum was starting to get lost. We regrouped and said let's get this thing done and it was still kind of tough to find the time to do it. Our lives are not just the band at this point anymore, and it used to be.
That's a good point. You were obviously all a lot younger when you first got together as a band, now with kids and families are people's priorities changing?
Yeah, definitely; Family, kids, jobs. The band, from an economic standpoint, is hopefully a breakeven or slightly better situation. At this point, we're not making a ton of dough off of it. I think if we had shifted our energy back into being a touring and recording band it might have ended up being a viable living again, but we kind of gave up on that. The idea of making it more of a hobby, well I shouldn't say hobby; it's more of a pure artistic endeavor at this point. From that perspective, we don't make decisions based on touring and making a living and it sort of easies the pressure off a little bit.
With only three band members it seems like it's a little easier to be democratic with an odd number. Have the decisions, how long to tour, when to put a record out, always come down to a vote?
Without a doubt. If one guy can't do it, it's not like we go out and find another guy. It's never been like that. There are times, within songs, when maybe two guys feel stronger than a third about something, but that's the triangulation, that's the benefit of the band. We're all pretty easy going; we're willing to give the group the benefit of a doubt a lot of time.
You guys have managed to keep the lineup consistent for decades now. If that an indication of how well the three of you get along?
At this point, it's much more like brothers than band mates. You remember spending those times together and it's not always easy and you don't always get along, but you always assume that you'll be brothers and be together for the next holiday. There's a lot of that analogy that works for me because there's a lot of getting older and forgiving a lot of things about your siblings or your family and keeping the bigger picture. If we had continued along, I can say I wouldn't have been able to stay in the band. It's not so much a commentary on the others guys, it's just suck a freakin' unnatural setting to be in. You can't make decisions about people when you are spending six weeks in a van together for 10 years. It's just a freak situation and no one can be judged on how they will act.
With Skins, you had mentioned earlier that you had started and stopped. Was any of the time in between due to the fact that it just wasn't working?
No, it wasn't really artistic, but more just a matter of logistics. Stuff was going on with families and jobs; it was more of that boring kind of day to day stuff. If one person is on a track and feels a certain artistic momentum and the others don't, it's sort of tough. There was a time when it was all for one and one for all and we were all in this sort of moving train, but now were all on these different trains and try to connect every now and then, excuse the metaphor, by the way. Just trying to get on the same wavelength is not always easy and we don't feel a need to put a record out every year. Even in our heyday, it would take a year and a half to two years at least to get a record out, so four years is really not that big of a deal to me. Everything at this point, to be honest, is just sort of gravy. There's something really kind of nice about being able to put a record out when you want to, on your own label, at your own pace.
What was the decision behind putting this one out on your own label? Obviously the industry has changed a lot since Big Red Letter Day and Smitten and I assume it's just a lot easier to put out a record on your own.
Yeah, I think that's it. It's sort of like what does a label offer us at this point that we can't do ourselves? The last label we did was a 50/50 deal with New West, which is sort of like a label for bands like us. (New West) and Yep Roc and Merge, they do these 50/50 like deals and partner with the bands and give you a nice advance. New West was a really nice label... But ultimately they were very nice people, with a certain amount of money who couldn't do much. We hired an indie publicist, but we were laying out all this cash ourselves and we were becoming more like this cottage industry that we ultimately have become. So much recording is done at home now, you don't need so much brick and mortar distribution and so much of it is just in the ether now so I'm not sure why we need to do a 50/50 deal. We have this cool tiered deal with The Orchard (the distributor the band is partnering with) where they put it out and do services based on what we need.
So you anticipate doing this again in the future?
Yeah, I can't imagine not being able to handle whatever sales we have. There are some great labels I'd love to be affiliated with, but just because of their roster, like an Anti or a Merge - great labels who put out records that I love, almost everyone one of them - I'm not sure that they could do much more with Buffalo Tom than we're already doing with the current model.
Tanya Donelly (The Breeders, Throwing Muses, Belly) sings on the song "Don't Forget Me," off the new album. Did you have her in mind for that song the whole time or did you finish it and think, you know who would sound good on this one?
It was more of the latter. Tanya is almost like a sister to me. She lives really close by, our daughters were born like weeks apart from each other, they're almost like cousins they're such good friends; our families are really tight. I snag on a record Tanya did awhile ago so it was amazing that it took this long for her to be on a Buffalo Tom record. But Buffalo Tom records don't leave a whole lot of room for collaboration because there's so much collaboration within the band. It's not like there's a lot of room for guest stars to come in. With that song in particular, I had written it and I didn't even think the verse, which was definitely written from a girl's perspective, necessarily needed a woman's voice on it. But once it came to me, I was like how could she not be on this song? This is made for her and low and behold she sounds fantastic on it and now when I'm singing it live it just feels kind of false almost.
[Photo Credit: Crackerfarm]
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