Buck 65 - London, UK - Spring 2005
By: Yousif Nur
'O Canada! Our home and native land! True patriot love in all thy sons command...'
O Canada, indeed. This time around eighteen months ago, these canuck, hockey lovin' bunch had a of worth regarding their icy musical exports bar Alanis Morrisette, Avril Latrine, Nickelback and Bryan Adams. What a difference the last eighteen months make, though. (Bit rich coming from an Isles that gave the world Marti Pellow.)
So we might sound a little condescending to our transatlantic neighbours, but the point is, times, they've a-changed. Some of this decade's more revered and enamouring acts have come from the world's second largest country - The Arcade Fire, Feist, The Stills, The Dears and probably the most unique, virtuoso of all - Rich Terfry (pronounced Ter-fry), known to most as Buck 65. So popular in fact, he gets phone calls before we set up and throughout this interview, yet strangely enough we both haven't the foggiest who the mystery caller is:
'Hello?'
No answer. One more attempt.
'Hello?'
Hailing from what's seemingly middle-of-nowhere in the humble regions of Halifax, Nova Scotia, this introspective individual has been in the rap game for quite the while. In fact, a lot longer than one might assume - he's had seven albums under his belt and another imminent.
Being in Rich's company proves to be a refreshingly seldom occasion where rather than anticipating one-way traffic in questions and thirty-second answers, here's an articulate fella of immense composure who'll (in only the way that he can) tamely hark tales of the experiences back home, his industry and baseball in a conversational manner.
The deep, husky vocal tones of Buck have appeared quite timely as a surge of Anticon b-boys have come to the fray in doing it on their own, this must mean somethin' is going down underground in the scene.
'I never really thought about it, but I was in LA talking with the guy that runs the Anti label as part of Epitaph.' Opens Mr. Terfry seemingly staring through the wall opposite. 'He's really taken an interest in hip-hop lately and has signed Sage Francis, Atmosphere, Eyedea and Abilities, stuff like that. He was saying... and he's a very intelligent and well-spoken guy... he was trying to give me some perspective on things... and said, 'Y'know what's going on right now - it's significant, it's gonna go down in history. There's something really exciting and there's a real change happening now and that's rare.'
'He also said, 'It may be hard for you to see 'cos you've been at it a long time and on the inside, but I'm telling you that for someone on the outside who's been in the business a long time, and can just sort of see it for what it is, it's a really exciting thing.' So it was good to hear him talking about it at length to give me a little perspective.
'It's the sort of thing that I'm sure, or I hope, someday I'll be able to look back on and see it that way and maybe not just for myself, but maybe the others as well. But that's about all I can really say on it, because to make music the way I'm doing it was never a conscious thing to say, 'Okay, what can I do to be different?', or whatever else, it just is.'
'It's just making music the only way that I know how and if you look at a song like '463', that was inspired by both John Fahey and Bad Brains! So okay, maybe I'm one of the only people that I know that is into both John Fahey and Bad Brains...'
As are most of us reading this at the present time. Well, Bad Brains, if pushed - after all, their self-titled debut and 'I Against I' are timeless bodies of work in the hardcore genre.
Rich argues back, 'Yeah, mine too. But how many people are...'
Cutting himself off, he resigns and reassesses the situation, 'Granted. I'm not going to say I'm alone in this world as I know the guitar player in my band is the same way. But who's into Bad Brains and folk and finger-pick guitar players? So I suppose in a sense that sets me apart and I'm just taking in influences from other unexpected places. And when people see that as something exciting or refreshing or whatever, maybe like on some level I'm aware of that, but mostly when just I hear it from other people...'
When name-checked with collaborations with personnel such as Feist and post-rock eccentrics Tortoise, clearly something's going right in every sense. Though that's in no way accusatory of Buck 65 latching on others to get to where he is today. And the best form of getting people sitting upright in their seats and listening is via word of mouth.
'Yeah. And I'm just doin' what I do,' he simplifies. 'I go record shopping everyday and, y'know, it's always a little all over the map. I mean, today, I bought a Linton Kwesi Johnson record, 'Daily Operation' by Gang Starr which is one of the greatest hip-hop records ever and err....(long pause of hesitance) and I think it was a Buzzcocks record or something... and it's weird to get to some people to have those three records thrown in together, but I honestly really like all that stuff.
'... And I think that a lot of people out there like one thing. You get people who are into punk and your people who are into hip-hop and into rockabilly or whatever else, but I think my music appeals to other people like myself that are generally just open-minded music people who dig a little bit of classical and then put on a PJ Harvey record. Then put on a Bad Brains album, then a Johnny Cash record, or whatever, know what I mean? I think that's just healthy. Healthy to me and just common sense if you're really interested and open-minded about music.
'So that's all I'm doing - it just comes naturally to me and it will be interesting and these are interesting days that I think might be interesting to look back on. I don't really have a lot of perspective on it now; I guess that it's just because I'm in it.'
Music aside for the moment; with Mr. Terfry briefly residing in Hackney for a brief period and Paris being a home-from-home, do people in Europe embrace him more as a person than a character from across the pond? Interestingly, the lingering thought of watching his back every time he steps out of his front door give him the creeps it appears.
Rich explains, 'Well, when I moved to London, it was the first time that I lived in a really big, fast city. I'd lived in Paris before, but it's really laid back. They've got their whole joie de vivre thing going on where everyone just walks really slow and sits in a café all day, whereas there is a whole lotta hustle and bustle in London. I'd never experienced that before - that was a bit maddening and just do do a lot of factors, like it's hard to meet people or make eye-contact sometimes I find. So I felt pretty lonely at times when I was here.
'I also find that the particular brand of violence in this part of the world to be scarier than anywhere else I've ever been. In New York, if you mind your business you're okay. In France there's no violence, none in Canada either. But in London or in a lot of the UK, I don't know what you'd wanna call it, hooliganism or whatever - the average person just walking down the street at a certain hour just runs the risk of randomly getting mugged, beat up, hit with a brick or something.
'I knew a guy who moved here from Canada, maybe he was like in whatever part of town, but in a year had been mugged three times. And I found experience in cities like Liverpool, Glasgow, or even parts of London to be quite frightening. I'd been advised to not go out past a certain hour or whatever else and there were people who roam around, there was not so much trouble with guns but maybe people who were just angry or disaffected enough who will just go out and look to beat someone up randomly.'
'So, basically, to be honest and this may sound really strange - this is a part of the world that scares me a little more than anywhere else. Honest to goodness, it scares me more than Los Angeles or Cincinnati - cities that have real problems with violence where lots of people end up dying. This place scares me more just to walk around!'
Surely, it's not that bad...
'No, no it's certainly not... I've never been hurt, so I'm lucky, but it's just I've felt more sketched out than anywhere I've ever been. Because like I said, in most parts of the world if you mind your business no-one's gonna mess with you. But you get the sense that there is just a lot more random violence and you hear about it on the news here. Like, someone was just walking through a park and got hit over the head with a pole. I suppose that might be common sense, but there are parts of the world where you can do that without having to think about it. I know where I come from in Canada and in Paris there's nowhere in that city which isn't safe. You just do your thing and you're fine.'
Lurking from the bench at the other side of the dressing room, the drummer from his backing band says, 'My brother lives in Harlem and he can walk home at 3am and there's just so many people walking around all the time and it's never sketchy.'
Buck 65: 'So if an average person can walk through Harlem at three in the morning and be fine, there's many cities here where that's absolutely not okay then that says something. I felt that way - I remember the first time I went to Glasgow and the first person I met there who lived his whole life was warning me about certain things that you don't wanna do. I don't worry about dying here, but I worry about my face getting smashed, basically. (Laughs)
'The other thing I can tell you just from the perspective from someone who has this as a job, as a touring musician of some sort, people are much more drunken here than anywhere else in the world. I don't drink so it might be particularly kinda irritating for people like us sometimes. In France, people don't drink to get drunk, they drink wine, but they don't really get drunk. That can be really tough to play for, not a whole roomful as you can't suppose that everyone in the room is drunk, but people tend to get a little loud, obnoxious or just difficult. So that can be a bit of a challenge or something sometimes.
'Honestly, I hate to really say or dread to say this, but at my level when you're playing in bars and clubs, I mean for musicians that have kinda 'made it' playing in bigger places when there's not a bar in the room and stuff you don't have to worry about it, but when you're playing in a bar it can a bit of a kick in the pants sometimes.
'I had a conversation with someone else about all this just today,' he goes on inexhaustibly. 'I don't even know why anyone cares so much, why it's a sort of fascination for a person like me that doesn't drink? Why is it so fascinating like that is it a challenge for them, or maybe they feel threatened by it? But with average people that I meet, it is very normal socially to have a drink, a lot of people smoke cigarettes or whatever else so when someone doesn't and never has, I find that I have to get defensive around them.'
There's also more to Buck 65 than you would know about from listening to his art. Not only does he apply himself to music, he's also a literary intellect with a strong ethic as he candidly discusses future plans.
'I've got two books that are both almost finished, so I'm trying to get those published. One's a fictional novel and the other's a book of poetry and stuff, obviously the album which (was recorded) as always in Halifax with the same people (in his band) that I always work with.
'The last three or four albums I did were all done in the same studio, which is the one that's run by my guitar player. I just work with my friends; that'll never change. Even as time goes on and I get more recording and better opportunities, it'll never change. I need to be working in an environment where I'm comfortable with people that I'm comfortable with - in Halifax, in my same ol' stinky studio!'
Ring... ring...
'Hello...? Yeah, say that again, sorry?'
Ol' Buck refrains from getting agitated by another fork in the road by narrowing down the suspected phoner.
'I met somebody online who I think got in touch saying they really wanted to make it into tonight's show, but there's trouble because of this and that. I said I would try to get them in and I gave them my number, told them to call me and we'll make a plan.
'In a situation like that, I try to cultivate - well, within reason - as much of a personal relationship with the people that like what I do, all the people that were brought into the circle through those grassroots in any means possible. Loyalty is going to be really important to me because I never am going to sell a million records, so when I get someone interested I've really got to try and foster that and try to keep it. Because each of those people are really important so I think about them a lot and I try to use my website as a tool to keep good old open channels of communication and to have people to know what's going on and really keep a kind of personal vent on.
'It's really, really important to me and it always has been, plus it's served me very well. I wouldn't be here without it. There's a lot of aspects in this business that I am just not interested in and that I don't want. So having a clear understanding of what's important, what got me here and what I want (will just) always be the case. After every show I do, without fail, I walk off stage into the crowd and just talk with people for a few hours.
We're yet again interrupted by caller X in what we're assuming is a plea to get into tonight's sold out gig.
'Hello?'
Few seconds later, yet again there's no answer.
We soon learn that he's quite the baseball fan; then again we should've realised for ourselves just by seeing how far he could throw a piece of fruit into the audience at a festival a few years back.
'Yeah, that was one of the highlights of my whole summer in that year when I took that last orange and I had thrown a lot of fruit into the crowd because that's another kind of policy I have in that there's often loads of food left around at shows and what I assume could end up being a lot of waste and I hate to see that happen. So I often share what's around with everyone and the audience. I know that there's a lot of poor people out there and they're into my music, but had to pay to make it out. So they get a little something extra or in their worst case scenario, something to eat then that's great.' Rich philosophies.
'I remember being there (onstage) at the Millennium Dome and I saw a guy way-off in the distance. (Because) it was such a big, vast open space you get a chance to really let loose! So I picked up an orange, which has some good weight too and I saw the guy; probably standing around four-hundred feet away, which was a good distance and I got his attention, waved to him and waited for him to acknowledge that he was ready. I threw it to him and he didn't have to move a step as it caught it right in the chest. Pop! I was kinda impressed by that myself!'
Buck begins to conclude after a long chat, 'Baseball is my first love. It still is - even before hip-hop. People would ask me if I would trade it in (for music) and I'd say yes without hesitating. It was all I thought about when I was a kid; it was my lifelong dream and I came really close, but can't really let it go. It's an obsession; and I'm not talking about...'
'I mean, sure, I came close to playing professionally, but that's where my love from baseball lies. To me, baseball is getting together with someone on a Sunday and throwing a ball around. That to me is the essence of it, to get out there and actually play in whatever form whether you're paid for playing or not. It's just a great game and I love and have a humongous passion for it. It's in my veins and that game shaped who I am as a person in a lot of ways.
'And in particular I owe a lot to one of the all-time greats - a guy called Ted Williams, who was not only one of the greatest baseball players ever, but in my regard, just one of the greatest men to have ever lived. He was good at many, many, things and had a very strong work ethic, which made him a very good role model. I think that in a lot of ways I patterned my life around that guy. I found out after he died that he lived really close to where I live my whole life and it killed me to know that I could've actually sort him out and met him. But I never did. He retired before I was even born! But he wrote several books that really changed my life, so in a lot of ways I owe it all to Ted Williams. Certainly, if I have an idol, it's him.'
With that, we're out of time, in spite of much butting in from anonymous phone calls, people swinging out of the dressing room doors, and the most lengthy soundcheck from the support band.
Terfry shares the same sentiment. 'We persevered, thank goodness.'
Artists in this article: Buck 65