Buzzard Buzzard Buzzard are New Age Millennial Magic

Four Cardiff boyos formed a band so good they named it thrice. We meet Tom Rees and ask him: ‘Wherefore art thou rock n’ roll?’

Despite looking and sounding like they’ve time travelled from the 70s, labelling Buzzard Buzzard Buzzard as anachronistic would be misguided. What Tom and Eddie Rees, Ethan Hurst and Zac White have accomplished is an almost scholarly task of inheriting and continuing the original sound of rock n’ roll. The band have managed to build above and beyond anything you could call pastiche and have instead forged a musical style that’s just as much 2021 as it is 1971. 

We didn’t need to hear Tom talk to know that, since the band’s birth five years ago, he’s been running a highly technical and artistically intelligent operation in Buzzard Buzzard Buzzard. We meet him for a pint on a rare scorching afternoon in London Fields and have our assumptions confirmed in the first few minutes. It’s Tom’s enthusiasm we like. Why? Because in the last decade, alongside the emergence of truly brilliant new artists and the release of groundbreaking albums, a new obsession has accelerated in the culture at large: the ‘art of understatement’. From lobotomised, expressionless ‘talent’ on Instagram and in music videos, to understatement’s logical extreme mumble rap, the 2010s have seemed to dictate that if you look like you were trying, people will be unimpressed. Here’s to hoping the new decade will encourage a resurrection of good old gusto. 

It’s here in spades with our Cardiff foursome Buzzard Buzzard Buzzard, so let’s jump right in.

whynow: Take us back to the start, Tom.

Tom: I was born in Bari, a seaside town in South Wales. I did the classic millennial thing: go to school, go to university, go get a job. My first band was a doom metal outfit with me on drums. I was just along for the ride. There’s a really big scene for it in Cardiff, I remember seeing this band called The Witches Drum when I was 17 and it really shaped me, it was like this life-affirming moment when you watch a band who throw so much visual and energetic information at you that it’s f***ing insane. It really informed my opinion of rock music, nobody has the same level of energy as those rock and metal bands, they just go in so f***ing hard.

Nobody has the same level of energy as those rock and metal bands, they just go in so f***ing hard.

One day a band called Tibet asked our bassist if he’d join them. He refused and told them he was committed to us, then when I found out I ran up them and whispered, ‘erm, I’ll play bass for you guys!’ and joined Tibet. They even had a manager, the same guy who now manages Sports Team. We had a good shot at it together: got a publishing deal, played Reading and Leeds, but then it petered out. That’s the way things are now, if you’re not selling out at 100% capacity every single time then you’re dropped. That’s capitalism, baby! So that’s when I started writing my own stuff. 

whynow: Where did the name Buzzard Buzzard Buzzard come from? 

Tom: I honestly can’t remember, it’s such a long time. You can’t change the name of a band after all these years, but I do dream of starting a band called ‘White Wine’, it’s a much easier name for a band.

I dream of starting a band called White Wine

whynow: And when anyone orders a glass, they’re selling your records.

Tom: Precisely. They’re promoting you. But we’re Buzzard now and we’ve embraced it. After we all got together we played loads of shows for two or three years. Cardiff’s a small place so I just wanted to crush it with Buzzard and become a really big band in Cardiff. 

All the gigs had that same heavy metal performance and energy, and ‘cause they were all at the same venues after a while you’d walk in like you f***ing owned the place, so it’d be no problem walking on stage. That’s why Cardiff’s so brilliant, there are only a select few people in the scene who run everything so everyone knows each other. Our live shows helped to service the recordings because on the first EP it’s just me playing every instrument like a f***ing egomaniac.

whynow: Gone are the days of big record deals that can allow bands to quit their day jobs and go and record. Do you think the current pressures are creating wilier, hardier musicians, or are we missing out on hundreds of quality artists? 

That’s the idea the labels and streaming giants think is happening. It’s the classic capitalist model of cream rising to the top, but really it’s a destructive process. It just opens the door to rich kids who have the time and freedom. 

The goal for me is Hot Ones, that show on YouTube where comedians and celebs eat spicy chicken wings. If I can get on that I’ve arrived. I saw Ed Sheeran was on it, chatting away about how, back when he was struggling, he had this ‘mate in LA’ who he flew out to and stayed with. I was like, ‘Wha-? You had a friend in LA who you flew out to?’ Even if I had a friend in LA I couldn’t afford to fly out to them and stay there, so obviously he had backing, which is fine, that’s the state of pop music now. It’s the same with Young Blood, I was like, ‘There’s definitely something up here’, so I looked the main guy up and his granddad was the bassist in T-Rex. Which is all fine, of course, that’s pop music.

The point to where rock’s progressed to now, it isn’t for the working class

But the point to where rock’s progressed to now, it isn’t for the working class. From the 60s up until the 90s you had the dream of record labels taking working class kids and making them rock stars. That whole element exists solely in hip hop and grime whereas the market for indie music has been tainted by record labels and streaming platforms who are pandering to rich kids. The bands I was in and the band I’m in now is rock, just f***ing straight-up rock, and that’s what we’re trying to push more than anything. 

And that’s it – anything you love that you struggle to make work can be perceived as rock. If you’re at home doing your own dishes, just making it through to the next day of work to earn enough money so you can be in a rock band, that’s rock as f*** and you should be straight up about it. 

whynow: Does being Welsh factor into that approach too?

Tom: Being Welsh is all about being honest and humble. The Welsh people aren’t gonna let you have the chance to be an egotistical prick because you’ll just get forgotten. They’ll tell you to go and f*** off to London. That inspires this whole mood of being humble and honest. That’s a big thing in Cardiff at the moment, this whole ‘honest rock’ thing, where everyone’s just supporting each other and it feels really good. 

whynow: What do you say to any future rock n’ roll stars up and down the country reading this?

Be honest with your own inspirations, background, and where you are now. Never for a second, and I hope this is and will be part of our success, did I consider myself someone who would suddenly leave Cardiff and up to London to become someone who’s ‘always been from London’ and act accordingly. When you create music in any genre, be honest about your social situation, your influences, and your opinion on anything that’s happening in the world, regardless of what your opinion is. It’s gonna have an effect, a profound effect. I’ve been in too many bands where people just tried writing love songs. They don’t know what it means and it just never comes across.

Buzzard Buzzard Buzzard’s new single ‘Demolition Man vs Demolition Dan’ is out now. They’re also touring. Give ’em a follow:

 

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