INTERVIEW: The Buckleys
By Katie Upchurch
PC: Francisco Tavoni
When the COVID-19 crisis began, Australian ”hippie country” band, The Buckleys, decided to get creative instead of letting it ruin their tour plans.
The Buckleys are siblings Sarah, Lachlan, and Molly Buckley so, during this time, they are all at home together. Instead of doing traditional live streams like many bands are doing, The Buckleys decided to create a personalized tour experience so that fans from all over North America could still enjoy all of the good things about live music, even while social distancing.
Though their virtual tour has just come to a close, I got to speak with the band about their creative approach to virtual live shows and how they are staying positive, motivated, and busy as a family during this time at the very beginning.
How would you describe your sound and style to people that have never listened to you guys before?
As we’ve travelled through Australia and the U.S., we always keep saying “hippie country.” It’s the [descriptor] we’ve kind of accidentally used. I was in Nashville a lot, writing, and I’ve tried to tell people what our sound was and couldn’t quite pinpoint it. It’s country, but it has a bit of rock and a bit of pop and sometimes, it’s a little bit funky.
We come from a place called Byron Bay in Australia and it’s a pretty “hippie” area. People here always said “I think your music is hippie country!” and we had never heard of that before. It’s really just all of these influences that we’ve grown up listening to, all poured into one thing. It’s us being our authentic selves.
What’s it like working so closely with your siblings and making music with each other?
Right now [during COVID-19 quarantine], being all stuck in the same house, we are trying not to rip each other’s heads off, which I am sure many people can relate to! But we’ve never really known anything else, to be honest, because we’ve grown up in such a musical family. We’ve always had instruments in every corner of the house and it’s so natural to pick one up and just all start playing together.
The Buckleys have been playing our entire lives so it’s not weird for us to be in this band together. It’s natural and we know how to handle each other. We can be really honest with each other which is a good thing. A lot of bands who aren’t siblings don’t know how to not sugarcoat things so it works in our favor.
What made you guys want to set up a virtual “tour” rather than just doing traditional live stream shows?
We had touring plans in America this year and obviously, we can’t do those now but we still really wanted to bring our tour to everyone in a personalized way. We’ve worked with LiveNation, who have been amazing in making this happen. We’re basically “going” to each of these cities. We’re making it different and personalized for each show. We really thought “Why not do it this way?” because we’re all inside at the moment and we can’t go out and play shows like we usually do and we have this whole musical family to help us. We just got our little brother to jump on drums since we can’t have our usual band.
I know, for me, I need to go and see live shows to get that energy and feel something good in me. Seeing live bands and musicians is really important so that’s what we’re trying to bring to everyone.
What’s been the best part about doing virtual shows?
We just started playing with our younger brother, Dylan, who is 12-years-old. He’s never played with us as a band before but he’s been practicing for a long time. I think he’s been wanting to get out on the road but never really had the opportunity to really make it happen yet. To have him playing the drums with us now has really been fun and it’s bringing this whole new element to the band. He has this crazy energy and he loves rock and roll so he’s been playing really loud. I’m sure the neighbors hate it! That’s probably the one thing we’ll have to figure out about the virtual tour—if the neighbors start complaining. But we haven’t got any noise complaints yet!
If you were on a real tour right now, where would you want to play?
I mean, we love everywhere we’re “playing” now. It’s pretty amazing how it worked out because if we weren’t doing this virtual tour, we would never be playing for people in these cities. We just played for Alberta, Salt Lake City, and Colorado [on April 9]. We wouldn’t be playing for them all at once, normally. The virtual tour has opened up this cool new way of doing it.
We really want to go to New Orleans. We’re “playing” New Orleans in our next virtual show [on April 10] but it would be amazing to go out and play there in person. There are so many amazing spots to play; we just want to go everywhere.
What are some ways you are staying positive right now?
Definitely the music, but also Netflix! Also just going outside. I know it can be hard if you live in a city or an apartment complex but luckily, we live in an area where we can walk outside in our backyard and still be in touch with nature. Grounding yourself every day with that stuff and not getting too caught up with technology and stress.
What do you think is the best way we can support you and other artists during this time?
Just buying music on iTunes or streaming on Spotify helps a lot. Buying merchandise of course, too. Also just sharing, supporting, and watching live shows or whatever [bands] may be doing right now.
How are you guys staying creative and motivated?
I think just looking forward and knowing this is going to pass; staying focused and looking at that rather than all of the stuff that’s happening. It’s really just [a process of] trying to find a little glimpse of light in all of the darkness.
That’s really why we’re doing the virtual tour. We’re just trying to bring a little joy into everyone’s lives. It’s really easy to get down and negative but if you’re still doing what you love and staying passionate and busy, it’ll be okay.
What is the first thing you want to do or place you want to go when this is over?
Nashville! We’ll probably be recording the next album. Really we want to go everywhere. We’re always so grateful to go travel anywhere because it's such a luxury to be able to do that.
What can we expect from you guys in the coming months?
We have our debut album, Breathe, that will be dropping in June which we are so excited for everyone to hear!
We also have our documentary series, “Meet the Buckleys,” being released every Friday on our YouTube channel. That’s really exciting and it has our whole journey covered from when we were little up until now. It shows how we’ve navigated our way through the industry and how we’ve developed our sound. We have the first song we ever wrote on there!
And, of course, the virtual tour with LiveNation. There’s lots of stuff going on that we’re really excited about.
As of now, The Buckley’s virtual tour has sadly ended but you can still catch livestreams of the tour as they are uploaded on the band’s YouTube channel. Make sure to keep up to date with The Buckleys in the meantime.
The band’s debut International single, “Money,” is out NOW.