Korn‘s Jonathan Davis was so excited by ORGY that he created his own record label …
At what point does a bad habit just become a habit? That’s exactly the question Buckled has asked on their latest tune, Addict – a meaningful punk offering that’ll have you bouncing from the word go.
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We caught up with Nick Bird and Matt Truett for a chat about how it came together and more.
Hysteria: Let’s get the band introduced.
Matt: I’m Matt, and I play the guitar. We’re a four-piece. There’s me, Brad on bass, James on drums and Nick on vocals.
What’s the Buckled backstory?
Matt: Nick and I were playing in a band before COVID. When it hit, things fell apart. We knew Brad from another Gold Coast band; he was taking a break from that project, and we knew we wanted to work with him. When things settled down, we got in touch and got him out of retirement.
We’re more friends than a band. It feels like more of a social thing. We enjoy each other’s company. I like to think of us as more of a drinking social club than a band (laughs).
That’s got to make it so easy and fun to collaborate.
Nick: For sure. We all hang out as mates. It’s never a chore. It’s always a pleasure to play shows too.
Matt: A couple of weeks back we played three shows in Newcastle. The drive was like eight hours, but we were constantly laughing.
What inspired the new track, Addict?
Matt: I was doing a bit of reading, and listening to what other musicians had said about drug use and addiction. I combined that with my experiences of where I grew up and the friends that fell by the wayside because of it. It was a bit of self-reflection, with influences like Orwell and William Burroughs, who described the depravity of it all. Another person is Rob Lind from the bands Ramallah and Blood for Blood.
These people are very self-aware of the problem of addiction, and they try to give honest accounts of it. They’re not trying to glamourise it. They give you the harsh realities.
We’re not a metal or progressive band where our songs are about the journey. We stay in our lane and write about what we know.
[Matt Truett, Buckled]
Punk feels like the best genre to set this message to.
Matt: We’re not a metal or progressive band where our songs are about the journey. We stay in our lane and write about what we know. Our whole schtick is around having fun and drinking and partying. It may be contradictory or ironic that we’re doing a song called Addict.
Nick: It’s the self-awareness. Sometimes, it gets a bit too much, so you have to take a step back and assess where you are.
Who’d you work with to write and record it? Give us a view of how it came together.
Matt: I took the reigns on writing. I had the main riff, brought it to the band, and let the guys do what they do. It changed a few times from when we first practised to the final recording. We recorded with Lachy, who’s known around the Gold Coast scene for playing in heaps of bands and doing sound at Vinnies. Both of us had the idea of layering two guitars in the chorus. Apart from him, it was pretty much us.
What else can we expect to hear on your upcoming album, Champagne Lifestyle, Lemonade Wages?
Matt: It’s the collection we’ve built up since starting. We’ve published a four-track EP, and since then, we’ve been writing more quickly.
We feel like the album format is dying. People are more interested in EPs and singles. But we had this collection of songs, so we wanted to do it as a collection and album. For us, it’s the material we’ve got out there for people to discover us. People can listen to a collection of songs, not just a few here and there, and know what we’re about. We want to tour and play interstate more, so getting this out will show people what we’re about. People see us live, they know what they’re going to get, but we needed to back it up with the audio.
We hope now we can start producing at a quicker rate and dropping more singles and EPs.
Any touring plans for the rest of the year?
Nick: We’re doing a few stops on the No Fun At All tour in November. We’re starting in the Sunny Coast, Gold Coast, Brisbane, Sydney and Newcastle. In total, we’re doing five shows in five days. We also have a few shows booked before the end of the year. I’d love to get overseas next year too.
Matt: We’re also looking at interstate shows in the early half of next year. We’ve spoken to mates in WA, Adelaide and Victoria. We just want to get out there, play and meet more people and bands.
