INTERVIEW / CONCERT REVIEW: Buffalo Tom
- Kerwin So
In the midst of Buffalo Tom's nationwide tour opening for the Goo Goo Dolls in support of their recent album (_Smitten), the band was able to spend some time talking with Consumable Online regarding their label, touring with the Goos, and more. Here are the thoughts from that conversation.
Consumable: Why don't you tell me what's going on lately, are you switching labels or something?
Bill Janovitz (Vocalist / guitarist): We switched to Polydor, which is under A&M. And then A&M just merged with Seagram's and MCA and so it might even change again. [Ed. Note: It's happened, it's happening as you read this, and there is tremendous fallout in regards to the personnel at all the labels under the umbrella, as well as artists who are employed under the merged companies]
CO: Oh, good lord.
B: Yeah, Seagrams owns MCA and Universal and Mercury, Geffen, all that stuff is under them. Then they bought Polygram which owns Island and A&M and all that stuff, so they're merging those 2 companies together now.
CO: Oh really, I thought you were on Beggars Banquet?
B: We told you it was a long story. We're signed to Beggars Banquet, but this is our last record with them. And that was only in the UK, they were licensing out to different labels in the States.
CO: So, how's the tour been going?
B: Going pretty well, we've done 15 shows with these guys. Some on our own.
CO: They just asked you out to tour with them?
B: Yeah. It's a lot younger audience than we're used to playing to. That's good, you know.
CO: I read your tour journal online (at http://www.buffalotom.com )
B: Oh, that'll give you an idea.
CO: That's something, yeah. It's really quite voyeuristic, but I really enjoyed reading it.
B: Yeah, I'm trying to be as open as possible. I don't put in all the personal details and stuff like that but, you know what's going on and some of our feelings about what it's like to be out. I think near the end it started to get like, "We need promotion from the record company" and all. These guys [the band] haven't seen it all.
CO: Oh really? Yeah, I think you were primarily the one who was submitting.
B: Yeah it's just been me, I asked those guys if they wanted to, but it's just a matter of - I have a laptop.
CO: It's great to be in the wired age, huh? Well for the fans it is, cuz there's a lot of things going on
Tom Maginnis (Drummer): People are really interested in what it's like to tour, they're curious - but it's really not that glamorous.
B: Not at all.
CO: Yeah, people have these romantic ideas. I'm in a band (local San Francisco-based Hungry Hungry Hippos) but we've never toured - it seems like a cool way to see the country.
B: Oh yeah, without a doubt it's still fun. And as we get bigger - I mean as we were getting bigger [chuckle]-- there's different aspects that are more fun. But it's a lot of work. It's way more work than a regular job, being on the road. There's a lot of time when we're just off, but we get 6 hours of sleep a night usually, 7 hours of sleep at best, and we have to go out tomorrow to this TV show and do some kind of local Good Morning America-type show, we're gonna be performing at 7 a.m.
T: And then drive to L.A., do an in-store in Long Beach.
B: But it's like, I'm not getting up at 7 A.M. to dig ditches or work a crane or something. It's still not like, sleep till noon, get up for a couple hours, start getting drunk and stoned and then go play and then get all the groupies. I mean for those guys [the Goo's] it might be. [Laughter]
CO: So do you socialize with them a lot?
B: Yeah. We haven't had a lot of time cuz they drive out to the shows usually in their bus and we usually meet up with them. But, in the dressing rooms, yeah and we eat dinner with 'em and kid around with 'em. We've kinda known em for a few years, crossing paths, saying hello, having a beer or something like that, but we haven't really known em that well.
CO: That's cool. I'm actually a fan of both of your bands' music. Do you consider this a break at all, opening for such a well-known act?
B: I don't. In some ways it is.
T: I'm sure there's a lot of bands who'd want to be doing it.
B: Oh, I thought you meant like a break, like a vacation.
CO: No, no, no. I mean like an opportunity for prestige.
B: Oh, without a doubt. I thought you meant like, is it easier.
CO: No. [Chuckle] I could tell from reading your tour journal that it isn't.
T: [Chuckle]
B: In some ways it is, though. There's less pressure to bring in people, so there's no psychological thing on us like, "Oh man".
T: Or "we have to carry the show" - like a burden.
C: I don't know, I mean. A lot of people have these gripes against bands that are popular just because they're popular. So I have friends who, they're fans of you guys too, and they're like "Buffalo Tom should be headlining those shows."
B: Well, we have. The thing is we will, again, but if were out on our own right now we wouldn't be playing the Fillmore, we'd probably be playing Slim's. And we'd probably do okay, but right now this record's not getting played in San Francisco, it's not getting played in a lot of places, and so, aside from a core group of fans which pick and choose which Buffalo Tom shows they go to anyway, not all of our fans go to all our shows. Especially as people get older, have kids and stuff. So it's a bit more of a pressure, you never know what's gonna happen, then you've gotta play longer - which I love to do, I mean that's what we're out there for, is to play. But this is like, we're on, we're off, the show's over, we can go back to the hotel, blah blah blah but it's more work because you're trying to win over their fans, so you've got to really concentrate on the set list. Whereas, if we're on our own it's like, well, let's throw in this song, that song not really trying to figure out which songs are the most effective and like [snaps fingers] keep goin', and you know
CO: How's the crowd reaction been to you guys? Have you been winning them over?
T: It's been pretty good. It varies, from place to place. I think we're stronger in certain cities anyway, but largely I think it is their fans. Everyone's pretty pumped up to see the headliners usually, but you get a vibe, you know, I think some places have been pretty good.
B: There's been very few that have been dead.
T: It's not crickets after each song.
CO: That's good.
B: Yeah but some places, like Seattle and Portland, those are good..
CO: Well, those are hip cities.
B: But then like the little places, we played in Oshkosh, Wisconsin and Marquette, Michigan where, one of those towns literally hadn't had a band since Cheap Trick in 1988 or something.
CO: So they were like screaming...
B: Ah, it was crazy. As soon as the lights went down, they didn't even care if it was up to the Goo Goo Dolls yet. When we went on it was just like, "Ahhhh!" And then the Goo Goo Dolls came on and it went up that much further.
CO: So have people been recognizing the "My So-Called Life" songs?
B: Yeah I haven't really figured out I think people have recognized "Soda Jerk" a little bit. But it's hard to tell. When we started to play "Late at Night", I thought that this would be the age group, but we don't get as many girls swooning.
[CO & T laugh]
B: But when we do our own shows we've gotten this contingent of young girls that are waiting to hear that song, that's how they found out about us. Especially girls. Which is good for [bassist] Chris. Chris sings that song.
CO: Do you know the next time you're gonna be heading through California?
B: Well, we hope to get back in the spring.
T: It's kind of, if this label stuff is able to settle down so we really know where we are. We're not sure, so...
B: If and when our next single will come out and.. I think we'll come back either way because we'd probably make money going out on tour. Right now we're not really making money because we're opening for another band. But I think we could do a tour where even if we're the kind of band who's been around for so long that we have this kind of a core [group of fans] that we could still pull in people and still make a tour work.
CO: Both of you guys [Goo Goo Dollss and Buffalo Tom] have been around for awhile.
B: Yeah, we've been around as long as the Goo Goo Dolls.
T: This is both our sixth albums.
B: At one point though, their career really verged off. [Chuckle] And our career...
CO: I've always been impressed by how you've kept the same core lineup since day one. Were there any times where you felt like just giving up or moving on?
B: [instantly] Every day. [Laughter]
CO: I'm sure you get asked that all the time.
B: Yeah.
CO: How do you deal with it?
B: Uhm [long pause] it's uh it's a matter of on the road, you can't really judge anything from being on the road, even though that's where we spend most of our time. But it's just such a weird situation, you know you've got seven *guys* (without the crew or anything) in a van for five weeks and you've gotta be relaxed your mind a bit you know. With us three, we were friends before we started and I think we realize that we're friends and we wouldn't let the band it's come close. We've come really close to just saying, "Okay, let's just not do this anymore", but I think we just say, "Well, you know we're friends, let's not let the band affect the friendship," and you just start talking about whatever's bothering you and you realize that it's not that serious.
CO: It's good to get that out; people build up grudges.
B: That's exactly it. About intangibles sometimes, just little things sometimes it's just personality, you're just sick of everybody. There's nothing that anybody's doing that you can say, "Well he's doing *this*", you just don't want to be there, you just want to be home, Tom's got two kids now, we all have families.
CO: Have you guys been doing any acoustic songs on the tour, where you [Tom, the drummer] get to take a break?
T: Not with the Goo Goo Dolls, just cuz we only get 10 songs and we've gotta keep it compact. On our own shows and, we've been doing in-stores and stuff like that, which is really cool to do [in-stores] because you really get to see some fans again and talk to 'em and sign stuff. It's much more rewarding little thing to do. We've been doing Portland and Boise, Idaho which we've never even played before, and 150 people showed up to the in-store, you know? It's just like, wow.
That night at San Francisco's legendary Fillmore auditorium, Buffalo Tom played an energetic and solid (but all-too short) set of new songs and old favorites, including "Taillights Fade", "Sodajerk", and a wonderful closing choice of "Larry." Their already great live sound was augmented by the presence of Phil, the new keyboard player. The band even encouraged the crowd, young and old, to jump and down to upbeat songs like "Treehouse"-- and it worked! The audience was quite diverse-- teenage throngs, kids with their parents, middle-aged rockers-- and they were mostly there to see the Goo Goo Dolls, but I think it's safe to say that all of them found at least a little something in Buffalo Tom's performance to enjoy. And for the band's part, they certainly put in the effort to win over new fans by introducing song titles, playing with a lot of heart, and smiling a lot. Here's hoping it pays off.
Footnote: Buffalo Tom played the KRON Bay Morning TV show the very next morning at 7 am. They were given all of 20 seconds.
