INTERVIEW: The Buckleys
The Buckleys
The Photo Ladies Interview
The Buckleys, a chart-topping Australian sibling trio comprised of Sarah Grace Buckley (vocals/guitar), Molly Buckley (vocals/mandolin/fiddle) and Lachlan Buckley (electric guitar/slide guitar), perform what has been dubbed "Hippie Country", an energetic blend of country, rock n roll, soul and pop. Having officially formed in 2011, a trip to the Tamworth Country Music Festival had them winning a busking competition without even knowing they had entered! The win afforded them the opportunity to perform the next day on the main stage top thousands of people. At only 20, 19 and 17 years of age, the trio have graced popular stages across Australia and The US, have won two American Songwriting Awards and collaborated with various renowned Nashville and LA based producers and songwriters. Last year, The Buckleys signed a Global recording deal with Chris Murphy's Petrol Records, as well as Universal Music Group. Only the second band to be signed to the label after INXS, they released their debut single "Daydream" soon after, a song written by Sarah and ACM Award winning songwriter Phil Barton and Kelleigh Bannen in Nashville. The single was accompanied by a music video that starred Australian actor Brenton Thwaites, whose acting credits include Pirates of The Caribbean. This year will see the release of The Buckley's debut album Breathe, an album that was produced in Nashville by two time Grammy Award winning producer and engineer Chad Carlson (Taylor Swift). With a number of Australian and US festivals under their belt and collaborations with hit songwriters, the siblings are well on their way to fulfilling their lifelong dream of writing and performing music. In the wake of tour cancellations due to the Coronavirus, CM Murphy worked with Universal Music Group and LiveNation to help the Buckleys launch a successful virtual tour of North America, reaching over 370,000 fans! They will next take their virtual tour to South America, Europe, The Middle East, Asia, Australia and New Zealand...all from their home in Byron Bay. Check out their remaining tour dates below. You can follow The Buckleys and stay up-to-date on all upcoming news, as well as stream and purchase their music, via the following links:
THURSDAY April 23 @ 6pm GMT+3
Middle East - https://www.facebook.com/LiveNationME/
FRIDAY April 24 @ 6pm GMT+8
Bangkok, Thailand - https://www.facebook.com/livenationth/
China - https://b-m.facebook.com/livenationchina/
Malaysia - https://www.facebook.com/livenationmy/
Singapore - https://www.facebook.com/livenationsg/
SATURDAY April 25 @ 6pm GMT+9
Japan - https://www.facebook.com/livenationjapan/
Korea - https://www.facebook.com/livenationkorea/
THURSDAY April 30 @ 6pm GMT+10
Australia & New Zealand - https://www.facebook.com/LiveNationOzNz/
Website | Facebook | Instagram | Spotify | iTunes/Apple Music | YouTube
Hi! How is your day so far?
Sarah- Fantastic actually! We just wrapped up the second show of our virtual tour with LiveNation!
Molly- It's Easter over here, as well!
I know you were planning to head out on tour this month, but obviously with the Coronavirus, tours are being cancelled worldwide. What can you tell me about the idea behind the virtual tour that you are currently wrapping up, and how have you gone about trying to give the audiences a personalized experience from your home?
Sarah- Totally! Well, like you said, we, like everyone else, are just restructuring what the rest of the year looks like and what we're going to do. We love playing shows...it's our favorite thing to do. We didn't want to go without playing any. I think it's important, because although we love playing them, for the people watching them, that's a massive void to me that needs to be filled. Just seeing live music, and feeling that energy and buzz...I love going to shows so it's a real bummer missing out on that.
Molly- With this concept of the virtual tour...and a massive shout out to LiveNation for making it happen...is that we are doing these personalized shows. They're going to be different each time we do them. And it's cool, because each city, as well, has a different kind-of music taste, I guess. The next shows we're doing will be in Tennessee and New Orleans, which we love, so we're going to change our set to kind of cater to that audience, as well.
Sarah- Yeah! It's as if we are going on the road, except we're just doing it online with LiveNation and Facebook pages around the world, and House of Blues, as well. So yeah...it's been really, really exciting!
You all perform music that's been described as 'hippie country'. What can you tell me about how you went about developing your sound and the message you aim to convey through your music?
Sarah- Yeah, the 'hippie country' thing kind-of came about by accident. We just love playing music and were brought up being influenced by so many different genres. Our dad is a musician, so we've had his influence, as well as our mom's, with everything from Frank Sinatra to The Eagles to Jon Bon Jovi and The Rolling Stones. We listen to everything and we love all of the different kinds of music we've been exposed to!
Molly- And as we've traveled through Australia and The US, people just randomly started saying that we had a cool, hippie country sound. We'd never heard of that term but thought it sounded cool, so we decided to just run with it.
Sarah- We just want to be authentic and not try to fit in any particular label, per say. It's just kind-of comes out. Our goal is to just write the best music we possibly can and to play the best music we can. So yeah, that just happens to be what comes out with us being our total authentic selves at this point in time!
When I think of Australia, I don't typically think of country music. What can you tell me about the country music scene in Australia and what drew you to that genre? What do you love about country music?
Sarah- Growing up, we always listened to Patsy Cline and Casey Chambers, who is a big artist over here. The industry and the genre is definitely growing over here, but it isn't as mainstream in the culture as it is in say the South or in the US. Our dad really made sure we got introduced to country music, especially when we were growing up with a lot of parties...he was like "How do I get them away from this" (laughs). He had been to Tamworth Country Music Festival quite a few times before we came into the world, so he wanted to get us to Tamworth.
Molly- And busking! We started busking when I was about...the first time we went busking, properly when we first started playing music, I think I was 11 years old and we busked on the street. Dad was in a rock and roll band in the 80s, as well, so he probably saw country music as a bit safer and wholesome with the family values (laughs)! In terms of what we listened to, they played a lot of country music around the house. They love country music. We always loved Nashville and wanted to get there. It's been fantastic just discovering new music.
You all traveled to Nashville for the first time right out of high school. You have talked about how your goal had always been to make it to Nashville since you were really young, so what was that like for you when you finally made it there, especially being so young?
Molly- Yeah, well Sarah and I always had a dream to go to Nashville ever since we were really little. The goal was to get there by the time Sarah was 16.
Sarah- Yeah, so we got there when I was 16. It was amazing! It's an amazing city and we love going there as much as we can. And just the buzz and the energy and music 24/7...that was just something that was like wow! There's literally loud music happening 7 days a week, all the time.
Molly- It's very magical, especially coming from quite a rural area in Australia. It's not like a city, like Nashville is, so you can just feel the vibe when you go to sleep. It's pretty magical.
Sarah- Discovering the songwriting community, as well, was great. Being embraced by the songwriters was really special and I love going over there to write songs. All of my friends are songwriters. Discovering that that world even exists was a really big deal, as well. We're really lucky to go there a few times a year...as much as we can really!
Sarah, you have done a lot of writing and co-writing with many amazing and renowned songwriters and artists. What has that experience been like for you and what do you feel like you have learned about songwriting over the years from working with so many people in the industry?
Sarah- Everyone has their different way of writing. When we first started writing over there, during that first trip, when we saved up to get to Nashville when I was 16 years old, a lady named Debby Throckmorton took us under her wing. She's a great songwriter and actually just won a Grammy for songwriting. She wrote Willie Nelson's song "Ride Me Back Home"). She kind-of took us under her wing and started getting us writing with these legacy songwriters. We wrote with Bruce Channel and Greg Barnhill and just a lot of really renowned songwriters. That was really an amazing experience for our first co-writes, literally with these hit songwriters. It was a little bit confronting but we learned so much and they are all so humble, as well, and the nicest people. Just learning the art of co-writing was massive in developing my style. Songwriting, for me...I've developed so much from just being in Nashville and the intensity of just writing every day. That really has developed the skills and the muscles that you need to write songs. If I go back and listen to the songs I wrote before that first trip to Nashville, it's such an improvement now. I have all of the different songwriters and mentors to thank for embracing me and writing with me. I love working with them.
Would you say that you prefer a collaborative songwriting experience or are there times when you prefer to write by yourself?
Sarah- I definitely think I need both. I would say that I enjoy writing with people, just because it's fun, but I definitely need both.
Molly- It's like a therapy in a way, I guess, as well. It's a pretty confronting thing when you write, and, what's the word...
Sarah- When I'm writing by myself, you can take more time to really go into your head and it's just more personal, I guess. When we're writing with other people, you have a certain amount of time and you're bouncing ideas off of each other. There's positives to each and I wouldn't even say negatives. They both just have their place. I just need to do both in order to get the best out of me.
You recently signed with Petrol Records and are only the second band to be signed to the label after INXS. What can you tell me about your decision to sign with them and why you feel they are a good fit for the band?
Sarah- Petrol Records and Chris Murphy, the head of the label, it was really a moment of the starts aligning. It was the perfect timing. We had come back from Nashville and had recorded "Daydream" with Chad Carlson over there, and came back and made a video with our friend Brenton Thwaites, a fantastic actor who was in Pirates of The Caribbean, he was here and he lives near us and wants to start directing. So we decided to make a music video and we made the video and we didn't really have money to do it, we just made the video because we had the song . We met Chris Murphy just after that and all of the pieces just came together so perfectly. We released the song with Petrol Records and Universal Music and it went to number 1. They are such a fantastic team to work with and so passionate on every level, from the business side to the music side. They are just fantastic people to work with.
Your new single "Money" is your first worldwide release. What do you feel is the significance of that song for you as band, being your first worldwide release, and what led you to choose that song in particular?
Sarah- I wrote that song over in Nashville with some good friends of mine. It was just kind-of this fun song to do. I was over there just for a quick trip and was there for a week, I think. It was the last day and I was talking to Phil, one of the co-writers, and asked him if he wanted to quickly do a co-write before I had to fly out. He picked me up at like 8:00 the next morning before I flew out to LA that evening. We wrote this song and it was just this fun bop and we loved it as soon as we wrote it. We then sent it over to Molly and Lachlan and they like it, as well. It's just this fun, boppy, pop song with a country and rock feel. It's our first international release, which is really special to us. Nashville is really special to us and we love going over there, so it's really awesome to get to share our music now with the whole world. Its pretty cool! This week it made the top 10 on the radio charts, which is really exciting!
Growing up with your dad being a professional musician, and growing up in the industry, how do you feel that helped to prepare you for a career in music. What did you learn that has helped you along the way?
Sarah- Yeah, it has definitely helped, just knowing how the industry works and that it's a long process. One of the most important things that he is always telling us is to just be happy now and enjoy the journey. Obviously, we have big goals and he tells us to strive and work hard for our goals, but to focus on this moment and not be like "Oh, I'll be happy when I reach that goal or reach that place". Then you are relying on this thing that's mental. So just being happy right now and enjoying the whole process and the journey is one of the most important things he has taught us, and that it's not going to come overnight, obviously. The most important thing is to just enjoy playing music. If that stops being the thing you love, then none of it's probably worth it anymore, so just staying on track with music being the priority and being a family, as well.
Molly- Yeah, and it helps when we get caught up in a situation and need advice. Dad has experience in the music industry, so he can come from an educated place. It definitely helped when we were younger in the recording studio or just in general.
Sarah- He has so many experiences we can draw from.
It sounds like things have been happening for you very quickly, from releasing "Daydream", which went to number 1, to signing with Petrol Records, and then getting your first Golden Guitar nomination in the "Best New Talent" category. Do you feel it has been a pretty smooth transition for you, having so many big things happen for you at once, or have there been challenges adjusting to everything?
Sarah- It's definitely been amazing! We've been doing this since we were really young, so it's been one big journey and we're enjoying every moment of it. There are always up and downs and enjoying the whole thing has been the most important part. We're so, so lucky to have such a fantastic label who want us to do the music we love and support us on every level. To have all of these things happen has been really mind-blowing!
Molly- With the Golden Guitar nomination...we've been going to the Golden Guitar Awards ever since we were little, and we always imagined playing on that stage or being nominated for an award. We got to both this year and it just felt like we had come full circle and it was just an amazing moment for us. It's pretty cool.
You were recently featured on Guitar World's 'Sick Riffs' Feature. How did that opportunity come about and what was the experience like for you?
Molly- That was really cool to do. We really love Guitar World and Lachlan our brother is a guitarist and watches all of the videos that they put up and studies that. It was really cool to have that opportunity and we just made the video up in my bedroom. It was pretty funny, us trying to do a tutorial and be teachers (laughs)! It was fun. I think we're going to put out more of them, as well.
What can you tell me about your 'Meet The Buckleys' documentary? What led you to want to release it in a weekly series instead of just releasing the whole thing at once?
Molly- The documentary is really, really exciting! We had all of this archival footage that Chris Murphy from our record label saw. He couldn't believe we had all of this old footage of playing our first shows and learning how to play and write songs. We've been doing music ever since we were little, so we have so much archival footage of ourselves from babies until now. It made so much sense to kind-of show people our journey from then until now. Trevor Smith, who directed it, and everyone else, created this little documentary and decided to put it...why did we decide to put it out as a series? I think it just felt right to do that. The whole documentary will be uploaded I think next week...no, the week after next. There's a lot going on (laughs)! Yeah, we have the three episodes, and then the full documentary will be out on the fourth week. It's really, really exciting and we just hope everyone is enjoying it. It's pretty amazing that we have a documentary out!
You will soon be releasing your new album Breathe. You have said that you approached the album to where every song isn't necessarily a single, but rather a journey and a body of work that captures who you are as artists. What inspired you to take that approach to making the album?
Sarah- We just have so many influences and so many people we are inspired by. All of our songs kind-of bring in a different element...some are funky ones, some are country ones, some are rock ones, some poppy ones, so it does take you on a bit of a journey and shows everyone every aspect of ourselves. The most important thing to us is to be authentic and really love what we are playing. We are really lucky to be working with a great producer who is a great friend of ours, Chad Carlson. He really helped us to tie it all in into a cohesive body of work, so it doesn't sound all over the place. It sounds like you are getting all of these different flavors but it's all one pie...I dunno! I just made that up in my head (laughs)! We were a little experimental, but it still fits into our vibe.
I read that you re-wrote half of the album a week before recording it. What led you to want to rewrite so many of the songs on the album?
Sarah- It wasn't that we necessarily felt that we had to. We had chosen 10 songs, and then I went to Nashville a week early and there was no harm in writing more until we hit the record day. I went over to Nashville and I think I wrote like 14 songs that week, or something like that, and we ended up using a lot of them.
Molly- Yeah, she sent...we had all of the songs and Lachlan and I had learned them all and perfected them all to record, and then we got this message with all of these new songs to learn to record before hopping on an international flight (laughs)! But we love, love, love all of the songs on the album.
Sarah- It kind-of broke our hearts, as well, to have to let go of some of the songs that we were planning on recording. But, it just meant that we're very passionate about every single song on the album and we can't wait for everyone to hear it. There is no filler for us. Every song earned its place. It's a really good place to be, I think, having so many songs to choose from!
What are your thoughts in general on the effect of the Coronavirus on the music industry? Are there any things that bands are doing now that you see continuing, such as the living room concerts or virtual tours, even after everything goes back to normal, so to speak? How do you see it changing the landscape of the music industry?
Sarah- Right now it's pretty devastating how many people have lost their jobs. It's not even just the artists. It's the crew, and the sound guys and the roadies and all that, so every part of the live music industry has been affected for sure. Right now, so many artists are doing these live streams and shows and we are, as well. I'm sure it will be carried through after all of this craziness ends because it's also really fun to connect with people virtually.
Molly- I think learning to connect with people online is going to be something we've all learned how to do really quickly.
Sarah- Our favorite part, personally, is playing live and playing live shows. It's definitely been fun, though. We're going to Alberta and Salt Lake City and Colorado all at the same time (laughs). It's a fun thing to do that wouldn't be possible if it wasn't virtually!
What do you have coming up? What's next for you and what are some of your goals going forward as a band?
Sarah- Yeah, so we have the 'Meet The Buckleys' documentary and the virtual tour, which is really, really exciting. We have the album coming out, which is massive! It's our first, debut album. We're just so excited for everyone to hear it.
Molly- We just really can't wait to get it out and share it with everyone. And also, once all of this is over, to just start playing again and putting on shows and touring a lot.