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You can also follow them on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. This podcast is being brought to you by WXAV88.3FM and wxav.com. WXAV bringing the best podcast to you. Hi, I'm Peter Creighton, host of The Rockology, which you can hear exclusively on WXAV88.3FM and streaming at our website wxav.com and on the TuneIn radio app.
One of my favorite albums of 2021 was the self-titled debut album from Buffalo Nichols. On this critically acclaimed album, Nichols captures the sound of the Delta Blues and brings it into the 21st century. He's been on the road most of 2022 and he's come into Chicago to perform at this year's Lollapalooza in a very special lala after show at Buddy Guy's Legends on July 28th. I recently sat down with Nichols to discuss his debut album, how music allows all of us to express negative feelings and who his musical hero is.
Here's my interview with Buffalo Nichols. You got a very busy week this week. You're playing Buddy Guy's Legends on July 28th and then you have a set at 2 o'clock, actually 2'10 at Lollapalooza on Sunday the 31st. How excited are you to come to Chicago and play Buddy Guy's and do Lollapalooza?
I'm really excited. Those are both places that years ago and I never thought I would be able to play so I'm really looking forward to it. Awesome. What does Chicago mean to you for your musical career?
Like we're based in Chicago, things like that. How has the city impacted your musical journey? It's been pretty significant in my musical journey. Growing up in Milwaukee, a lot of the music that I was exposed to came from Chicago or from me going to Chicago.
I would go to Chicago every week, sometimes a few times a week to see concerts, specifically the old town school of folk music. We'd have so much music that you couldn't really hear or see specifically. So just the internationalness of Chicago really opened up my eyes to a lot of different music. Going back a little ways, when did you first feel the call of music?
When was it where you were like, I want to be a musician? I want to get up there and sing and perform. It was very gradual. It took a lot of years for me to come to that decision or the realization because it was always just something that I did and then it was something that I did for a living.
So it took a good 10 years of playing guitar and part of that was playing professionally for me to realize that it was more vocational and it was something that I really didn't do anything else, not because of, I couldn't. It was just that music just kept calling me and it took a long time for me to understand what it meant and that being a creative person and being an artist was part of who I am and wasn't just a choice or a career. That's awesome. I like how you said it was vocational and everything because you have a totally different spin on your music that is just so incredibly refreshing.
You can really hear it on your self-titled debut album that came out last year. How did you approach recording this album because there's a lot of raw emotion that's just ingrained in this record. It's absolutely incredible. Well, thank you.
I don't know if I can address that without patting myself on the back. Oh, no, absolutely pat yourself on the back. Absolutely. But I really don't, I didn't go in with any great intention.
It was just the time when I was just writing as much as I could and I went in a lot of different directions, which has been a bit of a struggle for me trying to stay in one lane in terms of genres. But the song that I ended up on the album. It was, for me, an escape from the production side or adding extra elements to a song and it was really about focusing on the delivery and the songwriting in some cases, just to get that to shine through. Yeah, it really does shine through.
And I have to say, the first time I heard Lost and Monesome, it just stopped me dead in my tracks. Like it was like, whoa, what is this that is coming at me right now? Can you talk a little bit about what inspired that song and then just how you went about recording that and everything? Because there's a real beauty to that song.
I mean, you really feel the emotion and the lyrics and with the guitar playing and everything. It's amazing. Oh, for that song, I can't really pinpoint writing it. Like I said, it was like a time when I was just writing as much as I could and so many songs came out that I couldn't really exactly recall what was going through my mind.
But I do remember trying to write in a way that would make people perceive me as a blues musician. And at least in that case, I tried really hard to avoid things that I had heard before but still make it familiar. So I just went to the idea of isolation and even with the instrumentation, I wanted it to sound kind of like this lonely thing and just the main thing supporting it is the guitar. And it sounds and feels like somebody who's alone and that was what was going through my mind.
That's awesome. I mean, you really captured like that old Delta blues sound of like Robert Johnson and Led Belling and everything on that track. You did a great job with that. And that was one that I did go to a studio.
I mean, the stuff was just recorded very amateurish at home, but that one was in a studio. So it helped to deliver the... I mean, the Ronis didn't get lost in that, but it had a little bit of help. Oh, that's awesome.
I didn't realize that you recorded some of the tracks at home and everything. Yeah, there was a lot of just... I mean, they were essentially demos. A lot of the stuff was more of an exercise for me than intended to be a final project or a finished product.
But in the end, the act of trying something to end up being the theme of the album for me. So this past weekend, you just played the Newport Folk Music Festival. I mean, it was a major weekend with Joni Mitchell coming back and doing a surprise set, but also Rihanna Giddens was performing and things like that. What was it like for you playing Newport?
It was great. Another one of those things where I knew about it and I knew that it was a legendary thing and just never saw myself being a part of it. So just being there was great and so many great musicians and great people. It was a good time.
That's awesome. Now, in prepping for this interview, I went back and I watched some of your previous interviews you've done. I said something and one of them that was really, really interesting. You said, I'm going to paraphrase here.
It's easier and more acceptable to share positive emotions with others. But when it comes to negative ones, you're pretty much left on your own to deal with those emotions. But for you, you take those negative feelings and you channel that into your music and that really hit me hard and everything. For you, how does the music kind of help you process and not only process, but almost share those negative emotions out there in the world?
I'm still thinking about that. I just know that for a lot of my youth specifically, I listen to music that was darker. People would consider angry, but it didn't make me angry. It just made me feel less alone.
It's like something about the humanity of knowing that someone else feels the way that you do is comforting. And yeah, I think what I said is pretty much the gist of it. It's really easy to share joy with people and to share happiness. And it feels good.
But when you start to talk about the other side, which is something that everybody deals with, some people like to pretend that it's not happening. People like they feel bothered by other people talking about their issues or embarrassed. But then they still feel comfortable enough to go to the music and get that feeling that someone else hears them. And yeah, I would prefer everybody could just be open about the way they feel good or bad.
But I don't think it's easier said than done. But in the music, we can definitely just be more vulnerable as listeners and as artists. Yeah, it's almost like the music makes it socially acceptable to have a submit that we have those feelings then. Yeah, we can write about how we feel or listen to how we feel in a negative way.
But if you do it in person, people will tell you that you're complaining or something. You put in a song and they call it the blues. You know, speaking of music, where are some of your musical heroes? Really too many to count.
I think the only person who I've really looked to as a guide in my music is a Jimi Hendrix. And this is years ago when I just started playing guitar. But since then I never saw anybody really as a musical hero. It just felt like everybody has something that they can offer.
And I just tried to learn from everyone I heard or met or played with. Is there one album that you feel like people should need to go out and listen to and everything? But specifically that they need to go out and listen to it like on vinyl. We've had this great vinyl resurgence over the last decade, decade and a half.
You know, what's that one album that you feel like you need to listen to on vinyl to fully appreciate it? It's interesting. I'm sure there's a lot. I never been an audio file when it comes to listening to music.
But I can say a lot of the music that I enjoy. I'm trying to think of an example. I guess it's when it comes to an album that you should really sit down with. There's one that I've been thinking about lately and it's by the Algerian singer Khaled.
And it's called Sakhra. And it's a very commercial album. It was I think it was supposed to be his big introduction to the world. But it's just very fascinating to hear.
Al-Jurian musicians take on pop music. You listen to it from the beginning to end. It's like a global journey almost. Yeah, I'm sure that's not the expected answer.
But that one for me is a sit down and listen kind of album. No, that's amazing. I'm going to once we finish the interview, I'm going to pull it up and listen to it. No, that's fantastic.
Final question I have for you. WXV were at College Radio Station. How has college radio impacted your career? But also, you know, how has just, you know, what do you see college radio's role in today's music culture and everything?
I mean, college radio has been really important for me as a career musician and as a person. It's the only kind of radio I listen to when I'm at home or in a new city. Any kind of avenue to share music with that is highly restricted, like mainstream radio and what used to be MTV. I mean, there's a capitalistic aspect of it that you can't deny because of, you know, just live in that kind of society.
But I think art really suffers when it's all about being easy to digest and profitable. And college radio tends to go for, takes a lot more risks. And we are not going to get interesting music and we're not going to get interesting artists if everybody has to rely on, you know, the mainstream. So without college radio, we don't, music just can't grow.
Because there's no way to reach people. It's very difficult to reach people, especially now, outside of radio because there's just so much to find in the streaming world. So it's one of the last places where you can just have this curated experience where you can get new music that is being recommended to you because it's good and not because it's guaranteed to be popular. That might be the best answer I've ever gotten to that question ever.
Thank you so much. Buffalo Nichols, thank you for taking time out of your day to talk to me. I really appreciate it. Yeah, thank you very much.
So good. And that was my interview with Buffalo Nichols. For more information, please visit his website at buffalo-nichols.com. Again, buffalo-nichols.com.
You can follow him also on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. Peter Creighton and thanks for listening. Thank you very much for listening to this WXAV 88.3 FM podcast. Be sure to visit our website, wxav.com for more information on your escape from ordinary radio.