King Buffalo | Interview | New Album, ‘Regenerator’
The fantastic New York heavy psych trio recently released their new album, ‘Regenerator’.
Written and recorded by the band with mixing and engineering by guitarist/vocalist Sean McVay and mastering by Bernie Matthews, the seven-song outing is the third in King Buffalo’s stated “pandemic trilogy,” following ‘The Burden of Restlessness’ and ‘Acheron.’ The band continue to explore the outer reaches of modern psychedelic songcraft, melding progressive rhythms, drifting atmospheres and accompanying surges of electricity, the new collection only further establishes them as one of the brightest lights shining in underground rock today.
‘Regenerator’ was written by King Buffalo in Rochester, NY at the Main Street Armory in 2021. Produced, engineered and mixed by Sean McVay, and mastered by Bernie Matthews. The artwork was created by Mike Del Rosario, with the album layout by Scott Donaldson.
“Almost all of our songs start out as jam sessions”
‘The Burden Of Restlessness’ received a lot of positive feedback from the press, did you feel under a bit of pressure working on your latest album since the expectation was set very high?
Sean McVay: I manage to put an absurd amount of pressure on myself for every record, but these ones had a little extra pressure because of the time crunch due to the whole “recording/releasing three albums within one year” plan.
Were the new songs mostly written in the past year or did you take some old sketches from the archive? On that note, what is your creative process within the band?
Almost all of our songs start out as jam sessions. Afterwards I’ll take the rough recordings home and start cutting, rearranging and refining them. From there I’ll start putting together some really rough lyrics and vocal melodies. When I inevitably get stuck I’ll share them with Scott (our drummer) and he’ll write a whole bunch of lyrics. I’ll weed through them and find a few lines that I like to help get me out of my own head and we’ll go back and forth like that until the lyrics are finalized. All of the arrangements for ‘The Burden Of Restlessness’, ‘Acheron’ and ‘Regenerator’ were written over the course of a couple months in 2020. Lyrics were written in 2021, and were finalized during the recording process for each record.
Can you share some further words about how the album was recorded and produced?
We recorded ‘Regenerator’ in the same room we’ve recorded pretty much every other King Buffalo record. Production wise I was aiming for a much more stripped down and natural sound than a lot of our previous records (especially ‘The Burden Of Restlessness’). I played around with some different mic techniques and gear choices to give it a little bit more dirt and saturation. I wanted it to sound a little warmer and “vintage-y” than ‘The Burden Of Restlessness’ in an effort to give the record a little more of a lighter vibe.
“A lot of the record deals with growth and renewal after coming to grips with a lot of trauma and negative things”
Were you aiming for a certain concept naming the album ‘Regenerator’?
A lot of the record deals with growth and renewal after coming to grips with a lot of trauma and negative things. I thought ‘Regenerator’ captured that idea well.
How would you compare it to ‘The Burden Of Restlessness’ and ‘Acheron’?
When we decided to do the three album thing, one of our main concerns was making sure that the three records were all different from each other. ‘The Burden Of Restlessness’ is obviously the darkest and heaviest of the three, but in certain ways it’s the most intimate. Everything in that record is very up front and hyper focused.
‘Acheron’ is more enveloping, flowing and hypnotic. I feel like ‘Regenerator’ is a little bit of a bird’s eye view. Like watching everything in front of you, instead of being surrounded and engulfed by it, and figuring out how to grow from it. At least that’s how I interpret them all in a very general sense.
You were very (and still are) busy touring. How was it so far in this post pandemic world?
It was a little nerve-racking at first. You don’t want to get sick, and you don’t want your fans to get sick, so everyone was a little more isolated and separate. Also, the financial implications of potentially having to cancel shows and being stranded somewhere added a lot of stress early on. We’ve been really lucky that all of our tours have been able to happen smoothly. With that said, being able to get back onstage has been incredible. As a band, we’ve always put a lot of emphasis on performing live, so it was difficult to not be able to do that for so long. We have a lot more tour dates scheduled for this fall and we’re super excited about that. Being able to actually play so many of these new songs live in front of real people has been amazing.
Do you discover new aspects of your songs developing in front of an audience?
You learn something for sure, but I don’t know if I could really define what that is specifically. I know for me personally, I learn little tricks related to tone, or little riffs/noodles that I can sprinkle in that maybe I didn’t think of at the time of recording. I also feel like maybe I start to learn a little more about how the lyrics relate to people and how they interpret them, which is always super fascinating.
Would you please speak to your guitars and the effects pedals you employ these days?
I could probably ramble forever in response to this question so I’ll try and keep it brief. My main guitar for the past couple years is actually the first “real” guitar I’ve ever owned. It’s a Korean made Fender Lite Ash Stratocaster from the mid 2000’s that I got in 2007. I’ve swapped different pickups in and out of it a bunch of times, but currently I have Seymour Duncan Pearly Gates in it and I’m loving them. I have it wired up with 2 volume knobs and 1 tone instead of the traditional 1 volume 2 tone configuration. I recently worked with Stomp Under Foot pedals to come up with an awesome fuzz pedal that we named Silverfish that is absolutely incredible. It’s based off of a Big Muff circuit, with an added octave switch that is super bad ass. I live on my board all the time. I love it. I also have a Lil Rat that I use for a different style of distortion here and there. For overdrive I’m using another Stomp Under Foot pedal called the Skinner box which is also based on a vintage Rat pedal. I love it as an overdrive. It’s super mid focused and cleans up great when you roll the volume down on your guitar. From there I run into a tuner, then into a Whirlwind Rochester Series Orange Box Phaser which is supposedly the actual circuit of the original Phase 90 (but who knows how true that actually is). I’ve used a Strymon Timeline for many years now. It’s probably the most important pedal on my board. It can do so many different things, and I am able to save presets for every song so I never have to deal with manually tapping in delay times. For reverb I use the TC Electronic Hall of Fame and only ever use the Hall setting. That’s the current rig. I am constantly tweaking things though so who knows how long that’ll last haha.
Let’s end this interview with some of your favourite albums. Have you found something new lately you would like to recommend to our readers?
I’m on record saying many times that my favorite album of all time is ‘Dark Side of the Moon’. It’s simply a perfect record in my opinion. As far as newer stuff goes, I was recently turned on to the band Föllakzoid. They’re incredible. They’ve been around for a long time, I just somehow never stumbled across their stuff. I’ve also been going back and listening through old Enigma records. They’re absolutely beautiful and full of amazing sounds.
Thank you. Last word is yours.
Thanks for reaching out and for your interest in the band! And an absolute massive thank you to everyone who has supported us the past few years and has come to see us live. We can’t thank you all enough, and look forward to coming to a city near you soon. THANK YOU SO MUCH!
Klemen Breznikar
King Buffalo Official Website / Facebook / Instagram / Twitter / Bandcamp / YouTube
Stickman Records Official Website / Facebook / Instagram / Twitter / Bandcamp / YouTube
King Buffalo – ‘Longing To Be The Mountain’ (2018)
