Deputy Editor Jasmine Sandhar talks to Tom Rees of Buzzard Buzzard Buzzard about the state of rock music today, and navigating his voice in his music
I had the pleasure of conducting a phone interview with Tom Rees, the frontman of the Cardiff-hailing rock band Buzzard Buzzard Buzzard.
You said in a quote that rock is not dead but it is resurrecting. How do you think that rock today differs from the past? What are the things that have remained and the things that have changed? What direction do you think rock today is taking?
That’s an interesting question. I think generally speaking what I was saying then was kind of based on when anybody comes up to us after a show and is like, ‘Oh it’s so good man like you’re bringing rock back’ – but it’s never really gone away, it’s just changed. I think people get really scared of change because they find out they’ve got to get a mortgage or a new job and all these things happen and they just yearn for the days when they could just do what they wanted. So I understand what people are saying when they say rock is dead, but it’s just changing. I always perceive rock to be something that kids like but their parents don’t and I think that spans across genres with rock kind of being this consistent mindset or ideology almost. It is the antithesis to what the generation that brought you up represents.
I always perceive rock to be something that kids like but their parents don’t
I see rock in artists like Lizzo or Billie Eilish, who would usually be considered pop bands but they are really performers in this rock arena, which is creating a space in which your parents are like ‘Would you turn that off!’ That’s the whole thing I think rock encapsulates. I think it exists there and also a lot in grime music. Rock used to be this thing that spoke to working-class people, giving them this sense of moral freedom and identity, separating themselves from the establishment, and I think grime functions in that music today – a lot of UK rap music does as well, including drill and stuff like that.
I think traditional rock as we perceive it as a genre has become a very different thing because we are listening to our parent’s old records and it’s almost a pastime to have. Whereas something like grime or rap is very entrenched in lived experiences of working-class communities. So at this moment in time or even as early as 2001 or 2002, people saw the death of rock but didn’t actually realise that what was happening to them is they were moving into the middle-class and they were growing up. Those are the type of people that are claiming rock is dead, and I don’t think it is – it’s just in a different place.
Yes, I understand what you mean and I think that this alternative ideology has always been an integral backbone of the UK music scene, but recently we have seen it rise up around the world. For example, if you think of Eurovision and Måneskin, who have really helped bring rock to the forefront recently. How do you think rock in the UK differs from elsewhere and do you take inspiration from bands in foreign countries?
That’s another very good question. I think it’s going to be inherently different because [the music] has a language of its own. It has a stamp on it and you can tell when something is very British. The Måneskin thing is really tricky because in terms of what I would consider to be rock music, what they are doing to me feels more like pop. It’s more manufactured in the way that it’s not doing it for the sake of advancing the ideology. I don’t know whether I’m just picking and choosing what I like. I think those guys are great and they are doing fantastic stuff, but you can feel that it’s all very put together in a way that doesn’t feel like rock. Whereas if you go and listen to Skepta or something, like okay it’s grime, but it’s coming from a very real place which feels more rock.
I think the British invasion thing has a really important effect on rock music globally
In European countries, it’s kind of really interesting how they perceive rock and the rock bands that exist there. My girlfriend is Portuguese, she’s from Maderia Island, and all the bands from around where she lives are really into 80s rock. She always makes the joke that, ‘We’ve only just got Duran Duran records.’ So I think it’s really different in that way and I don’t know whether it’s kind of the idea of like the British invasion and that’s what the Måneskin thing is taking on and I guess they are really into that sort of thing. I guess that’s probably a key difference. I didn’t really want to put Britain as this central figure where everybody’s just copying it, but I think the British invasion thing has a really important effect on rock music globally, especially in America. I think I actually kind of prefer American rock to British rock. I think there’s this cynicism in American rock and pessimism that doesn’t exist in British rock as much. British rock is very much happy-go-lucky and sugared, like Blur for example.
In contrast to that globalism and thinking widely, how do you feel on a localised level that your hometown of Cardiff hometown has inspired your music?
There’s a pretty big rock scene in Cardiff, but again I feel like at the moment, there’s a huge rap scene coming out of Cardiff, which seems to be dominating quite a lot. The rock scene is still probably the most predominant one with people more often than not just wanting to get together and play guitars or whatever and it is doing well with all these great bands like The Buzz Club, but in terms of what I would consider to be exciting compared to a bunch of rock bands playing like three gigs a week and compared to the shows being half-sold and all that, the rap scene at the moment in Cardiff is going f***ing wild. You see whole rooms of kids just throwing themselves around and you look at it and think, ‘That’s a rock show.’ But then you would go and watch a rock band and there would be people pensively looking in a setting and examining the music in this particular way and that’s what I think is kind of the interesting dichotomy between what people think rock is and where rock is moving.
in terms of like when people come up to me and say, ‘Hey man you’re bringing rock music back,’ it’s kind of like ‘No, it’s over there, I’m just completely ripping off Fleetwood Mac.’
The rap scene is really taking the upper hand, which I think is great and it comes from a lot of the working-class communities in Cardiff, like Grangetown. All of these people are using their lived experience to inform their music, which I think is one of the most honourable and strong aspects of written music. Whereas us in rock bands are just kind of stealing ideas from Gerry Rafferty, do you know what I mean? Which is lots of good fun, but in terms of like when people come up to me and say, ‘Hey man you’re bringing rock music back,’ it’s kind of like ‘No, it’s over there, I’m just completely ripping off Fleetwood Mac.’ There’s nothing going on with my lived experience that’s making me feel like, ‘Hey, I really need to say this.’ Whereas rap is saying like, ‘This is what’s really happening in our communities right now.’ I sort of just feel like I’m saying, ‘Our music is shit and you should just go and listen to that instead.’ That might be the point, that might be the case. Who knows?
Yes, I guess kind of leading on from that in one of my favourite songs by you guys, you claim that John Lennon is your Jesus Christ. I think that when we think about John Lennon, he was really revolutionary in terms of him using the art of music very politically. As you have just explained now, and also in interviews I have read, your art doesn’t seem to be a socio-political thing. For me, I have always seen art as inherently political, so I was just wondering why are you so reluctant to place your music in that sociopolitical realm? Especially because you seem to be quite politically aware yourself, so I guess do you think there is a way to separate art from the artist in that way?
In terms of music being political, I think that all I wanted to do with our band is put ourselves in the position of the comedian or the jest. If we are going to have a political thing to make, we should be saying it with a level of humour or having it inspire some kind of cohesion, rather than me standing on top of a soapbox telling you what you should actually think. The point that we are at now, from a political discourse perspective, I think the whole world is being included really… There are a lot of bands and even celebrities, presenters, TV show hosts and that sort of stuff, who are intent on sort of telling you their positions and telling you how to feel and having a political position which previously in our lives was never really a thing. For whatever reason, perhaps the advancement of the internet, we have driven ourselves to the point where everyone has to have an opinion and everyone has to fight for their opinion, meaning that people are saying things for the sake of opposition rather than actual political discourse. Anytime I listen to bands who are really making a lot of political statements, which happens a lot these days – you know that kind of spoken word with noise in the background kind of stuff – I don’t know if people are generally getting tired of that, but I got tired of that a very long time ago.
I just want to hear songs and be listening to music from a personal perspective. I don’t want to have to maintain an ideological perspective constantly through listening to a record. I don’t want to have to be questioning my ideological perspective the whole time, which is an important thing to do but I feel like it’s more for when you’re voting for people in office or you’re having a conversation with your friends. If you’re getting together to listen to some rock music, often I feel like it should just be a fun experience and it should be an opportunity to sort of switch off your ideological brain and I think an effective way to do that a lot of the time is through humour.
If you’re getting together to listen to some rock music, often I feel like it should just be a fun experience
I love stand-up comedy and the intricacies of how that works and how it manages to switch people off from their ideological conditions and be in a room with people watching this one person, who is usually saying provocative things, and under other circumstances, everybody would be like, ‘Ugh why are you doing that’ and feel a bit uncomfortable, but instead you’re in a room with people who are laughing together and I think that’s like a part of a process of moving forward and moving through those things.
So, to summarise, whenever we try and be political, we always try and make it funny or just preface it with the fact that we are just a rock band. I don’t think anybody should be looking to us for ideological direction. Moreover, I don’t think anybody should be looking to any musician for an ideological position and ‘John Lennon is my Jesus Christ’ is kind of like an irony on the idea of idolisation because you know ‘imagine no possessions,’ yeah, nice one John, sure, especially behind that massive gold piano, you know what I mean? Generally speaking, I think people shouldn’t be looking to people in bands for their ideological position, because I think people in bands tend to not know a lot really when it comes down to it. We talk the good talk and are good for iconography, but when it actually comes down to the detail of it, we’re not very good, You know, we’ve got a prime minister right now who is so good at being an icon, but he’s awful at being a prime minister. I think the last thing we need are icons.
Definitely and I think kind of moving away from ideology leaves your music in a place that is unifying, which you can see in one of your latest releases ‘A Passionate Life,’ which is about friendship, a very universal thing. What does friendship mean to you and how do you think the meaning of friendship has changed over the course of the pandemic?
That’s very interesting. I think the song itself really is about how kind of bad a friend I am. I don’t know I get so like encapsulated by work that I tend to forget about other people in my life. I think you’re right. Over the course of the pandemic, I tended to value friendship a lot more, in terms of how like just simple a connection it is. It’s so simple that you could just wish it away at any moment. You could forget about it and you wouldn’t even realise it’s gone. But then you could just be like five years down the line and just realise what an absolutely awful person you’ve become and how much you really suffered from lack of it.
I think friendship speaks volumes about how good people truly are and a lot of that gets lost – again, when we were talking about the whole political discourse thing and the process of people looking to bands as icons or ideological gurus – has actually put barriers in the way of people becoming friends and realising why people hold their view or positions. Really getting into the depth of like why people feel that way and how we can actually move forward. I think the interesting thing about friendship and what it identifies is that we always have common ground.
I think the interesting thing about friendship and what it identifies is that we always have common ground
I remember when I was working out the studio and there was a guy working on the house next door and he was probably the most opposite person to me ideologically, like he was anti-vax, saying the vaccine’s a lie and Covid is a lie and doesn’t exist. He was there for months and we would just be like speaking and stuff and we became friends and what I realised through the process of us becoming friends is that we actually held the same positions in terms of what we thought about the establishment and all of that sort of stuff, like people in the establishment order that control us, you know them all enjoying themselves on another level whilst we do all the work. It’s quite weird like we both kind of believed in this very Marxist substructure base symbiotic system, but he attributed it to this fake virus but I attributed it to this economic system that was set up to keep a hierarchy. We held the same positions, but in the thin veil and facade of those first encounters when you are getting to know somebody, we would have just said, ‘Ah we are completely opposite, we disagree, fuck it.’ I think that’s a real asset of friendship. Well, I mean friendship in the broad sense – he’s not my best man. But just being friends allows that depth you can actually find commonalities between one another. I think there’s not enough of that at the moment, but I think that’s improving. I think we are all just getting tired of being so on it ideologically.
Moving off from that, I think you can kind of see that idea of what you’re saying there about the meaning in the song in the music video with the array of different people that are presented, which I personally really appreciated. And I also really like the feature of a precious dog in the video and I was wondering who is this dog and what is his/her name?
I’ve actually got no idea. I just saw the edit and was like, ‘Ooh, let’s keep the dog in it.’ The sick thing is as well is that I tried to put my dog in it, but my friend is the guy who edited it and he didn’t put my dog in it. So I guess there’s another dog who would be more worthy than my own dog. You win some you lose some, you know.
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