The White Buffalo
Sunday, October 19th
16+
Veranda Bar opens at 6pm (21+)
Venue doors open at 6:45pm
Show starts at 7:30pm
Standing room only show.
For The White Buffalo – singer/songwriter/guitarist Jake Smith – it was time to take the less travelled path for studio album Number 8, ‘Year Of The Dark Horse’, the follow-up to ‘On The Widow’s Walk’ (Snakefarm, 2020).
“You think we’re a country band? A folk band? Americana? Rock? What the fuck are you gonna say now?!” laughs Jake. “With this album, I wanted something outside of what I’ve ever done. I wanted to open up. Do something dangerous.”
The Oregon-born, Southern California-raised artist describes the new work as genre-bending, drawing influences from ELO, Daniel Lanois, Tom Waits, The Boss, circus, pirate music, and yacht rock. At the pandemic’s start, Jake put down his acoustic guitar and began writing on synthesizer, exploring new sounds without really knowing how to play keys.
When Jake and his regular collaborators – bassist/keyboardist Christopher Hoffee and drummer Matt Lynott – entered East Nashville’s Neon Cross Studio (a converted Southern Baptist Church), only three of the 12 songs were completely written. This gave producer Jay Joyce and assistant Jason Hall room to guide and explore new frontiers.
“It was a whirlwind of creativity,” recalls Jake. “We tracked 12 songs in 11 days; no over-thinking, no looking for perfection, no egos, no playing it safe, just feel.”
Multi-instrumentalist Joyce, a Grammy Award-winning Producer of the Year (2018) with 4 CMA and 5 ACM Awards, has worked with Eric Church, Brothers Osborne, Ashley McBryde, and Cage The Elephant. His reputation for intense, unconventional methods proved perfect for this project.
“Jake is fierce, he basically wrote a whole movie,” says Jay. “We holed up in an old church, in the midst of the pandemic. It was just the four of us, making the soundtrack to his movie.”
Joyce pushed the musicians into uncomfortable territory daily. For vocals, he positioned Jake on a low couch with the mic near the ground, forcing him to sing hunched over. “Everyone knows that you can sing, bro, what else is there…?” Joyce would say, seeking vibe over vocal acrobatics.
The 12 songs were recorded in sequence, loosely following the shifting seasons and a relationship. The immersive Nashville experience proved crucial – the musicians stayed a block from the studio in a house filled with instruments, allowing them to focus entirely on the project.
“I wrote ‘Love Song #3’ eight days into recording,” remembers Jake. “I knew the story and scope of the album needed a true love song.” His bandmates came in “blind,” never having heard the songs, but stepped up collectively.
The album builds on Jake’s reputation for emotional weight while adding fresh, left-field moments. It tells a tale of debauchery, blame, love and loss over one lunar year, following an anti-hero through seasonal highs and lows. The mysterious character Donna appears throughout, with her namesake song showing Jake’s regard for Jeff Lynne.
Album closer ‘Life Goes On’ was captured in one take when Jake wasn’t even aware they were recording – “Pure, honest, true,” perfectly summing up The White Buffalo’s most unpredictable and inventive work to date.
