COURTESY: Votiv.fm
Young Buffalo released their first full-length album Tuesday and have planned a release party at The Lyric tonight to celebrate and commence their nationwide tour.
The birth of the Oxford-based indie rock band took place just before original members Jim Barrett and Ben Yarbrough graduated high school. Throughout 2011 and 2012, band members came and went. In 2012, after the addition of Will Eubanks, the keyboardist, they recorded their self-titled EP. They then received a Facebook message and later a series of YouTube videos from Andrew Guinn, who auditioned to become the band’s drummer.
It wasn’t until 2013, after “House” was recorded, when the band perfected their live sound with the addition of Tim Burkhead as drummer and the reassignment of Guinn to bass.
“Andy has the biggest hands I’ve ever seen, so we were like, ‘He’s gotta be able to, like, kill the bass,’” Barrett said.
The LP, titled “House,” was released on Votiv Records and has attracted the attention of NPR and Spin Magazine.
In spite of the early 2015 release date, the album and Young Buffalo’s live sound has been a work in progress spanning back to 2009.
“That’s changed completely,” Barrett said, “I mean, the vibe of that is completely different from where I was originally going with it. I think definitely for the better.”
Motives behind some songs on the album have also shifted. Many Barrett wrote after a messy break-up, and he said now that the heartbreak has passed, he has changed and so have some of these meanings. Additionally, “House” highlights the growth of the band from its youth, when Barrett and Yarbrough began writing and recording EPs, but they could not reach a point where they were performing for crowds regularly. Now, with their diverse assortment of band members and newly released record, they can.
“We’re able to go and play for folks and kind of do this for a living,” Barrett said.“It’s about leaving home and playing and doing what you dream of doing.”
In these ways, “House” displays a metamorphosis as it encapsulates vicissitudes of the years that went into the album’s craft.
These changes worked, and, with these additions and transitions, Young Buffalo’s sound has only grown. Barrett said after they recorded “House” in L.A. they brainstormed ways to emulate the music in a live atmosphere, and that’s when the addition of Burkhead became a possibility.
“It’s been a full year and now two months that we’ve been playing as a five-piece, and I don’t think its gonna change anytime soon,” Barrett said.
Since “House” was recorded in the fall and winter of 2013, the band had an entire year to practice and perfect their live sound. Young Buffalo as they are now began to practice only three or four days after the beginning of 2014.
“I remember the second time we played, we were playing some songs—it might’ve been one of our older ones—but it sounded so big that the whole shivers and goosebumps thing happened to me, like midway through the song,” Barret said. “I kind of looked at Ben and was like, ‘Yeah, this is the crew we need.’ And so I think, we realized right off the bat that it was gonna work, but it has taken a lot of time to get where we’re at right now.”
With an entire year to solidify Young Buffalo’s live sound, the release of “House” could not be timed at a better point in the band’s career. Now, the group can focus on writing and recording for a five-piece dynamic. There is a lot of freedom in this position, Barrett said.
“The boundaries with what we make are kind of nonexistent at this point, and that’s kind of fun. It’s maybe sometimes a little scary, but it’s fun to create, to invent in that way,” Barrett said.
Young Buffalo is planning on “throwing a bit of a party” this evening. They will perform along with Lil Iffy and some surprise guests. Tickets are $10 at The Lyric, and the doors will open at 9:30 p.m.
