The White Buffalo, aka Jake Smith, represents an authentic homage to the times of hard touring, hard drinking artists who truly lived what they sang about. Currently on tour with reggae artist, Mishka, The White Buffalo is supporting the upcoming release of his latest EP, Prepare For The Black & Blue, which marks his first release with a label. Recently, Bestnewbands.com caught up with Smith from the road to talk about his tour, what it’s like to work with a label and the themes of the EP.

DK: Where am I catching you today?

JS: Santa Cruz just did a show in San Francisco last night.

DK: How’s the tour going so far?

JS: It’s going good. There have been some good shows and some mediocre shows.

 

DK: Was the San Fran gig one of the better ones?

JS: Yeah it was good. I always have a good time in San Francisco. My wife came up and surprised me and we tore the town up a little bit.

 

DK: How does this current tour compare to some of the bigger tours you’ve been out on, like with Gomez and Donavon Frankenreiter?

JS: When you’re doing supporting things, it’s all about trying to build your following. It’s definitely a little more of a struggle, well not a struggle, but a lot of them aren’t your fans so you have to go out and get their attention, which is a different type of listener.

 

DK: Let’s talk about your new EP, Prepare For Black & Blue. How did it come to fruition? Having written and performed these songs before, was it easy to go in and lay them down?

JS: Jimmy Messer produced it and we recorded it in Venice at his studio. It came along real quick. It’s mostly just me and a guitar and it took maybe six days to record I think? This was a really quick project.

 

DK: What is it like working with a label this time around?

JS: I usually do it myself but I took a leap of faith to go outside of my own self. Normally, I’ll put shit out I record and I won’t wait for any setup. It’s just kind of beginning with Ruff Shod, which is an imprint on Nettwerk Records, but I’ve never had any sort of machine behind me. No press, no radio, it always kind of word of mouth. I think it had its merits but also had it’s limitations as well. Things are just starting so we’ll see how it goes.

 

DK: What were some of the themes and subjects you tackled on the EP?

JS: There’s a lot, it’s pretty heavy. There’s some love songs and some darker ones. “Oh Darling” is the lead song that we’ve pushed and it’s a more demented, fantastic tale of a guy who’s kinda lost his way and he starts killing people to get the attention and affection of a woman. There’s a lot of drinking ones on it, I never really think about but there always seems to be a lot of booze on it. A lot of the darker themed stuff, some of it is just pure fiction and demonstrative tales. The whole idea of writing songs for me is that it’s about something. I think the whole point of doing it is drifting off in some way. I’m proud of all the songs on there and I think it’s strong. I like words and I like melodies and it’s real stripped down but it’s still very dynamic, which is kind of a hard thing to achieve. There are definitely some cool arrangements. Jimmy pushed me to make sense of all the songs and pushed me to make little tweaks here and there. He made me self aware of a lot things I did.

 

With his strong lyrics and stripped down productions, The White Buffalo’s new EP is one of the better releases to drop this fall. If you want some good old-fashioned lyrics driven rock, this album is for you.