Buds. are a four-piece band from Basingstoke and formed after the demise of their former bands – calling themselves a band of divorcees. The melodic punk rock band have been regularly performing across Southampton and have become a well-known name to play at Heartbreakers and The Joiners. After their amazing show at Suburbia on Saturday, I had a sit down with them to discuss all things Buds. and how the divorcees found each other.
I saw you guys at The Catalina Wine Mixer last year at The Joiners, what would you say is your favourite Southampton venue?
Dan: It’s rather The Joiners or Heartbreakers.
Tom: From what we have played probably The Joiners, but going to gigs probably Heartbreakers
Sonny: It’s nice and intimate at Heartbreakers, not that many people.
Dan: I like the sweatbox vibe.
Tom: Compared to where we are actually from, just anywhere in Southampton. It’s got a good scene.
Funnily enough a question was how would you describe your hometown’s music scene?
Sonny: Shit
Tom: Music scene is dead, it died and it’s very sad.
Dan: We had our one venue close down.
Why the name Buds with a full-stop?
Dan and Zoe: Branding.
Sonny: We are Edgy as fuck.
Tom: We were coming up with a name and came up with Buds., it has three different meanings. So, we looked on Facebook and there’s a tiny band from America with the same name who were once called Buds like 6 years ago, so we added the full-stop so no one can sue us. We are safe now.
So, what are the three meanings?
Tom: Got buds as in Budweiser, buds as in we are best mates, you’ve got flower buds, which we started off as, flowers was almost our fake name when we weren’t ready.
How long have you all known each other? How did you meet?
Tom: We are all basically a collection of old bands which all spilt up around the same time unfortunately. I drummed for both Sonny and Dan’s old bands, then the bass player left one and the singer left the other, so we were like hold up you play bass (Sonny), you sing in one (Dan). Let’s do this. Dan then moved in with me, so we live together, Dan and Zoe are together, so we are always hanging out, then this one (Sonny) is just sunshine. He is just always there, he goes to university, but now he doesn’t go and yeah.
Zoe: Kind of everyone in Basingstoke knows who Sonny is. Me and Sonny actually went to college together and we were in the same tutor group for one year, but he would rather not turn up or turn up very giggly.
Tom: We have all individually been doing music for about 5 years now, but this project started a year ago and has already had a better response.
I remember seeing Sonny with a broken ankle at The Catalina Wine Mixer and still rocking it out…
Tom: Let’s comment on that, because he went from that to then a broken elbow whilst breaking his elbow carried on skating, fucked his collar bone on the same side.
Sonny: Yeah, I had like a massive surgery and shit. (Sonny shows off the surgical scar)
Dan: Let the records say that Sonny has revealed a scar.
Sonny: So just come back from injury, so now I can actually play guitar again and was just fronting it with this fucking weird cast on my arm.
So, Sonny how how long are you going to be uninjured for?
Dan: How long is a piece of string?
Zoe: He said he is going to give up skating…
Sonny: But I started again a couple of weeks ago
So, your music is a mix of rock and 90s punk, who would you say your major musical influences are?
Dan: I would say musically we are quite influenced by or personally by Gender Roles, Dinosaur Pile Up, Nervus, Milk Teeth to a certain extent. Then the old pop punk bands I grew up listening to like Blink-182, Green Day and Sum-41.
Sonny: Mainly like Pig Destroyer, Cattle Decapitation – they are great. Just anything where anyone gets torn up.
Tom: We all have quite different influences as you can tell, I think collectively though there’s Cultdreams. We all have different roots that we come from, some is more metal, some more pop punk vibes.
This is the final question and it’s a deep one, where do you see the band in 5 years?
Dan: What are you, my mum?
Tom: As a game plan from here we are looking to move to Southampton or somewhere similar with a bit more of a music scene, because we are struggling in Basingstoke. From then onwards, we just want to play as many shows as we can and try and get on some support slots to get out there a bit. We just see the graft is the way to do it, hopefully we would have made it in the next five years.
Dan: To an extent.
Tom: Dan will then be a grandad by that age.
Dan: Yeah, I mean I guess we are planning on recording a new EP before the year is over and hopefully releasing by the time the year is over. In 5 years, I would hope to have at least one album by then and just play, tour, play, tour and just see what happens and try not to get my ear ripped out.
Buds. are next in Southampton on 1 May at Heartbreakers, buy your tickets here.
