INTERVIEW: The Buckleys on their latest single 'Wondering': "This was just a completely different experience, there was such a fresh excitement in the studio."

Interview: Jett Tattersall
Image: Kimberley Vecsei

The Buckleys, comprising of siblings Sarah, Molly and Lachlan, have been making waves since 2019 and are slowly but surely building a reputation as one of Australia’s premier young bands.

Initially scoring massive success on the Australian Country Music Airplay Chart, including number 1 hit ‘Daydream’ and three top 3 smashes, their music has evolved over the years and mixes pop with country with dashes of indie, roots and blues.

Their recent single ‘Wondering’ sees them working with producer Lachlan Bostock of Australian band Mansionair. The collaboration is a gorgeous, swinging track with throwback vibes to the 1970s and thanks to Bostock also brings electronic dipped rock to The Buckleys repertoire.

“We loved working with Lach on this song,” says Sarah. “I think what makes this collaboration so special is the fact we both come from completely different musical worlds but were really excited to explore what the other had to bring to the table. Both of us walked into our first co-writing session and were like, ‘Honestly, I have no idea or experience in your style/genre but we’re excited to create something new and fresh so let’s just go and see what happens!’.”

Lyrically the song explores those people that come in and out of your life and and even if the parting wasn’t acrimonious, or even memorable, you find yourself wondering what ever happened to them. “Every once in a while, you find yourself going, ‘Hmmm I wonder what happened there? I wonder what they’re doing? I wonder who they’re with,” Sarah says. “Without any big emotion - love, hate, or longing - necessarily attached, you’re just kind of ‘Wondering’”

There is always something so rich snd joyful about the music The Buckleys release and ‘Wondering’ is no exception. Sarah has deservedly been lauded with acclaim for her songwriting, and you can’t help but feel the musical future for The Buckleys is going to continue to shine ever brighter. We recently sat down with The Buckleys to chat about ‘Wondering’ and the latest developments in their career.

Hi Sarah and Grace, so lovely to see you. How have The Buckleys been?
It’s been great, busy. The silly season’s well actually kicked off. Playing a lot, travelling and just been in Nashville as well and that was amazing. It's been great.

Let's talk about ‘Wondering’. What a great song. Also, I'm digging the video. A round of applause for all three of you there.
We made the video super spontaneously. Literally the night before we were sitting down and we're like, we want to get something for this, a visual,. and just said ‘let's just do it tomorrow and not tell anyone.’ We called a friend Sam and said let's do a video tomorrow, and he picked up a camera from another friend of ours at 10pm at night and we started shooting at 7am the next day. We were literally making it up on the spot! It was a it was a really cool experience from start to finish, doing it all ourselves.

It looks really slick, you did a beautiful job with it. I feel like The Buckleys are like the dungarees of bands. You just get your hands in, you do all of it yourself. I remember those COVID concerts you did, you just got in there and did it.
We had our little brother playing drums with us so it's really like a proper family enterprise which is kind of cool!

I'm getting Hanson vibes in the best possible way!
Our drummer went overseas so we're like ‘Dylan It's time to join the family business, you’re 16.’ We just threw him in the deep end!

Let's talk again about ‘Wondering’. With the Take It As It Comes EP you started moving into this kind of slicker poppier, country mouse goes to the city kind of sound, and with ‘Wondering’ you got elements of that again. I feel like you guys are moving into some other sounds, was that intentional or is that just where you were headed?
Sarah: For ‘Wondering’ I wrote the song in Sydney, with a guy locked Lach Bostock who plays a band called Mansionair. Lach walked into the session and said ‘I have never written a country song, I don’t know anything about country music but I'm super excited to do it’. And I was like, likewise because Mansionair are in a completely different world to everything that we do. So we were like let's just see what we come up with. We got on so well and had a really great writing chemistry and ‘Wondering’ was the first song that we wrote together. We wrote it super quickly in like two hours, it just worked out great.

Molly: It was really exciting when we hit the studio because we've always recorded in a certain way, which we love over in Nashville, but this was just a completely different experience. There was just such a fresh excitement in the studio. Lach had never recorded a pedal steel before and we were like sitting in the studio for hours just on the pedals. and then we realised we had like hours of pedal steel for a three minutes song! It was such fresh excitement about the country element.

Sarah: Country music is a new thing for Lach so everything was really new and fresh and exciting to do. I feel like it's super important for us to evolve our sound. That's not necessarily saying ‘Wondering’ is going to be like everything we do now, but we want to keep evolving, and finding new ways to pull out our creativity.

You already have a very fresh take on the country's genre. I remember when you came out and people were like, ‘oh, it's folk, hippie country’, they couldn’t put a name to it which is great because I don't think in this day and age genres really stick anyway. Do you feel that because you almost came in with your own genre from the get go, you're able to adapt more easily to other collaborations and sounds?
Definitely. From the get go we didn't really pigeonhole ourselves into one thing. So it's easy for us to experiment with new things and people expect it, as opposed to having a really set expectation of this is exactly what we do. We also have such a huge appreciation for music in general, so we never really find ourselves disliking something just because it comes from a certain genre. If it sounds nice to us, we love it and it doesn't matter what area or box it fits into. When we came out and people didn't know what our box was, it's a little bit hard because it's hard to market in some ways. A lot of the music industry is about being a good fit in certain areas. But it makes it exciting, because it's different.

Exactly that and you've made a really good point about where do you fit on the bill, but at the same, it's weird. You don't fit on an exact bill, but at the same time, you can slip into anything.
Exactly and it's a really interesting, I feel like we're still navigating it and people are still navigating it as well.

What have been some interesting bills you've played on because of this sort of new genre that you're playing?
It's cool because we get to play Tamworth Country Music Festival, and then Byron Bay Bluesfest. Bluesfest is a really fun festival because you get every genre. So everyone comes to that festival with a very open, fresh mind. Hopefully one day we'll be able to play Splendour in the Grass as well, and Port Fairy folk festival as well. I feel that's one of the great things about country music's evolution generally, I have friends like Brad Cox and he is playing on all sorts of different lineups, not just country festivals, which brings the genre to a whole new demographic. It’s really exciting to see how rapidly country music is growing.

You're hearing it a lot more in collaborations. Jessie Murph is infusing it with hip hop, you think of Billy Ray Cyrus and Lil Nas X. People are really pulling it forward into other genres, so it's a great time to be doing what you're doing. On that, who do you think are some artists that your listeners would be surprised that you listen to?
Doja Cat! She was the number one artist in Lachie’s Spotify Unwrapped a couple years ago which is pretty surprising! That was wild. We listen to a lot of French cafe music and mariachi music. Straight out of Mexico!

You were just talking about recording in Nashville, and that's amazing, because it's the epicentre of what you're doing and for artists, it's Mecca. You also have this amazing audience in the States. Do you feel like that's always going to be one of your big musical homes?
Sarah: Yeah, definitely. Nashville feels like a second home to me. I was just there and every time I go I just feel so comfortable. It's a place where I grew up as a songwriter. So it feels like home in that sense, because that's where I learned the art of songwriting and was mentored by some amazing people. I just feel so myself there.

We have ‘Wondering’ out now, what else is coming up for The Buckleys?
We have the Tamworth Country Music Festival which is going to be super fun. I can feel in my bones this is gonna be a good year! We're opening for Casey Barnes on the Wednesday night of the second week, and then we haven't officially announced yet, we're just kind of leaking it out to everyone until we announce it, but we're also doing two free shows at the Tamworth Hotel, that’s our hang, it’s where all the musos go and hang out and we have the best time there. We have some very exciting special guests and it’s going to be one hell of a rodeo. That's our favourite part of the Tamworth Country Music festival, hanging out with all of friends it's like the one time of the year everyone is in the same place. We’re really going into next year with a really fun mindset.

‘Wondering’ is out now via Petrol Records/Universal Music. You can stream and buy here.
To keep up with all things The Buckleys you can follow them on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.