{"id":912581,"date":"2026-06-13T20:11:51","date_gmt":"2026-06-14T01:11:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/13\/living-is-the-real-work-buck-meek-interviewed\/"},"modified":"2026-06-13T20:11:51","modified_gmt":"2026-06-14T01:11:51","slug":"living-is-the-real-work-buck-meek-interviewed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/13\/living-is-the-real-work-buck-meek-interviewed\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cLiving Is The Real Work\u201d Buck Meek Interviewed"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Music <\/p>\n<div>\n<p>\u201cI try to look at it like a day job \u2013 writing from nine to five, essentially.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Buck Meek<\/strong> takes his craft seriously. Chatting to CLASH over Zoom from his home studio \u2013 he\u2019s just taken delivery of some new mics, which he can\u2019t wait to test out \u2013 the American songwriter overflows with enthusiasm, his infatuation with songwriting beaming out of every pore. A core component of Big Thief \u2013 inarguably one of the most vital groups of their generation \u2013 his solo catalogue often reaches the same storied heights of his collaborative work. Take new album \u2018The Mirror\u2019 \u2013 Buck\u2019s first solo effort in three years, it\u2019s a rich, fascinating song suite of personal revelation, propelled forward by his entrancing performances, the input of his storied co-conspirators, and the future-facing production work of close friend and Big Thief bandmate <strong>James Krivchenia<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cReleasing an album always feels a little abstract until I\u2019m able to sing the songs for people in a room,\u201d he notes. \u201cI mean, they feel real when I write them, when I record them \u2013 these moments of conception feel real when I\u2019m fully present with the songs.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOnce I\u2019m onstage \u2013 and of course, doing interviews \u2013 that makes it all feel very real. Being able to talk about the album is one way to reconnect with the songs.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u2014<\/p>\n<figure>\n<p>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Buck Meek - Can I Mend It? (Official Audio)\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" data-src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/4A_MWHhPpUk?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen src=\"data:image\/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB3aWR0aD0iMSIgaGVpZ2h0PSIxIiB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciPjwvc3ZnPg==\" data-load-mode=\"1\"><\/iframe>\n<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<p>\u2014<\/p>\n<p>\u2018The Mirror\u2019 is rich in points of connection. Recorded in a log cabin outside Los Angeles, Buck Meek leads the way, joined by\u00a0Adrianne Lenker, Mary Lattimore, and Alex Somers, amongst others.\u00a0\u201cI\u2019ve spent basically my entire life getting to the point where I have a community of people around me, that I trust, who have a shared value system creatively, and we can go from start to finish in a matter of weeks and put something like this together. That\u2019s been a lifelong process that\u2019s been very challenging.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe biggest challenge was just maintaining focus,\u201d he says. \u201cBecause of that community, the actual function of everything is pretty damn-well oiled.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The album opens in a spartan, intimate fashion. \u2018Gasoline\u2019 unfolds like a demo, the vocal little more than a guide vocal tacked into place by Buck\u2019s creative intentionality. \u201cMaybe it was a bit voyeuristic,\u201d he murmurs. \u201cI mean, that\u2019s how I start most songs. For this one, I felt like this kind of adrenaline with the idea of letting it lie, and just letting that live in the song itself.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSometimes I overthink things, and realise later that the song is already finished,\u201d he adds.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI like to come in with songs as finished as possible, because when I record, I put a lot of intention into choosing the players for the session. I choose the players very carefully. I trust their musicality, but then I get \u2013 once they\u2019re in the room with me \u2013 I don\u2019t give them any direction at all. I just let the songs direct the band, as far as arrangements go. I feel like I\u2019ve learned to yield better results by just giving people the freedom to come up with their own parts.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Placing full trust in those around him, Buck let the sessions find their own path. \u2018God Knows Why\u2019 for example started life as an all-out electric rocker, before diverging from that plan. \u201cI always imagined it to be a really loud electric guitar songs \u2013 like Crazy Horse kind of angsty, loud, rock \u2018n\u2019 roll or whatever. We tried that, and everybody played their loud part, and for some reason it sounded very small in the microphones.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd James suggested, why don\u2019t we try it much quieter with acoustic guitars? And the sound was so much more impactful. It actually ended up rocking a lot harder with acoustic guitars.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u2014<\/p>\n<figure><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"679\" src=\"https:\/\/www.clashmusic.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Buck-Meek-1024x679.jpg\" alt  ><\/figure>\n<p>\u2014<\/p>\n<p>James Krivchenia\u2019s production inflections pepper the record, his interest in electronics hugely expanding the palette of colours Buck has to draw on. It\u2019s more than this, however \u2013 the songwriter was inspired by the way his friend broke free of musical inhibitions, and took this independence into his own work. \u201cEvery musician has found ways of breaking their own rules. Every musician \u2013 to some degree \u2013 feels locked in to a paradigm that they\u2019re pushing out of. But that paradigm is different for every single musician, and so to see each other break the rules in different ways, it gives a sense of permission. It\u2019s really empowering.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>As a result, a song like \u2018Demon\u2019 was permitted to be malleable, moving from a \u201cslow, drugged version\u2026 all spaced-out reverb\u201d to its high-octane final form. \u201cJonathan Wilson, my friend, came in and again, his first response to the song was this Keith Moon style heavy drum part, and it worked immediately.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Lyrically, Buck Meek revels in the powers songwriting afford him, utilising \u2018The Mirror\u2019 as a space for processing often deep-rooted emotion. Final song \u2018Out Of Body\u2019 for example \u201cis about death,\u201d Buck explains. \u201cMy grandmother passed away, and I wrote that song. It\u2019s kind of a way to process that grief, and imagining being able to communicate with her after she passed away\u2026 her sending me signals through the threshold \u2013 speaking to me in dreams, and things like that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere\u2019s a life cycle to the album,\u201d he notes. \u201cThe birth at the start being this formulation of language, and the death at the end \u2013 literally \u2013 being about communicating beyond death.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI wrote the songs pretty intuitively, but once I had them all on the table, I realised there was these different phases of a relationship within the album. \u201cUsually when you\u2019re in the process of writing a song, I kind of blackout, and I\u2019m just focussed on that one song exclusively. Everything else fades away. But then to step back and listen to the album as a whole, I do see all these patterns of confession.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI guess one of the things I love the most about songwriting is something that is inherent in the medium itself,\u201d he says. \u201cYou\u2019re always recognising the fact that language is limited. When you\u2019re writing a song, you\u2019re able to embrace that because you have the very powerful context of melody, which I think provides a lot of emotional context.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd I think that allows you to really play with words, and remain oblique,\u201d he continues. \u201cYou oscillate between oblique and very literal lyricism, because you have all this other context to play with. The space in-between all those things is inhabitable by the listener. Each person inhabits it in their own way.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMost of the songs are confessional,\u201d Buck insists, \u201cwhether they\u2019re literal or abstract, they\u2019re coming from a true place. That\u2019s another thing I love about songwriting \u2013 you have the freedom to try to speak truthfully without needing to be literal.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Right now, he\u2019s completing a global tour with Big Thief. UK dates included four nights at the O2 Academy Brixton in South London, and he\u2019s relishing the ability to fill up his cup once more. The writing is one thing \u2013 the living is another.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe writing is kind of like journaling,\u201d he adds. \u201cIt\u2019s at the end of the process, when you try to put it down on paper, or find the melody or whatever. The actual living is the real work\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014<\/p>\n<figure>\n<p>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Buck Meek - Gasoline (Official Video)\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" data-src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/jlX-R9F6aH8?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen src=\"data:image\/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB3aWR0aD0iMSIgaGVpZ2h0PSIxIiB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciPjwvc3ZnPg==\" data-load-mode=\"1\"><\/iframe>\n<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<p>Words: <strong>Robin Murray<\/strong><br \/>Photo Credit: <strong>Daniel Arnold<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.clashmusic.com\/features\/living-is-the-real-work-buck-meek-interviewed\/\" class=\"button purchase\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Music \u201cI try to look at it like a day job \u2013 writing from nine to five, essentially.\u201d Buck Meek takes his craft seriously. Chatting to CLASH over Zoom from his home studio \u2013 he\u2019s just taken delivery of some new mics, which he can\u2019t wait to test out \u2013 the American songwriter overflows with [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":912582,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[131522],"class_list":["post-912581","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business-news","tag-podcast-music"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/912581","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=912581"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/912581\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/912582"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=912581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=912581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=912581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}