So, you've released your fifth album, you're on your umpteenth tour, how do you keep it interesting? Well with Buffalo Tom having just released their fifth album, the brilliant 'Sleepy Eyed' and on a tour that has been going since May, Ben spoke to bassist Chris about how they keep the band going?

How do you think your music has developed through the course of the five albums?
Yeh, you know. It's obviously in little ways. I mean just look at the Beatles career. They start off playing like 'Money' and covers and then by the end it's like Seargent Peppers kind of thing, you know. It's obviously in little increments. I think we're like in the mid run here. We're maybe turning the corner for the final leap at things but, basically we are still basically sprinting and doing what we do naturally and we're not trying to think about it, we're not trying to be too conscious. A lot of our songs sound similar to other records and I remember when R.E.M got into this stage and its like you want them to go someplace but you want them to be natural too. That's why we'v e thrown in different things like me trying to sing more and different production ideas for this record.

Is there any rivalry between you and Bill with both of you writing songs?
Yeh, I think to degree. I think when we first started out they really weren't my songs so there is certainly an element of that that has grown. It's basically unspoken that I'll sing a few songs and a few B-sides and it doesn't go much beyond that. I mean some of the songs I feel closest to on record are often songs like 'Sparklers' which is a song I don't sing but I felt like I had quite a big part of and that's what a band is like. It's a very brotherly relationship, I mean there are days when fists could fly.

Do you still enjoy playing the old songs like 'Tailights Fade' and 'Velvet Roof' and stuff from the old albums?
I do and sometimes I'm very conscious that we're changing it a lot and I want to go back to the original way and sometimes I feel the opposite. Sometimes it just sucks 'cos we're playing it by numbers. I know the kids like those songs ... and we do play them but there is part of me that would love to pop in and play the new album and just three or four old ones. But it changes from day to day to. I get fickle about that.

Boston has a very celebrated past with bands like the Pixies, Lemonheads and stuff. What do you think contributes to that amount of talent coming out of one particular place?
I think that the simple answer is that its a University city. It attracts a lot of kids not just for the schools but because there's films and theatres, it's kinda a smaller big city and that makes bands very competitive for the market and that's why we moved there, originally just to play some concerts because we are from Amhurst where th ere is only one venue. So, even though there were bands like Dinosaur, Sebadoh and the Pixies in Amhurst we all moved to Boston and New York to play concerts.

So, do you feel any kind of affinity with those bands?
No, not really because I never thought we all sounded that similar. I mean certainly Dinosaur and Buffalo Tom, with J (Mascis Dinosaur Jr frontman) doing our producing but with Julianna (Hatfield) or the Lemonheads we mostly met them on the road. It's always a great feeling to see them but we never sat in a room and jammed or anything. There is a layer of bands in Boston that do kinda hang out a lot together, like the Gigalo Aunts come to mind as a band that always seem to be around Boston jamming with people but, I mean, I don't even know a lot of those people in those bands. I've met them once or twice but mostly on tour but, I mean we're never home, we go on tour and then we go away and make records so...

Do you and especially, I suppose, Bill still have anything to write about after five albums?
I think so. It crossed my mind this year that maybe we wouldn't make another record and it really caused an anxiety attack because I thought like, no, what am I going to do with all these tapes I've made with all these songs. Am I just going to grow old and sing them to my kids? So, I think that yes we do. Certainly there's a number of the mes that we write about that will continue on and that I don't know if there's any new thing I want to write about, like the war in Bosnia or anything. But I do think the themes that we have written about that are like universal themes about growing older what relationships are like just go on and on and bands like the Rolling Stones, Van Morrison a nd Bob Dylan have gone on for a long time. I never really thought rock bands should go very far but a band like us, I think, can spread about a bit as long as the songs are there and not forced. I mean so far we usually have about fifty songs to choose from.

Do you ever get tired of the sensitive singer song writer role that you have to play? I think so. There is a part of me that does think the last thing we need is a 'I'm Allowed' or a 'Mineral' kind of song. That's a danger too, I mean even being the little fish we are being labelled a 'singer songwriter' and doing like acoustic concerts. A lot of that is just shit and I hated it when people did that when I was a kid. At the same time I'd love to see like Ray Davies do this as it would be an older guy and it'd be really interesting but I think that first and foremost we should be a rock band and not rely to heavily on that isolated guy bummed out in his room kinda thing. I think that's a cliche well worth avoiding at this point now.

So, do you see yourself as coming out of that American punk rock thing?
There's an element of that. There's all ways to move around it I think. I mean the bands we've been really influenced by like The Who and the Rolling Stones. They had all those sides and more. They had silly pop songs and they had really sad ballads but that's the trick is to, like R.E.M keep it moving on, even within your own genre I guess.

Do you prefer the act of creating song and recording them or the live performance and seeing others react to it?
I choose A. I think you'd get different answers from the other guys in the band. And I think that I really enjoy being at home, writing songs, putting them on tape and seeing them come together and rehearsing. I don't even really like going into the studio and recording that much because it's a very technical process and it is almost like that's limiting your imagination and saying "you can't do this, these are your limitations." It's so much more fun at home where you can hear cello's and a small string section in your mind. The studio, for me, is the middle gap where you just have people telling you your limitations and the road is like ... just very predictable. Although I like the travelling part and walking around towns and meeting people. I even like interviews. However, I don't especially get off on that, "play Velvet Roof!" thing. Especially as there is that sort of frat element to our audience. The kinda guys in white baseball caps that crease me out.

So, do you feel you do have a limited kind of audience?
Well the ones that come to concerts. Obviously a lot more people buy the records than come to the concerts but by looking at the audience there is certainly an element of that male dominated thing but if you go to like the Lemonheads it's all like women. On one level they seem like sensitive souls a lot of them but some of them are definit ely the sort of jocks, sport guys but I think anything with that rock element to it does attract that. But, I mean who am I to say ... I mean when I go to the opera I'm sure somebody looks at me and says; "look at this asshole rock guy going to the opera." You know, it's all subjective but I lean towards the side where there are just people quietl y listening. But I think there is a part of the band that really feeds of that kind of thing but I definitely don't.

The Buffalo Tom live experience is very energetic though and very full on. is it very difficult to keep that going on a long tour?
Some times it is. I mean I like moving around to a certain extent but I'm very intimidated by too much of that crowd thing so I tend to just lay back more. I'll tend to move around a lot more in rehearsals and recording. But, yeh, I think that is how you invive these songs night after night with energy is to really give it a good shot in the arm, really turn it up and do it.

Do you ever feel slightly ridiculous singing one of these sensitive songs when you've done it millions of times before?
Oh, yeh. Or when somebody yawns in the middle or when you see people jumping on and off stage when some songs are like painfully personal. But then you realise that no one really invited us to go out on this. This was our idea to begin with. We're here on tour because we recorded a record and we wanted to go and do a lot of this and that's how we make records. I think we're really cynical and we take with a grain of salt and nobody goes home thinking, how dare someone throw a beer during that song. I think we realise a lot of it is, you know three chords and its funny little stories and none of its like we can't even play this song because it's too sensitive or something.

I think with both you and groups like American Music Club there is always an element of humour there. That you are not taking yourselves too seriously.
Yeh, and I hope that we don't lean too much towards the melodrama in a lot of the stuff. I think that's the big danger of a lot of bands like us and like American Music Club is that they get too melodramatic. There is a fine line between being dramatic and melodramatic and I think we're in a lot of danger of that thing and a lot of it is because we have been touring and it's like a theatre in a sense. You've got to have a lot of energy and be very aware that you don't slip in to that easy thing of like "oh, I can fake this, oh I'm Olivier." And that's tough because I can see us sliding into that some of the time.

Do you have a problem with critical opinion and bad reviews?
I think the worst thing is being ignored rather than a criticism good or bad because we are all very critical of our band and we understand when people are critical. For the majority of our reviews we are like the underdogs, we are like the Pearl jam that never sold a million records or whatever, so for the most part its pats on the back. But you have to remember that it's important to remember not to take that too much to heart. To feel like; "actually we're the greatest unknown band ever, we're the Nick Drake's of indie rock." I think that's just as deceitful as the opposite, you know, taking criticism too hard. You've got to be on your toes, that's all I can think for a lot of t hese answers, I mean keep your energy up, keep being aware. Don't just go home and watch T.V. I mean there is a certain laziness that can creep in and that's what you've got to remember when you read reviews or you think about this process of doing concerts every night. If it means switching the set each night that's what you do, if it means drawi ng someone aside and saying, "look I want to sing more" or "I want to sing less" or whatever, do it because even within our little world it's very predictable, we've got to roll the dice a bit more, take a few chances.

Amen to that.

Buffalo Tom were talking to Ben, in December 1995.