I made this pamphlet with my friend Jay awhile back as a supplement to the album. I figured if the album was about “growing the fuck up”, perhaps a how-to guide was in order. Each step loosely corresponds to a song on the album.

If you’re viewing this on a computer, I’d like to draw attention to the zoom feature which should appear once you’ve opened the document. Zooming in or out may be necessary—depending on what browser you’re using—to view each step comfortably.

When people ask me what kind of music I make with The American Buffalo, I never know what to tell them. Or, rather, I know exactly what to tell them, but I don’t want to bore them with a prolonged, vaguely coherent speech about “pop music in the broader historical sense of the term”, so I tell them that we play singer-songwriter, rock, or folk rock music, even though such terms always feel absurdly inadequate in describing the actual aesthetic and content of the work we’re putting out. This post will lay out what I’d like to tell them.

The American Buffalo makes American Popular Music. This is not to be confused with the pop music you might find in the Top 40 (though this music might also fall under the umbrella of American Popular Music); rather, I’m referring to a long musical and cultural history which is endemic to the United States, starting with the folk and blues music of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, reaching all the way to the hip-hop of today. The American Buffalo was created to celebrate, explore, analyze, comment on, contribute to, and perhaps even revise this history.

Now, you may ask, isn’t it a little redundant to invoke such a term considering the incredibly broad definition it carries — i.e. nearly all music created in America since the early 20th century could be considered American Popular Music? Moreover, isn’t it doubly redundant to then suggest that your project was made to contend with this history when in fact it is arguably the implicit function of all American Popular Music to contend with its own history?

I insist on using this broad categorization because the music itself is in conversation with a very broad swath of musical styles and genres: folk, rock and roll, blues, soul, R&B, and much more. And while it may seem unnecessary to mention the music’s ability to interact with history, I do so in order to draw attention to the partially deliberate nature of this interaction, which I believe distinguishes my project from many others.

When I started this project, I knew I wanted everything I made to be, in some form or fashion, a work of art. I knew I wanted to create art, to be an artist, from a very early age, and it was in conceiving this project that I discovered my proper medium (at least, for now): American Popular Music. The music, rather than being an end in itself, is an apparatus for conveying something much more expansive.

So, why did I choose American Popular Music? On a personal level, I went with it because it’s something I’ve always loved. I love singing, playing guitar, fumbling around on a piano — it’s a medium that comes more naturally to me than many others. On a more intellectual level, I believe popular music as we know it today is perhaps America’s greatest cultural contribution to the world, and it’s a contribution which emerges largely from centuries of oppression at the hands of a white patriarchy.

Of course, oppressive institutions didn’t create blues, jazz, soul, hip hop, etc.; these musics were often born of the struggle against them. But then how does one contend with this history if he belongs to the class of the oppressor? How does he express his love, his passion, his triumph — how does he show the world his ecstatic individuality when in so doing he not only must borrow from the cultures of the oppressed, but also might knowingly draw attention away from the experiences of those whose racial and cultural background his own group has often historically worked to silence? How can this behavior be politically or morally justified?

If a white man such as myself wishes to share his experience with the world, he must do so with a dutiful awareness of the culture which has given him the ability to do so. He must draw attention to this culture, recognize its flaws and its injustices, and use the privileges it has afforded him to aid those whom it has disenfranchised. Hopefully we can one day do away with the thing entirely, and we’ll erect in its place a more just paradigm. Until then, however, the path is full of obstacles, and the road to redemption is lifelong.

While the origins of a musical group’s title are often obfuscated, trivialized, or ignored by the group’s members, I feel compelled to share with anyone interested the process through which The American Buffalo came to its name, if only to elucidate the deliberate aims of what might otherwise appear to be an enigmatic project.

The American Buffalo isn’t a band. Nor is it a solo project or a collective. Actually, I’m not really sure what to call it. But it wasn’t always this way. When I first conceived of the idea while studying literature at OSU, I wanted simply to create a rock band with some of my high school friends. As I brainstormed a title for the group, the name “American Buffalo” came to the front of my mind. I had seen it somewhere online as a teenager and now, for whatever reason, it became a fixation.

“American Buffalo” is the name of a 1975 play by David Mamet. I haven’t read it or watched it performed, nor have I read or watched any of Mamet’s other works. The contents of the play have no relevance, as far as I know, to the thesis of my project.

So what was it that drew me to this name? I admit I have always loved buffaloes. Several walls in my grandparents’ house are hung with paintings of these behemoths, some grazing in open fields and others being chased down by groups of Native Americans. Perhaps these images had hidden themselves away in my subconscious? Moreover, as an eleven-year-old, and then again as a nineteen-year-old, I was lucky enough to visit Yellow Stone National Park, where I observed these beautiful creatures roaming the plains with as much freedom as they are now afforded. What powerful, ferocious beasts they were! Generally stoic, but prone to eruptions of violence when provoked — it was decided: they were my favorite animal.

Besides being my favorite animal, however, there was something else about these creatures that seemed to suit my purposes especially well. With this project I intended, in some capacity, to express my vision of America. What better way to represent this vision than with the image of a bison? It is a creature inextricably connected to the American landscape, and its history is one fraught with the imperializing tendencies of God-fearing white men. Over-hunted to the point of near-extinction, American buffaloes are now kept in cages and behind fences across the country, at best the passion projects of a select few environmentalists and government workers, and at worst a mere tourist attraction, a relic of what America used to be.

Now, you might ask, given his knowledge of this history, why would a white man stamp this name to his art project? Why would a person belonging to the very group which has systematically controlled and/or eliminated the population of bison in America wear its name as though it were his own? Does he think himself a provocateur? Or does he do so out of guilt?

Honestly, I went with the name simply because it felt right. There’s not much else I can say about it. But as I have thought about it, maybe there is something to be understood from the tension it creates. Maybe there is some value in this discomfort.

Once it became clear that this band was destined to become something else, something less definite in its parameters, my friend Michael suggested to me that I add the “the”. “It should be The American Buffalo,” he said. Because it’s really coming from me, and it has been all along. In many ways, I am The American Buffalo.

Hello.

If you’re reading this, it’s probably safe to assume you’re at least moderately interested in The American Buffalo. Hey, me too. We have so much in common. Anyway, this is the News page. As of now I don’t have much news to share; however, when news comes, you can be sure to find out about it here.

I’ve also decided that I’ll be using this page as a blog of sorts. You can of course find me being annoying on Instagram just about any day of the week, and you might catch me posting on Facebook occasionally. But for those extended hot takes and in-depth narrative posts, the News page has got you covered.

Anyway, thanks again for checking out the website. I’ll be sure to keep you posted on whatever’s next for The American Buffalo. See you later.