A Brief Explanation of the Name

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.