Luke Buda - The View from Vesuvius
Author: Rebecca Thomson (photography by Amelia Hanscomb)
"Whether it’s supremely recorded tracks of choirs recorded totally in a studio or whether it’s someone’s shaky voice and an out-of-tune guitar recorded in a garage ... as long as it’s engaging and good, there are no rules. Any sound is not better or worse than any other sound, though obviously drum machines don’t have the same energy of a human drummer."
"It’s really easy if you have a pop song – you have drummer, a guitarist and electric bass, and it’s always going to be pretty good. But if you come at it from the angle ‘this is a pop song but let’s not use drums, let’s use this loop of people walking on gravel’, it will be something different."
The conversation turns back to Vesuvius, for which Buda enlisted a typically solid staple of Wellington musicians to help out, mainly from local act Cassette – Craig Terris, Tom Watson, Tim Prebble and Andrew Bain. They’re touring to promote the album and Buda is looking forward to it. "Me and the Cassette gang are going on tour as one band – they are my backing band and I am their keyboardist."
It’s all coming together nicely. As well as a tour, a video for My Imminent Demise has been recorded by Oscar-nominee film-maker Taika Waiti.
"I had a weekend when Taika popped round to visit the new baby. He asked what I was doing and said ‘Let’s make a video’. So we filmed it on a Sunday, in one afternoon. It cost about $60."
It’s not all budget though. A brilliantly kooky Luka Buda website www.specialsurprise.co.nz designed by Resn has been launched, where you can listen to tracks, watch clips, play karaoke, and watch an animated Luke do all sorts of things. You can even view Luke’s collection of ‘jumper photos’. It has already been recognised by the Favourite Website Awards site, which surprised Buda.
"The internet people think it’s great, I guess they would know."
Nonetheless, he’s thrilled to have the site up and running and for it to have such an accolade. Apart from the launch tour and sleepless nights all that remains for 2008, is the summer festival circuit with The Phoenix Foundation. There will most likely be a TPF tour as well as festival gigs, but Buda’s more than happy to leave it to the band’s managers to organise.After all, he’s got a baby to look after.
