“Blood Of A Young Wolf” is a song on the Secret House Against The World album, which was recorded with the band Tortoise. As I said before, the opportunity to work with Tortoise presented itself very suddenly and the window to do so was very small. So I showed up in Chicago with my guys Graeme and Charles and with no ideas. That was scary. One thing all my other albums have in common is that I went into the studio well-prepared. I’ve never been one to work off-the-cuff.
The only thing I brought with me to Chicago was a handful of samples. In the studio, I’d build a loop in the hopes that it might spark an idea for one of the assembled musicians and that we’d build from there. “Blood Of A Young Wolf” started with a weird little drum loop:
Once we had that going, Charles started strumming some nice chords on an acoustic guitar. I believe the next thing to be added was the drone that sounds like it’s coming from an accordion. It’s actually a hand-pumped harmonium, which is an Indian instrument (I think). I love the sound of that thing.
The unusual thing about “Blood Of A Young Wolf” is the breakdown in the middle of the song. That was John Herndon’s idea. The electronic drums and the synth you hear in that part are instruments from his collection and were recorded at his home. I wish I could remember exactly what the drums are. I remember John explaining that it was an old toy-thing. He had the rig in a closet and for some reason, he didn’t want to drag it out of the closet, so he recorded the part IN the closet. He was all scrunched up, sitting on the floor. It wasn’t a machine that could be programmed. It was a bunch of little pads that were played with sticks. I remember it had a lot of very cool sounds. And the synth was also some sort of weird toy. I want to say that it was part of a primitive video game console-thing (made by Coleco, maybe?). John is amazing. He’s the kind of musician who can seemingly pull a million-dollar idea out of thin air at the drop of a hat. He’s an extremely creative dude.
The final touch on “Blood…” was probably the banjo. It’s one of three or four songs in my catalog of thousands that features a banjo. Nevertheless, for years I labelled ‘the banjo guy’. Ugh.
On the lyrics-side of things, it’s just two long stream-of-conscious verses. I think I wrote them on a long flight, if I remember correctly. Let me tell you a bit about a few specific lines:
“10,000” horses…” I had an apartment in London for about a year back in the early 2000s. I’ve lived in a lot of different cities. It was easier to make friends in London than anywhere else. That’s what I loved most about living there. I was absorbed into a big, beautiful circle of friends. The circle pretty much broke apart a few years later and I’m not in touch with any of its membership anymore, which is sad. I miss those guys. One of my friends from the circle was a woman named Sharlene. One day she told me a story about hanging out with some musician-friends. She was with her daughter, who was just a toddler at the time. When an impromptu jam session was struck up, the kid started singing improvised lyrics. The first words she sang were “ten thousand horses…”. I told Sharlene how much I loved that and that I wanted to use it. So “Blood Of A Young Wolf” always makes me think of my old friends.
Right after “10,000 horses”, I mention Sable Island. It’s a small island off the coast of Nova Scotia, the only inhabitants of which are wild horses. I (like most people) have only ever seen it in photographs. It’s a protected place and you need special permission to go there (for work purposes only). My brother was lucky enough to go there once. I’m pretty jealous of that. It seems like a magical place.
In the next line, I say “I’m hot to steal”, which is a reference to the movie Drugstore Cowboy, which is one of my favorites. I’ve made reference to it in a bunch of my songs.
“I ain’t got no culture…” is also a reference - to a song I can’t remember now. Is it Nina Simone?
“… calling Papa ignorance…” is a reference to a John Fante novel - Ask The Dust, I think. Great book.
“I’m talking Amelia Earhart, Neko Case and Frida Kahlo…” In the apartment in Paris that I shared with Claire, we had a photo of Amelia Earhart on the wall in the kitchen.
One night, Claire and I watched the Frida movie that stars Salma Hayek as Frida Kahlo. It sparked something of a Frida obsession for Claire. Not long after that, we saw an incredible Frida Kahlo exhibit at the Tate in London. Since then, Claire has written a book about Frida and named her first child after her.
That’s about all I can say about the lyrics, really. There are a few more references to books and movies along the way. There’s some airing of grievances. But like I said, it’s mostly just stream of conscience.
“Blood Of A Young Wolf” was kinda thrown together but there seems to be a bit of magic in the finished result. It became an unexpected favorite and a fixture in the setlist for years. When I listen to it now, part of me wishes I could go back and clean it up a bit. And as I’ve said here before, the gravelly voice grates on me. I understand where it comes from but I don’t like it. And it sounds painful!
Real quick - I want to try out this poll feature. Could come in handy in the future.
Now here’s the latest update on the new stuff:
The next Bandcamp Friday is April 7th. I’m targeting that day to share the EP of material that was cut from the new album. On the same day, I’ll reveal the title of the album and details about the release and whatnot.
A very small handful of people have heard the album now. The feedback has been very encouraging. Everyone seems to agree that it’s an ideal follow-up to King Of Drums. A few people have said it features some moments the likes of which they’d never heard before. One person said, “this is the best Buck 65 album”.
It definitely has some similarities to King Of Drums but there are some differences too. As I said before, it’s shorter - by almost 20 minutes. So it’s very punchy. I think it’s more focused. Even though it’s considerably shorter than KoD, there’s as much rapping - maybe even more. A bunch of the songs have three verses and I think there’s only one with just one verse (KoD has several). Once again, there’s a pretty wide variety of vibes and styles. There’s a song called “Evil God” which is probably darker than anything on KoD but one friend described it as having a classic Buck 65 beat. Like KoD, there’s lots of references to ‘70s and ‘80s hip hop but I dip into some early ‘90s influence too. I like to think that I raised the bar in terms of my rapping and turntable work but you’ll be the judge of that. A lot of it is definitely more technically complex.
It was important to me (for some reason) to take care of everything on this album myself. There are no features. There’s no collaboration. I even did all the artwork myself. I do plan to follow up with another EP or short album later in the year and I’m thinking that might be feature-heavy. I’ve begun compiling a list of dream collaborators. Before I get to that, there’s another collaborative project happening. I turn my attention to that next.
So! At the end of next week, all will be revealed! I may drop a short post here before then just to tell you where to look and whatnot. And we’ll get granular again soon too.
Until then.