Gritty-voiced singer and songwriter
Joseph Arthur and former
R.E.M. guitarist
Peter Buck had been friends and occasional collaborators for years before they teamed up to record an album under the name
Arthur Buck. The two first met when
Arthur opened a string of shows for
R.E.M. in 2000, and
Buck would occasionally pop up on-stage at
Arthur's shows. But when
Arthur crossed paths with
Buck in Mexico in 2017, it sparked a collaboration, with the two writing 11 songs together in a matter of days. After a day in a recording studio and some work in their home studios, the self-titled debut from
Arthur Buck, a rough but enthusiastic mix of indie rock and contemporary folk, appeared in June 2018.
In 2016,
Joseph Arthur was one of the artists appearing at the Todos Santos Music Festival, an annual event organized by
Buck, who owns a home in Todos Santos, Mexico. After the show,
Arthur left a Dobro guitar behind, and in 2017 he returned to Todos Santos in hopes of finding it. After arriving in town,
Arthur ran into
Buck, who invited him to spend some time at his home.
Arthur stayed for several days with
Buck, and after enjoying a swim in the ocean, they'd spend their afternoons playing guitars.
Arthur played a few ideas he was working on, and soon
Buck added his own melodic contributions to the mix. In three days, the pair knocked out eight tunes, and
Arthur Buck made their live debut the next evening at a benefit concert for local firefighters. Not long after,
Arthur invited
Buck to sit in at a gallery show in Los Angeles, and the pair wrote three more songs at the soundcheck and played them that night. Four days after the show in L.A.,
Arthur and
Buck spent seven hours in a studio in Portland, Oregon, recording the songs they had written during their recent bursts of activity. After the two musicians added overdubs in their home studios, they turned the tracks over to
Tchad Blake for mixing, and the
Arthur Buck album was complete.
New West Records released the set in June 2018, and
Arthur Buck booked a tour of Europe and North America in support. ~ Mark Deming