There is a rare breed found in Alberta – often talked about, but rarely seen. Every so often you can over hear one talking about when the Calgary tower was actually the largest building in the city or about the Flames cup run in the ‘80s rather than 2000s.
This is, of course, the born-and-raised Calgarian, and one of them is musician T. Buckley.
“My mom is too,” commented Buckley, as he discussed growing up in the Southern Alberta city. “For my age, it’s a little more common that you find people born and raised, but for my mom’s age, that is really rare.”
It isn’t any surprise that Buckley has deep roots in Calgary, with songs that seem to connect with the province. Buckley recently came in second in the 2014 ATB Financial All-Albertan Song Contest, earning $3,000 for his song, ‘Alberta, I’m Coming Home Tonight.’
“There are a few lines in there that I think maybe speak a lot to the unpredictable weather and situations that we can find ourselves in out this way. I think it rang true with a lot of folks,” explained Buckley. “You hope in whatever way people identify with it. It is probably different for each person and that is kind of the goal of writing songs – to leave things somewhat open to interpretation.”
Buckley described his first Calgary Folk Festival experience at 17 being transformative.
He said it was around this time that he was starting to jam more with friends and the wheels started turning. He said he started going to local venues like the now closed down but once popular spot Bar Named Sue on 4th street in Calgary.
“Those kind of clubs were also pretty important for me and kind of influencing the direction that I decided to take musically,” he said.
This is also where he bet bass player Derek Pulliam who plays in the trio and the two played as a duo for a while before eventually adding guitarist Tim Leacock to round out the trio.
The group currently has a residency at Wine-Ohs in Calgary where they have a jam every Tuesday.
Buckley said that it has allowed them to grow musically and to continue to get better in front of a crowd.
“It is just that stage time that is so important, that is getting you to be a band that is tight, and you are just constantly expanding your repertoire and pushing each other out of the comfort zone,” he said. “That is what the residency is about and not getting stale.”
And it has clearly worked with Buckley’s sophomore album Northern Country Soul getting very positive reviews.
“I think that it showed a good step in the right direction. The songwriting is a little bit better and a little more mature,” he said. “It is just kind of another part in continuing to try and build a body of work that can stand on its own and I think we will be playing the songs off that record for many years to come – so that is always a good sign.”
Buckley said the trio is heading to Banff Centre for a creative residency in mid November. They will be there for a few weeks and he said that the focus is going to be working on new material.
“We’re excited about it and I think it is really going to help the band take another step up. I think it is going to be really good for us,” said Buckley. “Hopefully in the not to distant future here we should have another record to go.”
You can catch the T. Buckley and his band at Legacy Guitar and Coffee House Saturday, Nov. 15.
