Bridging The Gap

While young, Melbourne's Buchanan have already secured a fairly rare distinction. They're one of only a handful of acts to have had their early work recognised by both triple j and Austereo. Typically considered mutually exclusive territories, the two radio broadcasters have nevertheless presented Buchanan with unsigned awards – triple j have featured Buchanan as an Unearthed act, Austereo as a Radar Unsigned Find. “I'd be lying if I said that was anything other than what we hoped for,” bandleader Josh Simons says. “So, when that happened, it was incredibly liberating and incredibly validating – but it was also exactly what we had been trying to do. It was very nice, anyway. It's really lovely to know that people on both sides of the fence actually like our tunes and want to support our work.”

That says something about Buchanan. A couple of things, really. Firstly, they're just a little bit uncool. They're not an underground or alternative act. Buchanan are an act that dreams of stadiums, not festivals. Their recently-released debut album Human Spring – a kinetic mix of vintage Bloc Party energy and Coldplay-style anthemia – was even mastered at Abbey Road. Buchanan make music for you and your mum.

“No, we're not your average Australian indie band,” Simons concedes. “It's made our career very hard. People have asked us if we changed anything for this album and, being honest, we could have changed a lot more than we did. We could have made really considered, indie, restrained music and really held things back – but fuck that, man! I was in a studio, I had a producer, I had an engineer. I had every toy in the world. Why the hell wouldn't I go for it? Why the hell wouldn't I make something that sounds really fucking cool, in my mind? Because cool in my mind is just going for it,” the bandleader says. “You know, you can criticise someone for being daggy or not being cool but, if they've tried their hardest to make something they love, that to me is the coolest thing in the world.”

Secondly, they're ambitious. More specifically, Josh Simons is ambitious. Buchanan's sole permanent member, Simons doesn't do things by halves. He started the band after his film production company didn't work out. Human Spring is a full-blown concept record. In addition to being mastered at Abbey Road, it was produced by Catherine Marks – who has worked with Foals, PJ Harvey and The Killers. Josh Simons doesn't hold back.

“Hell yeah. Before doing music, I tried to set up a film production company and we actually made a feature. I've always played music, but I didn't ever think I'd do that as a profession. I thought film might be the answer when I first got out of school – it didn't turn out that way but, yeah, I've always tried to do big things,” he explains. “Again, it's just a case of, 'Why the hell wouldn't you?'

“The album is definitely an ambitious undertaking. And, really, that's because our subject matter on past releases wasn't... I mean, it wasn't lacking, but we weren't really saying anything. We were just writing songs. Which is fine, plenty of people do that very successfully – but I definitely wanted to step up and really find a concept or an idea that really justified writing an album's worth of songs. I'm already thinking of the next one, though,” Simons says. “I've got a few ideas already sketched out...”