The Buoys ProfileIt’s The Buoys against the world, and their fans are backing them up.
They’ve had plenty of momentum recently, with an upcoming tour across Australia, the UK, and Europe. Their 2024 debut album, Lustre, earned the band many local festival spots and accolades.
Today, they have more fans than ever, eager to be revitalised by their anthemic power pop that’s emotional at its core.
But the goalposts have shifted. “Your debut is very much like, ‘This is who we are,’ because that tends to be a big focus of your first body of work,” lead singer Zoe Catterall tells The Music.
“Everything after that, you have more freedom to do what you like because people know who you are.”
In the two years since Lustre, the world’s become more uncertain and turbulent. Bad news travels faster than ever, and that includes the political climate, which is still incredibly polarising. The economy isn’t doing anyone any favours either; its volatility is felt across most industries.
Without tuning out all this overwhelming information, it’s so easy to feel bogged down, even by the littlest things.
The Buoys have always mixed thoughtful introspection with vibrant melodies to make truly profound rock songs. This time, they’ve doubled down on that duality, creating a world shielding listeners from the chaos of reality. They introduce their second album: Concrete Cowboy.
“I talked to a lot of friends about the state of the world right now – it goes without saying that shit’s fucked – so I really wanted [Concrete Cowboy] to be a space that people could step into," Catterall says, "To feel those feelings because the world is otherwise too fast for us to stop and be like, ‘What do I feel?’”
The Buoys’ new protective record invites people to sit in this stress, instead of trudging through it and burning out from trying. Catterall is always writing, but her own experience of slowing down may’ve adjusted her approach, making Concrete Cowboy the mature record it is.
While writing the songs, she’d moved back to her familiar hometown, Cronulla, after living in the big city for ten years. During that period, working two jobs to keep afloat and make The Buoys happen also led to a lot of burnout.
“The album for me is almost like my little recovery bubble in an album,” she explains. “It’s all of the thoughts and feelings that resurfaced when I slowed down for a minute.”
So, Catterall, with her current bandmates, drummer Tess Wilkin, bassist Courtney Cunningham, and guitarist Hilary Geddes, agreed it was crucial to turn these new songs into a place to check in and out of the crazy world around them, ultimately preserving their own mental peace.
From the urgent opener Take It Over, a classic, soaring Buoys rocker that tackles losing confidence as you get older, the band’s desire to cultivate an empowering support space is instantly felt.
The anxiety fuelling Take It Over can be attributed to something like manufactured social media making people excessively self-conscious. The phrase “too many tabs open” came to the band in the studio, and fits this heightened state perfectly.
Melbourne creative director Giulia Giannini McGauran lent her idiosyncratic, colourful style to Concrete Cowboy’s cover artwork, depicting the band standing in a real-life desktop wallpaper with folders scattered everywhere in an unruly fashion.
“The original mock cover I created to get my thoughts across was a whole bunch of computer window screens open. In old Microsoft, when it’s failing, it stacks diagonally, so it looked like that,” Catterall reveals.
“In a nutshell, I wanted it to feel like when your computer is having a meltdown, and I love that’s what we got.”
This discombobulating artwork features a slew of surreal elements, reflecting the album’s exploration of the dissolved lines between reality and dreams. The folder names reference the work-in-progress elements that went into Concrete Cowboy, like earlier masters, concept art, and B-roll footage, essentially memories of its creation.
Meanwhile, peculiar visuals like a melting clock and even Geddes literally painting the grass green with a paint roller reinforce the dreamlike sensibility The Buoys went for.
“They always say the grass is greener on the other side. If the grass isn’t green, we’ll just paint it that way,” Catterall muses.
The most notable element, though, which circles back to Concrete Cowboy’s purpose as a space for listeners to submit themselves healthily to any stress they’re facing, is Catterall standing stone-faced amid the chaos.
Their goal of making a world we can see is distinctive has been met, but matching the music is quite the feat.
That success comes from Concrete Cowboy being more of a group effort. “There are more songs on this album that we wrote together as a band. For example, Take It Over, Waiting, and Alone In Vegas are ones we wrote together,” Catterall says.
“Everyone in the band is always so busy. This time, we planned really far in advance to get some sessions in so we could do some stuff together. It just required a little bit more planning.
"'Cause when four people have two or three jobs… You gotta be insane to do this as a career, that’s for sure,” she continues with a laugh.
Given they aim to have fun while being an emotional anchor, their commitment to collaborate more is special.
Several song titles have already been thrown around like the littered folders on the album cover, but the songs are all over the place by design.
Bitch and Kill You Back are livelier, empowering tunes where The Buoys don’t hold back, but they later enter acoustic territory on Alone In Vegas and Stay Up To Date On Politics.
The album starts extremely energetic, with that insistent pace barely slowing, but suddenly shifts tone as if admitting to a burnout period. As it mellows, the recovery is well underway, like coming back to oneself and being grounded.
Concrete Cowboy switching between these two modes makes it the band’s most confident chapter yet.
“At least for me personally, that is really tied to the theme of too many tabs open,” Catterall explains. “We’ve never really wanted or enjoyed pigeonholing our sound; we love jumping around different genres.
"That’s inspired by Sarah Tudzin’s project Illuminati Hotties – she jumps around in one album, and we’ve always really loved to go for that.”
She continues, explaining that the sequencing mirrors her own personhood: “I like to look at this album through my neurodivergent lens, because as a neurodivergent woman, that’s going to inform how I write. It is very ADHD to jump from a punk rock track, to something more country-leaning, and then to a big pop ballad.”
The principal lyrics on the restless Welcome To My Brain seem to tap into this sensibility, but Catterall also notes “the whole goal is to just be fun.”
Stay Up To Date On Politics best explores the worries that catalysed Concrete Cowboy, sculpting a tender escape from the constant 24/7 news cycle. Its relatable emotional weight and musical chemistry make it a culmination of The Buoys’ sound. That should come as no surprise, as the band also wrote it together.
“It was originally meant to be a big rock song and is now this amazing, stripped-back, really mellow one that feels like a hug,” Catterall says. “We were all really excited when we laid down the bedrock for that song. It has so many themes that are really relevant in society right now.
"Regarding, you know, the world is falling apart. You want me to clock in at work and pretend that climate change isn’t real and going to affect us all very soon?”
Ending up at their most assured has left everyone feeling proud, Catterall especially: “I still listen to it! I do find that quite absurd. Usually, I don’t like listening to my own stuff too much, but I’m really, really, really excited about it.”
If a musician is eager to listen to their own work, it speaks to how transformative it’s been for them. The Buoys have come a long way from their humble beginnings a decade ago, taking them to many unexpected places, like supporting the Foo Fighters in November after first taking Concrete Cowboy on the road.
“I just keep listening to it, imagining that soon, there will be people listening to it too, and that gets me really excited,” Catterall says. Now they will, also finding themselves inside its comforting world wherever it’s right for them.
The Buoys' Concrete Cowboy is released on Friday, October 23rd. Tickets to their Australian tour dates are on sale now.
The Buoys – The Concrete Cowboy Tour
Friday, October 23rd – Crowbar, Sydney, NSW
Saturday, October 24th – The Brightside, Brisbane, QLD
Sunday, October 25th – Jive, Adelaide, SA
Friday, October 30th – Corner Hotel, Melbourne, VIC
Saturday, October 31st – Indian Ocean Hotel, Perth, WA
Also supporting the Foo Fighters
Thursday, November 12th – McDonalds Jones Stadium, Newcastle, NSW
With special guests The Buoys + C.O.F.F.I.N
This piece of content has been assisted by the Australian Government through Music Australia and Creative Australia, its arts funding and advisory body
