buster and the pigeons Announces Debut Album 'fictional things to worry about' Out May 5th + Shares New Video For 'speeding in a slow car'
Announces debut album ‘fictional things to worry about’
Out on May 5th 2024
Shares new, self-directed music video for debut single
‘speeding in a slow car’
Watch the official ‘speeding in a slow car’ video HERE
Praise for buster and the pigeons
“buster and the pigeons continues to captivate us with unique soundscapes and introspective lyricism. He pushes the boundaries of conventional music, inviting listeners to reflect on the intricacies of the human condition.” - KALTBLUT
London-based singer-songwriter buster and the pigeons today shares news of his debut album ‘fictional things to worry about’, out via self-release on May 5th 2024. The announcement is accompanied with the new, self-directed music video for debut single ‘speeding in a slow car’.
On the track buster says: “The song is about a relationship that went a lot further than expected. The vehicle we were metaphorically journeying in, took us a lot further than it should have.”
Set on a legal cannabis farm in Oklahoma, the music video was self-directed by Buster. While away from the relationship and filming a documentary he was able to reflect on the situation. “I remember writing in my journal that I felt like we were speeding in a slow car, and it felt like a breakdown was imminent. Like it’s a testament to us that we’ve even made it this far.”
Watch the ‘speeding in a slow car’ official video HERE
"It’s about celebrating failures and starting to see the world for what it is.” said Essex born artist buster and the pigeons about his debut album. “Nothing sugar-coated, no gloating, no 'hype.' Just a real, authentic feeling through music, video and photos. I want to make music that actually resonates with people who want to feel what they're listening to. The anti-paying for blue tickers, anti-synthetic, pro-sympathetic, have asked themselves big fuck off scary questions and not been happy with their own answers. That's who it's for."
Buster has been incredibly heartbroken a number of times throughout his life. Whilst acknowledging the apparently trivial nature of these occasional events, the feelings of anxiety, depression, jubilation, love and despair that follow are never entirely dampened. Of these moments, Buster reflects: “I process things very quickly, but that also means that I feel two weeks worth of emotions in a day. My brain tries to trick and convince me that what I'm feeling is real. That the world outside me is solely affected by what's happening inside my head, but that's a fallacy: a fictional way of thinking.” So came the inspiration for his debut album of the same name ‘fictional things to worry about’.
One of the last born in Rochford hospital before it became a psychiatric unit, Buster was raised in the seax county before making the improbable leap to accepting a football scholarship at the University of Hawaii in Honolulu. When he wasn’t surfing or exploring the local beaches, Buster indulged his emergent interest in music: “This is where I really started to listen to music and understand it. I had The Velvet Underground and Grateful Dead on repeat, and I fell in love with Blaze Foley.”
Five years later Buster relocated to London after experiencing boring visa issues (he didn’t have one). “I took my sweet time to graduate and stayed longer than I was supposed to because I spent a lot of time surfing and getting stoned on the beach.” Buster returned to the UK, but has continued to travel the world, shooting photography campaigns and music videos, with stints in Australia, Asia and Europe.
It was during his time in Australia that Buster found his knack for songwriting. As a writer, director and photographer he relies on different mediums to express himself. It was after a blockage trying to write a film about hypocrites that he decided to make a song about it instead, which manifested itself into his single 'meaning of life'. Buster’s background in film and photography enriches his songwriting. He explained: “Three of the songs on the album were actually written because I saw a music video for it first. I wanted to write a song that worked for the concept of the video that I wanted to shoot. So it's fun to be able to work backwards in that regard.”
Buster’s professional background in photography and cinematography has allowed him to create all of his own content at an award winning standard, intimately funnelling his creative energy into 360 degrees of storytelling, through his lyrics, performance and visual production. Buster combines conceptual film making, with his thoughtful and emotive lyricism, which gives his listeners a multi-faceted product portraying his life exactly as intended.
“My favourite song ever, and I mean EVER, is called ‘Clay Pigeons’, by a guy called Blaze Foley, so it's kind of a nod to that” is how Buster explains the latter half of his artist name. “It's also the idea that rats can fly. The notion that this real down and out, sad, gritty, disregarded thing is capable of doing something that most other things on earth are not capable of is so beautiful to me.”
Buster admits that at the time of writing his debut album “I didn't really like myself too much, I thought I was a bit shit. So the idea that even the shittest of the shit can fly was a push to myself like, ‘things are gonna be bad mate but there's going to be glimpses where you rise above it' kinda thing.”
Buster and the Pigeons is for fans of The Streets, Blaze Foley, Zach Bryan, Jack Johnson, Lou Reed, Idles, Kae Tempest and Leonard Cohen.
Tracklist
whack a mole
meaning of life
don’t even like monét
under a full moon at makapuʻu
crying in hawaii
speeding in a slow car
all my favourite musicians are dead
golden globe
hey rain, it’s bow
forbidden fruit
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