Now here's a story...
Me and Duke started messing around with some tunes after splitting with our previous band. Now Duke used to play the drums by trade, but as I couldn't sing, he picked up a guitar and strummed a few chords together (happens them was G, C, & D). As luck would have it, I had just gone out and bought myself a double bass more as a talking point than serious instrument, as I'm a punk kid at heart. Anyway them chords seemed good ones for country, so thats what we started playing.
Now, as all good people know - when you arent playing music, you head to the local drinking place and it was there that we met up with Ray. Now Ray knew his country stuff even the curve balls like Wayne "the Train" Hancock and Stacey Earle (no, not Steve) and Ray said he played the banjo too. Duke and me were a bit dubious at first. We didnt know if it was the drink talking, or us drunk listening, but one things for sure, we haven't ever heard of a banjo player so young, and definitely not a GOOD young banjo player. It seemed like the best idea would be to get together and knock a few tunes (and a few more drinks) down.
So Buckshot Soup was born. A trio to begin with, we played around town at the local open mike and jam nights to try out our new sounds. As I'm sure you're aware, Derby is not exactly a hot-bed of country talent, but we seem to have shone through the acoustic scene and attracted a fair bit of attention.
It was due to one of these here jam nights that Jim happened upon the band. Just back from a tour of Australia, he slid into a venue just as we were hitting the stage. He quickly introduced himself as a dobro player. Now, technically, we were kinda looking for a lap steel player at the time, but beggars can't be choosers right? So Jim joined us on stage for three songs, and within a week was playing his first full gig as part of the band.
Unfortunately we seem to have lost Ray at some gig or other in 2005, very careless, I know! We think it may have been at an Old Crow Medicine Show gig, but its all a little hazy.
We carried on playing as a trio a numerous venues round the Midlands, heading out to bring our sounds to the masses (or those that'll listen). We've been hitting the audience hard with both our original material and some cover tunes that we do in our own Soup style. Each song carefully forced through the Soup grinder to make up what now amounts to over 2 hours of material.
To our surprise Ritchie appeared at a gig around Easter 2006. He'd previously played some guitars with Duke years and years before. Now here he was again, boldly standing in front of us and stating hed bought a banjo and wanted to join the band. We had five gigs in three days coming up, so we told him to get a change of underwear and get in the van. Two onstage rehearsals later, he was plugged in and playing a thirty-four song show.
Making life easy has never been the Buckshot Soup way, so just after recording our five song EP (Pure White Sugar) Jim left the band, and so back to a trio again it was!
So the Soup of today is...
Duke "Whiskey" Williams - Vocals, Guitar, Mandolin, and Harmonica.
Ritchie "On-The-Barrel" Head - Banjo, Guitar, Dobro.
Chuck Walzner - Upright Bass.
So there we have it, in our own humble opinion, Buckshot Soup, the best three-piece country band round these here parts.
Well be seeing y'all real soon,
Chuck Walzner
