Peter Buck (musician)

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Peter Buck (2008)

Peter Lawrence Buck (born December 6, 1956 in Oakland , California , USA ) is an American guitarist and founding member of the former alternative rock band REM

Buck spent his childhood in San Francisco and Los Angeles , his youth in Indiana and Georgia . After leaving school in 1975, he studied at Emory University in Atlanta to become an English teacher. After the first year he gave up his studies to travel around the USA.

He settled in Athens, Georgia and worked there in a record store called "Wuxtry Records". There he met Michael Stipe , with whom he became friends. Soon afterwards they formed the band REM together with Mike Mills and Bill Berry

Peter Buck took part in numerous projects and also played as a guest musician with other bands and artists live and on recordings, such as Robyn Hitchcock , Nigel & the Crosses, Warren Zevon , Nikki Sudden , The Replacements , The Walkabouts , Minus Five ( Band by REM guest musician Scott McCaughey) and the Hindu Love Gods .

Peter Buck has been married to Chloe Johnson for the third time since 2013. From his second marriage to Stephanie Dorgan he has the twins Zelda and Zoe (* 1994).

The musical side

Buck's first musical role models were The Beatles and The Supremes , and later The Rolling Stones , T. Rex and Slade . According to his own admission, he also valued Laura Nyro's early LPs as a teenager .

In addition to the guitar, he also plays the bass , mandolin , organ and banjo . He is also known to use effects devices, such as B. the wah-wah pedal (in the songs Stand and What's the frequency, Kenneth? ) And the E-Bow (among others in the songs E-Bow the letter , Leave , I wanted to be wrong and Walk unafraid ).

Buck's first guitar, which he plays on many of his pieces, is a Rickenbacker 360 Jetglo. He also uses a Gretsch guitar and a Gibson Les Paul .

His guitar playing is characterized by open strings in order to create simple, but catchy melodies through simple chords, which make up an important part of many REM melodies. The guitar is often mixed into the background and used as a rhythm instrument , while the bass line, synthesizer melody or piano line played by Mike Mills are the melody-defining elements. His playing is often referred to as jingling or ringing . Buck rarely plays guitar solos; the few are kept short. Typical are his solos in Country Feedback and She Just Wants To Be , in which he literally makes the guitar played in this case by Gretsch sing by means of feedback. Often he also takes on the rhythm guitar.

In 2011, the Rolling Stone listed Buck 94th of the 100 best guitarists of all time .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Michele Kort: Soul Picnic: The Music and Passion of Laura Nyro. New York 2002 ISBN 0-312-20941-X , p. 269
  2. ↑ 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time. Rolling Stone , December 18, 2015, accessed August 8, 2017 .
personal data
SURNAME Buck, Peter
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Buck, Peter Lawrence (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American musician (REM)
DATE OF BIRTH December 6, 1956
PLACE OF BIRTH Oakland , California