Melia: Hi Bud and welcome to MBC's Beatz! I am so excited that I get to find out a little bit more about the man behind the music. Why don't we start there and tell us, briefly, about Bud Buckley, the man.

Bud: The temptation to define myself is biblical. If I actually knew anything about the bible, I'd be drawing all kinds of parallels. Something about the sin of pride. But I was a very poor student of religion so I'll just dive in here and hope it's the deep end of the pool. Bud Buckley is this astoundingly lucky guy who makes his own luck. He's not extraordinary in any way but has had a charmed career as an elementary school teacher, clinical professor of Education, writer, editor, PR guy, union leader, father, husband and now independent recording artist. Every one of these things was accomplished through the force of will. Bud Buckley believes that anything is possible if you set reasonable goals and remind yourself of them frequently like a prayer. Bud feels that's the only prayer anybody ever needs. Bud isn't even worried that lightning will strike him and scatter his ashes in hell even though he lives in Florida. Bud does feel idiotic, however, referring to himself in the third person. He promises to stop that right now.

Melia: I think Bud has a great sense of humor! How would you describe your musical style?

Bud: My style is always evolving as I learn new things about my instrument and myself. It's certainly acoustic guitar based and leans toward folksy pop. That's how CDBaby.com defines it, anyway. I hate to limit myself with definitions of this sort. The next CD will sound quite different from the first. But there won't be any polka tunes.

Melia: Can you tell me about your wife and children? Have they always been supportive of your decision to pursue your musical career?

Bud: This is my second marriage, the sublimely successful one to Cathy Lewis. I have two grown children from my first marriage. I cast no aspersions toward my first wife. I apparently did not provide for her needs. She tolerated my music but I wouldn't call it supportive. When we divorced, I had to give up music to take extra work to pay for things. I even gave up listening. What the hell is 80's music anyway?

Fifteen years later, I was encouraged by my fourth graders to start it up again. My present wife, Cathy, has always been a billion per cent supportive of my music. She insisted on lessons with the best people I could find, the best guitars and equipment, pushed me to perform when I started to lean that way. I gave her the nickname, Lou, from her last name Lewis. So I frequently tell her, and this is what I honestly believe when it comes to my music, "I'm doodoo without you, Lou." I dedicate all my work to her. Feel My Love is a direct hit on Cathy. She inspired at least parts of many others. I've written another song for her recently called Sitting on the Wind.

My son Jason at JasonBuckley.com is a web page designer, graphic artist and filmmaker. He also plays bass. He lives in San Francisco with his wife, Anne who is a fine jewelry maker and professional nanny. I'm working on an arrangement of my song Frozen Shadows (unrecorded) for Jason's next short feature about zombies. I hope I can find a way to get Jason on at least part of my next CD.

My daughter, Bree, is quite inspiring too. She's a middle school science teacher in Poughkeepsie, NY. That's inner city stuff. My little girl has amazing guts. She used to dance and play piano and flute. I hope she gets back to it when she finishes her masters degree. Her husband, Josh, backed me up on percussion when I did my NY gigs. I expect him to be on my next CD. My younger brother, Don is also a bass player after work. He's played professionally in the past and I hope to get him on the CD as well.

Melia: You seem as though you genuinely care about the people that you come into contact with. Would you consider yourself a mentor?

Bud: Compulsively so. I took 34 years of teaching very seriously. I still help former students with their homework, their social problems, and their deep personal stuff. Some of them are in there thirties now. The class I have stayed closest too are now high school seniors. I had them for two years. They are the ones who pushed me back into music. I've known some of them since they were in kindergarten because I taught their siblings. This group is rich in kids who still need me. It's nice to be needed. One of them is my co-writer, Kathy Feeney. Another, Riston Benson, opened my NY show as a singer songwriter. I taught her guitar. But I also use my Blog to reach out to people who seem to need help. I love that part of Blogging. The comment areas and the exchange of e-mails. I feel I've been a comfort to lots of people that way. I have to say that besides the obvious promotional aspect of my Blog, the mentoring part is the most addictive.

A lot of my mentoring is with young girls who I try to get to learn some malicious bitch skills. Get them to stand up for themselves. Get them to tell some of the dopey guys who hit on them to get lost. Sometimes they listen too. A lot of my songs on the first CD are inspired from that mentoring. Windswept Girl comes from close mentoring situations. "To Be Alone" comes from a thirty something friend who has a knack for picking dangerous guys. But a lot of it is based on conversations I've had with other young ladies. "More Than I Want To Know" is an expression of the frustration that a guy like me has to feel from time to time dealing with these girls. I wonder if anybody listens to the bridge of that song, though, which is my invitation to him or her to keep telling me more. There are parts of many of the other songs that come directly from some experience with this mentoring.

Boys rarely seek my mentoring although I have excellent friendships with the guys I taught. They just don't bother to communicate. They came to my NY show and it was fantastic fun.

Now that I've been retired from teaching for three years, more of my newer lyrics deal with my wife and daughter and relationships I have on the web. Things I observe in my corner of Florida. There are several famous novelists who live in these parts and they never run out of material.

Melia: Ok, now let's talk a little bit about the music since we've a sense of who the man is! Your musical career had a rough start! Do you feel that, in spite of the hurdles you encountered early on, that you were born to be a musician or that you were made one out of sheer determination?

Bud: I always wanted to be a musician but those nuns actually made me believe that I couldn't do it. It took me a long time to believe in myself. I did it without therapy too. Who could afford therapy? But as I've already said, determination rules my life. So I'd have to say I became a musician out of determination not destiny or born talent. I tell people all the time that if I can do this, they can do whatever they want too. It's the mentor thing.

Melia: At 22, when you finally began your journey as a musician, you said you purchased your first guitar. Did you learn to read music then, or did you play by ear?

Bud: Some would say I played with my ear. It sounded that bad at first. I hadn't shucked the Sr. Mary Confusing complex yet so I still believed I couldn't read music. I learned with chord charts and used my sense of hearing. I was never one of those guys, though, who could hear something and just play it. Wish I were, though. I didn't start learning to read music until Terry Champlin, the composer husband of my guitar teacher, Helen Avakian, tackled me in his driveway and told me I had to. He was a physics major who became the house guitarist at Woodstock's Joyous Lake, a famous landmark there. He taught himself to play and read. So I figured I could. I'm semiliterate now. I don't sight read, though. Just kind of pick it out note by painful note.

Melia: You have been introduced as "Bud Buckley from Woodstock," do you think the music from the era in which you were so close to brought about a lot of your musical influences, especially with the guitar?

Bud: I was actually at Woodstock, the festival. I lived very close to the town of Woodstock and even closer to Big Pink where Dylan and The Band holed up and recorded. Woodstock the Festival, though, was a huge muddy mess and I never actually heard a note of music. Couldn't get close enough. The music certainly influenced my listening tastes. I never tried to write like anybody else, though. I can't say for sure where my best ideas come from. I hear certain things from certain people that I think are good ways to express myself musically and I try to incorporate some of it if it's in my range of ability. But I can't actually claim any influences. I know that annoys the living crap out of a lot of people who like to talk music, but there you have it.

Melia: Describe to us how being on stage, performing, feels to you.

Bud: I'll tell you that the first few times was an adventure in bowel control. I have no problem with public speaking. I've addressed big union crowds, did local TV and radio. But performing was terrifying at first. Now I crave it. It's the only place I can express the inner me to the fullest. When the crowd isn't that good, I've learned to pretend that they are hanging on every word and note. When the crowd is fantastic, they pull notes out of me I didn't know I had. I used to joke that taking guitar lessons and playing alone in your living room is just masturbation. Well, using that logic, performing is legalized public group sex.

Melia: What other, if any, instruments do you play? Are there any others you would like to learn to play?

Bud: I wish I could play keys adequately enough to perform on them. I may devote that time one day. I'd love to play sax. It's all a time issue for me now. How much time do I want to devote to certain things. Keeping physically and mentally fit with a lot of working out and yoga is extremely important. I figure it'll give me more time on the planet in the long run to learn to play other instruments.

Melia: Do you feel the obstacles that you had to over come, i.e., Sister Mary Confusing, has made you a better performer? Have they inhibited you from doing things, musically, that you might have wanted to try?

Bud: Oh, yeah, the Sr. Mary Confusings in my life did some nasty damage. My brother-in-law, whom I dearly love despite our opposing views on life, politics and religion, takes great offense to my song about the good Sister. He says if they hadn't have beaten the shit out of him, he wouldn't be the person he is today. I resist making jokes about that statement. I had some very sweet nuns too and in reality I look at them all as a yin and yang that made me who I am. I place no blame. They did the best they could. They truly didn't know any better. I succeeded more in spite of what the bad ones did to me. Some people, like my B-in-law would argue that I succeeded because of it. Maybe it's the same thing. But I didn't become an arch-Catholic conservative Republican.

Melia: It would seem that fate has brought many great people into your life to help out or guide you through your quest for a career in the musical world. Do you think you would have pursued music, eventually, even if these people had not been introduced into your life?

Bud: I did seek out both Helen Avakian and Davis Turner. Those are the two who are the most responsible for me becoming a performer. The minute I saw Helen perform and I knew she taught guitar, I had to be her student. She conned me into performing at a recital. After a couple of years she tricked me into writing a song. Now we'll be writing songs together. Davis Turner was just so highly entertaining; I would go see his bar gig early when nobody was around yet. This was on Amelia Island, Florida where we vacationed each year. I engaged him in conversation to learn what I could. He is just so generous and gregarious he eventually had me do my first bar gig. I've met other amazing people along the way as a result of my associations with these two and with just playing a lot of gigs in different places. Each experience was a stepping-stone. So I guess I would have found somebody to help me if it hadn't been them. But once again, I'm awfully damn lucky. I love them both very much.

Leslie Ritter who is another independent recording artist from the Woodstock, NY area is an amazing singer who became my voice coach through Helen. Leslie completely changed my sound. I snuck in a lesson with her on my NY trip. I can't get enough of her. Her voice DVD should be out soon and I'll hump it until it becomes a best seller. I never stop learning from all three of these people.

Mark Zampella, my producer, is a find that I could describe as fate. He is the husband of my yoga instructor Nancy Zampella. He is a very experienced engineer, producer and guitarist. He has a lot of big name credits from his days in NYC. He escaped that scene for a more laid back Florida existence. My wife, Cathy, just happened to mention to Nancy, that I was studying sound production. The rest is history.

Mark is amazing and inspired me to write a song called Tattoo. This came up in a discussion when I doubted a particular track on my CD. He said, "Look, people sometimes ask me if I regret these tattoos. I always tell them, no. They represent who and where I was at the time. That's what this CD is for you." So I have that song about three quarters done for the next CD, which may be called My Tattoo. Nancy and Mark are like my spiritual gurus down here.

Melia: If there were one piece of advice that you could offer to somebody wanting to break into the music business, what would it be?

Bud: Besides the constant practice and setting your goals and reciting them like a prayer each day. The most important thing is to know your self. Yoga has taught me that more than anything. I do yoga five days a week. Sometimes 8 days a week. Damn, somebody did that song already. I won't preach about it. Find a good teacher and do it. You won't be sorry. No matter what you aspire to be.

Melia: Where do you see Bud Buckley in 5 years?

Bud: I am so goal driven. I actually do have a set of long-term goals for five years out. In five years I hope to have at least three more CD's out. I will not sign with a label. I'm strictly independent. Nor will I join a tour. I'd love to have sold a song or two to a movie. And in that case I might do a little traveling but no tour. I will do shows in other cities from time to time if it coincides with some fun travel and Cathy can have fun too. I'm not putting her on the road to satisfy my ego. I also plan to have improved my skills; I work on that all the time. It's a daily goal.

Melia: Bud, I have to say that I have thoroughly enjoyed learning more about you and your music. You are a fascinating man and a great sport for putting up with me! Thank you so much! I've really had a lot of fun!