Everyone lies about their age. Take Buffalo Tom, who celebrate their 25th anniversary with a three-night stand at the Brighton Music Hall during Thanksgiving weekend.
“It’s probably more like 30, if truth be told,” bassist Chris Colbourn tells Metro. “I don’t think we could possibly be any older. We’ve made a vow not to make any more age jokes. Except there is the band Botox appointment after this call.”
Some injectibles before the show?
“That’s the secret ingredient,” he kids.
Formed in Boston’s transformative ’80s alternative rock scene, Colbourn, guitarist Bill Janovitz and drummer Tom Maginnis became popular worldwide in the early 1990s for their visceral brand of melodic but raw, dynamic indie rock.
It seems Buffalo Tom was always meant to be, though. Colbourn and Janovitz lived in the same town of Huntington, Long Island, and both coincidentally moved to Medfield, Mass. At UMass Amherst, they met Maginnis: “All these things go further back than what was the anniversary of when we started to record.”
According to Colbourn, though, it was SST labelmate, Dinosaur Jr.’s J Mascis, who made it official, when he produced their self-titled debut in 1989.
“I met J the first day I drove to Amherst. He was working at a gas station and still in high school. J was this great character with a very unique way of giving a musician the idea they were in charge. He gave us the blueprint for what we do.”
