Biography

Mixing up hard rock, loose-limbed boogie, psychedelia, and early heavy metal into a sound that both ambles and pummels, Cincinnati's Buffalo Killers aren't so much a stoner rock band as a band that makes rock that's ideal for stoners. Buffalo Killers were founded in early 2006, shortly after guitarist Andrew Gabbard and his brother, bassist Zachary Gabbard, decided to break up their previous band, the powerful Stones-influenced garage rock act Thee Shams. Only a few months after Thee Shams called it quits, the Gabbard brothers joined forces with drummer Joseph Sebaali (who had played keys with Thee Shams for a spell) and set off in a very different musical direction with Buffalo Killers. Wasting no time, the band cut its self-titled debut album at John Curley's Ultrasuede Studios and landed a deal with Bomp-distributed Alive Records by the fall of 2006. The album won enthusiastic notices from the independent rock press, and Buffalo Killers set out to support the release with lots of road work. The band's second album, Let It Ride, was released in 2008. After tour dates opening for the Black Crowes and the Black Keys, they returned to the studio to work on 3, which was released in August of 2011. Dig. Sow. Love. Grow., the band's fourth studio album, followed in 2012. A six-song EP, Ohio Grass, appeared on vinyl in the spring of 2013, and was then expanded with a bonus studio track and three live tracks for release on CD at the end of the summer that same year. The band added a fourth member, guitarist and lap steel player Sven Kahns, and released the Jim Wirt-produced Heavy Reverie in May 2014. After touring in support of the album, Buffalo Killers quickly returned to the studio, and they released a six-song EP, Fireball of Sulk, before the year was out. After the group put the finishing touches on their own analog recording studio, Howler Hills Farm, the Buffalo Killers put the new facility to work, recording 2017's Alive and Well in Ohio. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi