Buffet serves up album two

They've been on TV and played at lots of North Island music festivals - and Wanganui band The Blues Buffet have now released a second album.

Their first was Appetiser in late 2009 and sold about 800 copies. The title of their second album carries on the food theme with the name All You Can Eat Baby.

The band of Nigel Bateman, Paul Wilson and Murray and Fred Loveridge recorded the album at Tsunami Studios in Levin, it was mastered by Simon Lynch at Stebbing Recording Centre and features ace harmonica player Neil Billington on one track. Richard Littlejohn, also a Wanganui musician, was the producer.

All the songs are original except for one - the cover people have responded to most at the band's gigs. It's called The Blues is My Business and was written by United States team Todd Cerney and Kevin Bowe.

The original songs have various themes such as the world's financial situation, a speeding female driver and the earthquakes in Christchurch. The band hope to take that song about the quakes, The Aftershock Blues, south this summer. All You Can Eat Baby is available in Wanganui at My Music and online at www.thebluesbuffet.co.nz. It will be launched at a gig next year and band members are also hoping to discuss it in a second appearance on TV's Good Morning show.

The band have been playing together for four years, producing a mixture of blues, rock, funk and jazz. One reviewer has compared them to The Climax Blues Band from the United States.

This summer, the band have been booked to play at Carolines Celtic and the Pauls Rd Music Festival in Wanganui but they don't play in the city that often.

"We barely rate here, which is quite odd because everywhere else we go it's a different story," Fred Loveridge said.

All four band members has a day job; one mows lawns, another paints cars, others teach music. The band is an expensive hobby but also a lifesaver.

"I worked at a freezing works for 22 years. The thing that got me through that was the fact that I had a gig on Friday or Saturday. I would have gone loopy otherwise," Fred Loveridge said.

Every band member sings and writes songs, coming together to arrange them, an area Bateman is seen as being particularly good at.

All of them have been involved in the music scene for years and formed the band to take that experience further.

"It was a good vehicle to get those songs arranged and test them out with a live audience. That's the thrill of it all and getting a chance to actually record them is the icing on the cake."

They have more songs ready to go. "We've already started work on our next album. If we had the finance we could just carry on spitting them out."