Tradesmen by day and rock gods by night, Buck Dean & The Green Lips are a rock quartet from the Sunshine Coast doing their best to make a name for themselves, and what a name it is.
“A mate of ours is an artist and he did this painting a couple of years ago, well before we got together,” explains frontman Nick Daniels, “sort of a Rolling Stones-inspired lips and tongue going on but it had a cigarette coming out and all that gear and he called it ‘Buck Dean & The Green Lips’.
“We started jamming in that room with it hanging there, and coming up to our first gig we still didn’t have a name. We were like, ‘oh fuck! We’ll just call it Buck Dean & The Green Lips and think of a better name afterwards’. But then it was all too late, the shows started coming in; but everyone seems to like it.”
The band have recently recorded and released their first EP, working with a local producer on the Sunshine Coast. “We’ve already done the one EP, we recorded that up at Sleepwalk Studios in Coolum through Adam Griffin. That was good fun, a good learning curve as well and looking to get back to just starting the demos; another eight or ten tracks to get another EP on the go.”
Buck Dean & The Green Lips have shows lined up for September and October both in Brisbane and on the Sunshine Coast at The Helm. “I can’t remember the name of the band we were booked with originally [but] they pulled out so they said we can have the bill if we want so we’ve got a couple of mates’ band who are going to open for us and we’ll see how that goes, it’ll be fun.”
Even with shows booked and a killer name to boot, Nick says it is still difficult for rock and metal bands to find venues to play live gigs on the Sunshine Coast. “It’s pretty hard going. Most venues they’ll take a solo, or even a duo, acoustic act or something like that but not a lot of people want to touch full bands at the moment, let alone heavy rock and metal.
“I remember years ago I used to watch bands at The Helm and it used to get really busy down the bottom there, when it was Fridays or whatever, and they cut it off so it’s good to hear it’s coming back.”
Buck Dean & The Green Lips play The Zoo 18 September and The Helm Bar 2 October.
