Adam Buxton debuts new music project with Metronomy at End of the Road secret set

Appearing a day before recording an episode of his hugely successful podcast – and without introduction or notice – Buxton played songs from Buckle Up, due this September. "I’m Adam Buxton of… podcasts," he told the audience, after introducing his bandmates Joe Mount and Michael Lovett ("of Metronomy"), as well as past member Gabriel Stebbing ("of Metronomy Mark 1").

“They’re multi instrumentalists, all of them," Buxton told Best Fit ahead of the performance, "and they're good singers, and nice guys, and they're really encouraging. It’s the dream that I always had about what it would be like to be in a band, even though I'm a bit too old now to to do the hell raising bit, but that's probably quite good!”

The new project sees the 56-year-old Buxton stepping out of his comfort zone after years as an actor, comedian and podcaster. “It’s definitely a big challenge doing things that I don't have much experience of,” he explained. “I think I'm probably not great – certainly not at this point – at mainly technical things like playing the guitar, I’m not a good guitarist, and also I'm not a great singer. If I'm at home with my laptop, I can retake things and get it right, sing it over and over again until it sounds decent.. but singing live on stage and singing one thing after another? That's pretty hardcore, and some of them are quite hard to sing, yeah, even though I wrote them.”

The West London-born Buxton first appeared at End of the Road back in 2017 – where Mac De Marco and comedian Laura Davis guested on a recording of his podcast (pictured below) – but that particular weekend was marred by a tech issue. “At the end of the session, I was told by the engineer that it hadn't recorded… luckily I had a backup on a dictaphone… but apart from that, I had a wonderful time, and my son came along. And we saw, Ty Segal and Car Seat Headrest, and my son got to stand on the side of the stage watching Car Seat Headrest… and I was thinking, Car Seat Headrest? How long are these guys? Long, as it turned out… but Ty Segal was one of the best things I've ever seen. It was so loud and impressive and tight and exciting.”

Buxton's sons also made an appearance in his band during his late night secret set, which comes just two days after he debuted some of the songs from Buckle Up at a small warm-up show in London. “That show was the first time I've ever sung a whole set with a band of my material," he told Best Fit. "I've sung maybe one or two short things on stage before, and it's usually quite gnarly… but it was good.”

Metronomy founder Joe Mount hs also been a key part of Buckle Up's creation, producing and mixing the majority of the record. The pair worked together for “two or three days here and there over the course of about two and a half years,” explains Buxton. “I wish I could have just spent like, six months working with Joe on it and going to town and doing this mad, crazy, epic album. Maybe one day we'll do that… but I loved it every time we got together.”

What was the most important thing he learned from the experience? “Well, not to be too precious, left to my own devices, I tend to kind of over tweak things and overwork them, maybe, and spend too long on one thing, do too many versions of one thing. And he's the opposite. He's like, ‘Oh, that's good. Let's move on’… and that's a much better way of doing things.”

Another driving force on the record was Pete Robertson, ex Vaccines drummer and producer of Beabadoobe’s debut Fake It Flowers as well as work for the likes of Hinds, Clairo, Birdy, Orla Gartland and Alfie Templeman. “Pete was a very important piece of the puzzle,” Buxton tells us, “because he came along and was very encouraging and positive at a point where I was ready to pack it in and return the advance that I got from Decca because I just thought, ‘I can't do this, and I'm just gonna embarrass myself.

“He came to visit me in Norfolk, and I played him my demos, and he said, ‘Yeah, these are fine, these are good to go. I know what to do. Don't worry.'” The result of Robertson and Buxton’s collaboration was lead single, "Pizza Time”, released back in May. “All it took, really, was someone else to say, No, I like it. It's good. You should be more confident!" Buxton adds.

End of the Road Festival continues this evening with headline sets from Self Esteem, DIIV and Viagra Boys.