Photo Credit: Deone Jahnke
Milwaukee music veterans Spud Bucket could have named the band TLT or LTT, but they chose a name that obscurely references a container of plumbing parts. Drummer Chris Lehmann, Tom Tiedjens (guitar and vocals) and bassist Ron Turner have been at it for decades. The trio’s impressive resume of previous bands includes Those XCleavers, 19 T-Shirts, Women’s Liberace, The Ugly Ones and Voot Warnings.
During the pandemic Spud Bucket finished up their debut EP Latest Hits and garnered airplay locally as well as via satellite radio. In January of 2020 they released a video for “Fraction of a Reaction” and recently recorded footage for an Amplified Artist Session episode to be aired in April.
The band’s website describes their sound as “Tom Petty meets Cracker with a dash of Rockpile.” Tom Tiedjens recently caught us up with how the band continues to fit music into their lives.
How has the lockdown affected your creativity?
My day is work. Night has been doing band tracking, mixing and trying to figure out how to get this EP out. Our last gig was March 13, 2020 and after that everything stopped. We had the bed tracks done and I didn’t get back to the studio until Summer. I have not had time to think about new material. Spud Bucket did get together and ran through some songs to scrape some rust off two weeks ago. I get tested (for COVID-19) at work and wear a mask in studio.
Do you have a routine or schedule for staying in practice or working on new material?
After the last gig we had four bed tracks recorded for the EP and two songs finished. Basically, my creativity shifted to recording and producing the EP during this pandemic. We took time off at Andyland Studio until we felt things were safe and we wore masks. Live practice stopped until recently when we got together to scrape the rust off after an opportunity to record three songs on video for the Amplified Artist Session show.
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Are you making plans for when you can resume playing in front of people again?
Spud Bucket has had two songs off our new EP played on SiriusXM. “Drinking in the Dark” was aired twice on Bill Kelly’s Blackhole Bandstand and “Flying Skin” on The Rodney Bingenheimer Show. And recently we recorded video for Amplified Artist Sessions coming out in April.
As far as live shows go, we are waiting it out and seeing how things progress.
Spud Bucket’s EP, Latest Hits, is available at Bullseye Records, Eastside Exclusive Company and Rush Mor Records. You can also check out the band's website.
