BUFFALO - Aussie Legends Reissue Program Complete Page 3
by Martin Popoff

"Not particularly, no," says Tice. "The Australian scene in those days was very competitive. And not only competitive, but kind of exclusive. If you're one type of band, or seemed to be in one particular area, anybody else who was in a similar area was competition. 'We are better than you, so f**k off.' And if you weren't in quite the same area musically, you weren't considered to be of any importance. It was a very immature scene, in many ways. We were kind of naive, exclusive, and Buffalo, I have to tell you, was always the outsider. We were the band least likely (laughs). We were most likely to ravage your daughter, we were least likely to get any radio airplay or commercial expectancy. And this is one thing that kind of surprises me now, that this is all resurfacing. I'm kind of in awe, to tell you the truth (laughs)."

Indeed, Buffalo remained very much an Australian phenomenon. Touted as the only band signed to Vertigo that wasn't British, Buffalo took in the accolades of being signed to that great and adventurous label, but actually never left the continent for a single live date.

"Never. It just wasn't a done thing," says Dave. "They'd say, 'What do you want to go there for? You've got no f**king chance, man. All those bands over there, they're f**king miles better than you guys.' And that's what the Australian scene was like. You were the poor cousin of what was happening overseas. Not as far as the kids were concerned. Or the bands themselves. But as far as the business side of it was concerned in this country, we weren't worth any more than... 'Oh, we can write off $30,000 by recording these guys.' And write it off against the millions we made from Boney M (laughs)."

In closing I asked Dave if he had any fond tour memories from their seemingly endless runs around Australia. "Yes, one package that came through was Slade, Status Quo, Lindisfarne and Caravan. And about the time when the third album was about to be released, we did a couple of shows with Black Sabbath, big shows in Sydney, and in fact, if it had hadn't been for those shows, we probably wouldn't have done the last couple of albums. The band was about to call it quits. We had actually split up at that point, mainly because we were onto our third album at that stage, and everybody was chasing the commercial radio station airplay, and we weren't getting any of that. And you get to a stage after awhile where you really start to say, 'Well, we're flogging a dead horse here.' You get very frustrated with the whole thing. And I felt we were making pretty good music, and in fact, the audiences that we were getting were strengthening that thought. We were getting good turnout. We just weren't getting any response from the commercial radio stations. They thought we were a bunch of larkins who really didn't deserve it. And plus, we didn't wear the right kind of gear."

BUFFALO - Aussie Legends Reissue Program Complete Page 4