Former Guitarist Peter Buck Announces First Solo Album

Former R.E.M. guitarist Peter Buck announced on his former band’s website today that he will release his first solo album this Friday, October 5th, on Mississippi Records. Its first run will only be available as a limited-edition pressing of 2,000 vinyl copies.

“I know I said for years that I would never make a solo record,” Buck wrote. “It was never a plan or a desire but it just kind of happened. When R.E.M. called it a day, I’d spent the last three months on my back with a semi-crippling injury unable to play guitar. With my band gone and unable to use the fingers on my right hand, I started writing lyrics just to have something creative to do.”

The album features a handful of special guests, including Sleater-Kinney’s Corin Tucker, the Decemberists’ Jenny Conlee, Patti Smith guitarist Lenny Kaye and longtime collaborators Bill Rieflin and Scott McCaughey (both of whom Buck plays with in the Minus 5 and the Venus 3, Robyn Hitchcock’s current touring band). Tucker and McCaughey contributed vocals to the record, and McCaughey wrote some melodies. 

In his post, Buck said that “95 percent” of the lyrics and most of the music was his doing. He called the album “the first thing I have ever been involved in where I was actually in charge and the record turned out to be kind of like a trip through my mind, all of the kinds of music I love, played with some of my favorite musicians, in a completely one-take spontaneous atmosphere.”

Earlier this summer, Buck’s first solo track, “10 Million BC,” appeared online after airing on an episode of the WFMU radio show Diane’s Kamikaze Fun Machine.