Wes Chiller’s new EP, Buffalo John & The Crew. The CA artist reflects on the California Wildfires and how great songs can make beauty of battles.
By Gabby C.
This week we’re listening LA musician, Wes Chiller, and a few tracks off his upcoming EP.
Courtesy of the artist.
It’s about to be February, ya’ll. And while this is my least favorite month of the year (Valentine’s Day be damned), I discovered some music the other day that might make the East Coast February a little bit more enjoyable. Enter Wes Chiller, a 28 year old multi-instrumentalist music producer who has spent his entire life immersed in the music & surf culture of the beach towns across Southern California. A friend forwarded me his name the other day, and there are a bunch of songs I’m excited to share with you.
First, a brief background: At the age of 17, Chiller was discovered by Capistrano Beach hometown band “The Shys” and began touring with them. The experience was truly formative and cemented his desire to pursue music professionally. Over the course of the decade, Chiller has continued honing his craft and making music with local bands. In 2019, Chiller reunited with his old friend and The Shy’s frontman, Kyle Krone, to help him make his first EP, The Chiller Instinct. In an interview for Voyage LA Magazine, Chiller states,
“At my core, I’m a freethinking young man with opinions, passions, and strengths that channel into my work. I’m very proud of our newest EP “Chiller Instinct”. It channels all things that are important to me and voices them in a very receiving way. I don’t need approval from anybody because I love it and that’s what’s important.”
Although Chiller admits to struggling with writer’s block in the past, the years 2019-2020 have proven to be very productive for him (we’ve highlight two of our favorite tracks below).
In fact, I’d say his new EP, Buffalo John & The Crew, is his best work yet.
The four-song collection is inspired by his recent experiences fighting the wildfires of 2020. The wildfires of last year were particularly devastating. In total, firefighters had to manage 9,639 independent fires, which ultimately burned 4,397,809 acres (4% of the state’s territory) and set a new record for the state. Within that 2020 season, 33 people lost their lives — 4 firefighters and 29 civilians.
Chiller, the son of a firefighter himself, used his upcoming EP as an artistic reflection of this rugged line of work. For example, the opening track, “Buffalo Highway”, was written about fighting a fire on the PCH. Specifically, he found the image of flames over water as a strange intersection between his personal and professional life.
Another song, “No Good Luck”, was written after fighting wildfire in northern CA, where gigantic trees dropped lethally around the crew. In his press release, Chiller describes his experience: “The redwood trees were falling way less often than the firs because they would grow near family, around other redwood roots, whereas the Douglas firs were loners and toppled easily.” Like so many others, Chiller had his own near-death experience. He and his partner had a moment where they turned back to see that a massive tree had fallen right where they’d been standing just seconds before.
All in all, Buffalo John & The Rainbow Crew is a sweeping, majestic cross-stitch of Americana and Folk Rock. Despite the trauma and exhaustion of battling the flames, Chiller gets at the irony of it all: that terror is beautiful, and that beauty is not always lovely. Mother Nature’s wrath is something epic, cosmic, and worth revering. It reminds me of a poem I came across in undergrad called “Fire on the Hills” by Robinson Jeffers.
The deer were bounding like blown leaves
Under the smoke in front the roaring wave of the brush-fire;
I thought of the smaller lives that were caught.
Beauty is not always lovely; the fire was beautiful, the terror
Of the deer was beautiful; and when I returned
Down the back slopes after the fire had gone by, an eagle
Was perched on the jag of a burnt pine,
Insolent and gorged, cloaked in the folded storms of his shoulders
He had come from far off for the good hunting
With fire for his beater to drive the game; the sky was merciless
Blue, and the hills merciless black,
The sombre-feathered great bird sleepily merciless between them.
I thought, painfully, but the whole mind,
The destruction that brings an eagle from heaven is better than mercy.
In this poem, Jeffers is seeing a brushfire develop on the mountainous coasts of the Monterrey Peninsula (the artist lived in Carmel, CA his whole life). He reflects on the small animals that are caught up in the storm, and he conveys to the readers how this excitement and terror can occur side by side. But eventually, the writer realizes this is just one cycle, and it is this fire that precipitates the arrival of the eagle “from heaven”.
Chiller confronts the same reality: that nature and time won’t stop for anyone or anything. The fires, the fallen trees, the houses burning. “That was full of the magic and purpose of life, to me. I took a lot from that,” he says. “The idea for this EP was to illuminate what kind of crazy stuff can happen out there on the road. I bring a ukulele out with me, in case I’m struck by inspiration.”
Buffalo John & The Crew will be released February 5, 2021.
Listen on Spotify.