Buster Shuffle’s Terry Mascall Interview: “They Were Calling Us The ‘Leaders Of The New Wave'”

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Buster Shuffle has made quite a splash with the release of their new album ‘Go Steady’, and I was lucky enough to sit down with founding member and drummer of the band Terry to discuss the new album, upcoming shows, and much more! Here’s what went down.

Nice to meet you.

Terry: Nice to meet you too!

Your new album ‘Go Steady’ has been released after a successful crowdfunding project. Tell me a bit about how that process was.

Terry: Well it was actually an idea we got from another band, Death of guitar pop and they introduced us to this crowdfunding thing. We’d never really gone down there before and we thought “Oh, well we will give it a go”. We were very surprised by how loyal our fans are and it’s been very nice to see.

With the crowdfunding, you guys offered some interesting perks such as private shows and instrument lessons. How did fans take to them?

Terry: I think they really got behind it. I remember one guy offered to take up the drum lessons when we played with madness at the house of fun thing but he never ended up getting back to me.

That’s great to hear! How was it recording the new album?

Terry: The actual recording process was a bit odd. I did it in two different sessions. We had big plans to do it like we did our first album which was to go into a room and play it live but obviously COVID had other plans but I think it’s come out well because it sounds like a really nice live album .

You mentioned earlier about the House Of Fun weekender you played with Madness. How was it?

Terry: Incredible. We played the first and the last one and there was a huge difference. The first one we played just as Madness were finishing so you had people kinda filling in so it started off a little quiet but ended up getting quite a good reaction. This time, however, we played on the day when madness was not playing and we played in the red room. It was crammed and only got better for us. We sold out of the merch we brought with us within about half an hour of finishing our set.

Throughout your discography, you have a real mix of songs. From quite serious and political undertones, to some tracks that are quite a lot more lighthearted and whimsical. Is that something you try to keep balanced when writing new music?

Terry: Definitely. I think when we started out, well even songs like ‘America’ is basically about Tony Blair’s relationships, but it’s written in quite a light-hearted way. I think it’s really important to get that stuff out but, at the same time, it’s good to tell stories.

You guys are set for quite some tour starting here in London and then continuing through Europe before returning here supporting Neville Staples. How are you feeling about it?

Terry: I think the first leg which starts in France is going to be smaller shows because we haven’t done it a lot out there, so I think that’d just be mixing in the new material with the old and seeing how it goes down. By the time we get back here, we should know what we are doing as it can be really easy to just go back to the old songs that people know so you’re not just looking out and getting a puzzled look. We’re hoping we can get the newer stuff out there and not step back too much.

There has been a lot of movement in the Ska scene recently with a lot of bands starting to gain recognition. What are your thoughts on this?

Terry: I think it’s great. I mean, when we did our tour with the Bosstones (The Mighty Mighty Bosstones) in the states they were calling us like the “Leaders of the new wave”, y’know. I think we’re a little bit different and over three. It’s kind of like it felt like a really cool thing again. They obviously had bands like No Doubt but recently they’ve had bands like The Interrupters and we have bands like The Skints.

Do you think this new wave of bands has helped introduce more younger fans to the scene?

Terry: Yeah, definitely. I think we’ve always done alright for ourselves but there is definitely a good mix between younger and older fans at our shows.

Before the pandemic, you got the chance to play in some pretty big venues supporting The Interrupters. How was that?

Terry: Brilliant! I have to say, they did an amazing job making the whole package. It wasn’t just the headliners and some small bands, They booked the lineup as a whole package. It was us and The Skints who are one of Aimee’s (The Interrupters) favourite bands and despite us going on just after the door, the venues were nearly full houses!

Tell me a bit about how COVID was for the band?

Terry: It was very strange because we were actually in negotiations over flying out to Philadelphia to do the new album with a big producer, and we were trying to figure out how on earth we were going to be able to afford it. Of course, then the lockdowns happened and that whole avenue just died with it. I think everyone was scared and no one knew how long it was actually going to be here. Once it started to get back to normality we did a couple of festival dates here and we ended up doing a couple of shows in Germany. The Leipzig show really surprised us because we thought there was going to be about 300 people in a 2000 cap venue yet it was completely rammed.

That’s everything I’ve got for you today. Thank you so much for your time!

Terry: Thank you very much!

We stopped by the launch party for Buster Shuffle’s new album ‘Go Steady’, check out our review here.