“We are just really mixed up,” trumpet and keyboard player Jodie Kell said. 

Named after a manufacturers’s card found inside a fedora from the Caribbean, The Buzzard Mix plays a large repertoire of originals and covers. 

“If we do a festival, it’s all originals … if we do three sets at a pub we will probably do 60/40 covers and originals,” Kell said. 

“We love playing covers, we love the music we play … it influences your musical style when you play the songs of bands you love and you learn about different styles.

“It has influenced our sound and people love listening to it.”

The Buzzard Mix, formed in about 2012, is all about “friendship and music”. They help one another move house and while others are neighbours. 

The line-up has changed over time.  

“It’s just been a matter of people leaving town, people having other commitments,” Kell said. “It’s a very democratic band and we have several songwriters and people do all different management roles and we just kind of operate a lot like a collective.”

The band rotates back-up musicians when members can’t play. 

“If I go away, the band will play without me, and whilst I know it’s not as good,” Kell said laughing, “It’s great to know the band can limp along with out me.

The current line-up sees Camilla Burgess on vocals, Robin ‘Fab’ Nelson on bass, Phil Stuckey on trombone, Joshua Plummer on guitar and Sharon McKenny on drums. 

The band will release its second recording this year, a six track EP, recorded at Saw Tooth. 

“They were just songs we wanted to get down,” Burgess said. “The last recording was four years ago.

“Part of the motivation of doing a recording is … our sound has changed a lot.

“We wanted to capture the songs, but also how we sound now.” 

That was a four-track, home studio recording titled Look Alive. It has a limited edition vinyl pressing, 25 copies, and is still available for digital download. 

thebuzzardmix.com