By the time they reach high school, most aspiring rappers are slinging mixtapes and, if they’re lucky, getting scouted by major label A&R reps. But for Richard Terfry, high school was a time for furtively laying down tracks in his bedroom and getting scouted… by the New York Yankees.
“His name was Stan Sanders,” Terfry says, remembering the major league scout who drove all the way out to rural Nova Scotia, all those years ago, to tell a young pitcher he had “superstar” potential. “His claim to fame is that he scouted Mike Schmidt, who’s one of the greatest players ever.”
But Rich Terfry was not to be baseball’s next great hurler. Shortly after he was scouted, Terfry blew out his shoulder—and eventually, worked up the nerve to start rhyming in venues beyond his bedroom, first under the name Stinkin’ Rich, then as Buck 65. Fast-forward to today, and Buck has been rapping successfully for, as his latest album title proudly declares, 20 Odd Years. And he’s been doing it on his terms—constantly reinventing himself, first as a darling of the backpacker underground, then as a blues-hop experimentalist, most recently as a crafter of Gorillaz-like pop/rock/rap pastiche. If he really was a big-league pitcher, he’d be Tim Wakefield, a wily knuckleballer whose stuff dances over the plate, always keeping you off-balance.
Before his latest U.S. tour (dates below), ChinaShop sat down with Buck for a rambling conversation about baseball, Twitter, experimental cinema and how he’s been developing stage chemistry with his tourmate, singer Marnie Herald.
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