Long ride atop The White Buffalo
When Jake Smith first spoke out in song with a voice evocative of what Eddie Vedder and Richie Havens’ long lost son would sound like, little could he have foreseen the long ride he’d be taking with his new job. It’s been over a decade since his journey began as an independent artist with his band The White Buffalo, and, like a truly fine wine that’s ripened with time, the singer-songwriter’s recipe is finally gaining the attention of a promising vintage. The White Buffalo is no stranger to beach culture, nor to the South Bay. Something of a Jack Johnson aura has found Smith adored along the southwest coast, his music even being featured in various surf films over the years. “I never really understood my whole connection with the surf industry, it was odd to me,” he concedes. “There’s a lot of darkness in my music…” When a bootleg cassette tape Smith circulated in his earliest days landed in the hands of pro surfer and filmmaker Chris Malloy, The White Buffalo caught an unexpected break in 2001 and was featured in the landmark surf film Shelter. “That was my first, don’t know if it was a big break, but it was a break,” says Smith. “It was my first kind of realization that I should…
Read this story on easyreadernews.com