THE BUCCANEERS
Channel Island folk-punk · est. 1983
How they got there
In the summer of 1983, four friends from Reading borrowed a boat. Shannon, who they'd met through a mutual friend two months earlier, came down from Cork to join them. The plan was Brighton.
They never got to Brighton. There was a dispute over a harbour slip with a kid who'd later grow up to front Pulp. Someone — nobody will say who — severed the fuel line. The boat drifted with the tide, and three days later they washed up on Guernsey, broke and somewhat embarrassed.
They couldn't afford the ferry home. The landlord at The Deerhound, in St Peter Port, offered them a Tuesday-night residency in exchange for room and board. They've played The Deerhound every Tuesday since.
The Crew
Five musicians who never went home.
DAMIAN
Vocals · Guitar
Sings the songs and writes most of them. From Reading originally, like the rest except Shannon. He claims the band's name was his idea and that nobody else liked it for a year. Plays a Gibson J-45 that has been re-fretted four times.
MARK
Bass
The quiet one. Studied accountancy for two terms before the boat. Holds the band's tax records in a shoebox under his bed and refuses to discuss them. Mark also drives the van.
SHANNON
Fiddle
Joined two months before the boat. Calls the setlists. From Cork, which she will mention. The only member who can read sheet music, a skill she uses to occasionally embarrass the rest. Owns three fiddles, all named.
NICK
Drums
Has a scar on his chin he won't explain. Six different stories have circulated; none of the band believes any of them. Generally the loudest person at any table The Buccaneers are sitting at, which is saying something.
VICTORIA
Squeezebox · Harmony
Plays squeezebox, sings most of the harmonies. Wrote "Jarvis Cocker Is a Cock," which she insists is not actually about him. Lives upstairs at the château with three rescue donkeys.
Le Château des Sarrasins
They share a crumbling stone manor house on the south coast of Guernsey. The roof leaks in two places and the kitchen tap has needed replacing since 2009. Sterling St. Clair, their producer, has never visited — he mixes their records remotely from London and posts them back on quarter-inch tape.
Tuesday nights they play The Deerhound, a pub fifteen minutes' walk from the château. The residency is in its forty-third year.