Five questions buck meek

BUCK MEEK, ONE of two guitarists in the Brooklyn-based indie rock band Big Thief, has released his third solo album, Haunted Mountain, which was inspired by his travels to Portugal, the Swiss Alps and Greece while on tour.

How do you determine what’ll become a Buck Meek solo track as opposed to something that might become part of the Big Thief stew?

Typically, Big Thief songs are born from [vocalist/guitarist] Adrianne Lenker’s writing. She sometimes will bring us an unfinished song and we’ll finish it together. But the core idea is that it’s her songwriting project, and the same goes for my own project. When we started playing together in 2012, we were co-writing a lot together and we were also both singing our own songs. Then once we put the band together, we decided to split those projects, but we’ve continued to write songs together.

In the “Haunted Mountain” music video, Adam Brisbin is playing a Gretsch George Harrison Duo Jet and Ken Woodward is playing a Paul McCartneystyle Hofner 500/1 bass. Is this accidental or do the Beatles play a major role in your songwriting and image?

I think the Beatles probably influenced all of us, but that’s coincidental that we’re playing instruments that the Beatles played. They influenced me in regards to harmony. They often used more complex harmony and odd time signatures thrown in for almost, like, you could draw parallels to the way that they composed rock ’n’ roll. The way they recorded live together is also a big influence. They’re just such a tight band and they’re really playful.

How did you play with the theme of love for Haunted Mountain? Were there m