The Buttertones started in 2011 as a trio of music-school misfits. Singer/guitarist Richard Araiza, bassist Sean Redman and drummer/multi-instrumentalist Modesto ‘Cobi’ Cobiån all wanted to pursue something more than boring industry adequacy, and soon locked together their current five-piece line-up with sax player London Guzman and guitarist Dakota Boettcher. With Gravedigging, they leapt from backyard parties to back-to-back tours, including their first trip to Europe. when they were ready to record, they were ready to do things differently.

Midnight was made in two flash sessions at Long Beach’s Jazzcats studio with Gravedigging producer Jonny Bell, whose genre-smashing record collection and appetite for experimentation made for a perfect match. (He’s really a guru, they say.) What was supposed to be a six song EP during the summer of 2017 bloomed into a full-length by the end of that December. Midnight was like a trust fall, the band says—leap of faith after leap of faith, cut to tape as it happened by a tight and tour-tested band.

On this album, they’d decided, everything would be new—not just new sounds, like their first-ever string section, but new ways of working together and writing together. They worked on trust and instinct, by feeling instead of thinking. If it worked, they’d keep it, and if it didn’t, they’d burn it and move on. Gravedigging played like the soundtrack to a good heist movie, but Midnight was like the true story itself—a perfect and intricate crime, executed by a crew of professionals under cover of night.

Buttertones
Midnight
Tracklisting

At the Dojo
Baby C4
Midnight in a Moonless Dream
Old Nick’s Still Got It
Winks and Smiles
Don’t Cry Alone
Jungle
Darling, I Need Time But Don’t Really Know Why
You and Your Knife
Brickhead
Eros

US/European Tour Dates
4/06/18 St. Louis, MO – Off Broadway
4/13/18 Indio, CA – Coachella
4/17/18 San Francisco, CA – Slims
4/20/18 Indio, CA – Coachella
5/16/18 London, UK – Moth Club
5/18/18 Paris, FR – Gonzai Night at La Maroquinerie
5/19/18 Saint-Brieuc, FR – Art Rock Festival
5/23/18 Berlin, DE – FluxFM Bergfest at Flux Bau
5/24/18 Aarhus, DK – Tape
5/25/18 Copenhagen, DK – Huset-KBH
5/26/18 Hamburg, DE – Motorbooty Party at Molotow
5/27/18 Rotterdam, NL – V11
5/29/18 Ostend, BE – Cafe de Zwerver
5/30/18 Lausanne, CH – Le Romandie
5/31/18 Basel, CH – Erster Stock
6/02/18 Nimes, FR – This Is Not A Love Song Festival

*US Tour Dates w/ Hanni El Khatib