Buckner & Garcia: Re-released
The invention of the video game changed pop culture as we know it. Putting a dime in the jukebox was nothing compared
to putting a quarter in a machine and controlling the fate of a little yellow hungry beastie called Pac-Man. Buckner
& Garcia's song coined the phrase "Pac Man Fever" before people knew it happened. And if you don't
believe it happened, ask the millions of people who played Ms. Pac-Man or Baby Pac-Man, bought books to learn patterns
to beat the game, watched Pac-Man the cartoon on Saturday mornings or the cereal company that created Pac-Man cereal
(Kix meets Lucky Charms). Yes, the world was in Pac-Mania and with one song playing through all their heads.
Sound like an X-Files episode? The truth isn't out there anymore... it's right here.
80sNut: So how is it you both met?
Jerry: Well, Gary and I are from Akron, Ohio. We went to the same middle school together and really have known each other since 7th grade.
Gary: It's been a LONG time.
80sNut: And how did you both get involved in music?
Gary: We'd always been interested in music. We'd sometimes be doing things separate and other times together. As the years went on, we started working more and more together.
80sNut: What kind of musical influences do you have?
Jerry: I think all the British stuff in the 60's. We both loved all that. You know, back in those days, everybody tried to have a band.
80sNut: Were you guys performing in Akron at all before moving to Atlanta?
Gary: Oh, yeah. We performed for years and cut some records.
Jerry: Gary had one of the bigger local groups up there for some time. Tell him about that.
Gary: Yeah, we had a group called The Outlaws that played at a place called The Castle. It was one of the big teen dance places. A re-done bar that was probably one of the bigger things in the area for a couple of years.
80sNut: So what brought video games into this?
Jerry: Let's back up a bit. As Gary said we had separate bands, had bands together and did a variety of things. And eventually in the 70's, I decided to move to Atlanta. A friend of mine asked me to come down and play in a band. So I said, "Well, I'm not doing too well in Akron. I guess I'll go." It was pretty good money. And at that time Gary was still in Akron and was doing some stuff up there. So I came here for awhile and eventually he joined me here. We started doing commercials and jingles. Really, we were writing songs, going into the studio and playing at night. Doing all that stuff, mainly getting 4 hours of sleep a night trying to do everything.
80sNut: What kind of jingles?
Jerry: Jingles for local places in Atlanta. Some of them were pretty big, they helped a lot... they helped pay the bills. But recording is what we wanted to do and we kept doing that. We had some things start happening before Pac Man. Tell him what we were doing, Gary.
Gary: We did a country gospel record called Footprints In The Sand. Then we produced the WKRP In Cincinnati record. We also had some other bubbling under chart records.
Jerry: The first chart record we had was "Merry Christmas In The NFL." That's listed in a lot of the record books now. They list us as doing it. We produced it, wrote it and played on it but actually it was another guy that did it. He was a radio personality here at the time when we got him to come into the studio and do the song. His name was Willis "The Guard" (his radio name) but for some reason in the record books they credit us as the artist.
80sNut: Tell me about this "WKRP In Cincinnati" record.
Jerry: Steve Carlisle was here in Atlanta. And he originally sang the theme for the tv show. And we met Steve while working on other projects. Gary and I decided to produce him. When MCA heard about the WKRP thing they asked us to do a record version. So we did.
Gary: We produced a lot of acts. Wrote a lot of material and cut some ourselves.
Jerry: There were times driving to the studio and barely have enough gas money to get there. That's the kind of things you do when you really are committed. We worked very hard for years and years. You wear several hats. I remember one time that we were playing at night and were going around to advertising agencies. We went through the phone book and would pick out about 3 or 4 a day to go see. This one particular evening we had stayed up almost all night recording and then we had to go in at 9 am to meet with someone. Then worked all that day and got into bed that afternoon. And I'd just got into bed and the phone rings. It was a booking agent. She was asking if we could play a gig that night. Well, we needed the money desperately. So I called Gary, who just got in bed, and I said "We have good news and bad news. The good news is we have a job. The bad news is we have to do it tonight." That was as tired as I remember being. If I'm correct, we still had to meet with another advertising agency the next morning.
Gary: To give you an idea of where the Pac Man idea came from. We were working in the studio working on some other material one night. We stopped by for a beer afterwards and discovered this Pac-Man machine in there. We got hooked on it. We started going back in there and playing it after we got done recording all night. And it just came to us that it might be a good idea.
80sNut: So did you develop your own "Pac Man Fever"?
Jerry: We got hooked like everyone else, playing the game. It occurred to us that this might be an idea for a song. To tell you the truth, we thought "Well, let's do this. If nothing else it'll help our name here in town and get our name around to do more commercials." We never dreamed, at that point, that it would do what it did. When we went and recorded it, we knew it was a great record. I'm trying to brag. I'm just saying that we had some good people, everything went together worked and sounded pretty good to us.
80sNut: And that single, Billboard magazine ranked it at #9.
Jerry: Well, it really went higher. The real charts in Record World, which is no longer around, ranked us at about #3. That's really more realistic. In 1982, the record industry was in bad shape. Most kids were throwing their money into the video machines but they went and bought our record. It was one of the few records that really sold. Now they had hits that year, but they weren't selling like they wanted them to.
80sNut: It was one of the few gold records of 1982, if I'm right. Now after recording that did they push you for a full album? Is that what spurred on the other songs?
Gary: Well, when we originally tried to sell it, everyone turned us down because they didn't know what Pac Man was at that time. So, we wound up putting it out on VGO Records. A guy we knew played it 3 times on a local station here and it sold 12,000 records in one week. So CBS records came back and said they'd take it. And from that point on, when the record started going up the charts, then they wanted to do an album immediately. So we had to write songs, produce and record them in about 3 weeks. You go out and learn the machines... it was quite hectic there for awhile.
80sNut: Did you find yourself scrapping any songs that you really thought "Oh, man. We can't do this!"?
Jerry: I don't remember that. We borrowed a few songs, converted them from songs we were working on. By and large, we would do the game. Gary would sit up all night working on lyrics. Then we would try to give it musically what we thought was a good feel for it. We tried to make good pop records. We tried to make each song a good pop record. I think we did. A lot of people feel the same way, they like the album. It's a fun album but it's a good one. We had some good players on there.
80sNut: Well to tell you how good it was, this is interesting, I was looking at your web site http://www.bucknergarcia.com listening to samples. A friend of mine came over and heard the samples. She said, "I used to have this tape." She'd listen to it whenever she was driving around. She started singing the lyrics as if speaking in tongues. But it's one of those things that definitely makes an imprint on your mind of the time and the era.
Gary: It's a time stamp.
Jerry: It is. It really is. The people who grew up with that album, it means something to them. And it's a lot of fun for us to be a part of it.
80sNut: And thankfully, you've re-released it. Because, I can't find a copy of it.
Jerry: Yes, it's coming out around June 1st.
Gary: And you'll just funnel them over to our web site, won't you Martin?
80sNut: Definitely. I'll be sending out links like mad!
Jerry: You can pre-order the album right now and get a free autographed picture at http://www.bucknergarcia.com.
80sNut: For the first 300, I think?
Jerry: Well, whoever orders, we'll honor it.
80sNut: Honestly, just to be able to get it would be nice. Will this be available in record stores later or just on the web site?
Gary: Right now it's just the web but later on we'll get into retail.
80sNut: Now, what have you guys been doing since?
Jerry: After Pac Man, we had another song called "E.T. I Love You" which was really a beautiful ballad that we wrote after seeing the movie. We had some problems with the label. They didn't put it out because of the "Heart Light" record Neil Diamond was still a pretty big artist with them. And we got shelved. So ours didn't come out and it created some bad feelings between the company and us. We had to wait around a little while and started working on various projects. But to be really honest with you, we were really burnt out. Emotionally with the E.T. thing and then we had a Mr. T. record we had done, which was a great record too. You just get disillusioned. I know that I kind of just drifted around awhile. Gary did too. We kinda just holed up in our houses. But eventually, I started messing around in radio doing some comedy stuff that I had always enjoyed doing before. Eventually got into doing character voices on morning radio. I still do it here at a station in Atlanta and a few other markets. I still write, Gary still writes.
Gary: And every once in awhile we'll do some recording, too.
Jerry: But this particular project we got serious about and wanted to do it. We started seeing all these web sites, people started calling, VH1 did a little thing on us, and the classic video game thing seems to be coming back right now. Like you say, a lot of people love that album and want it. We looked on EBay the one day and saw someone paid $102 for one of our albums. <laughing> So I said, "Gary, maybe we should make this more available." He said, "I think we should!"
80sNut: There are some rumors about trying to get you out to the Computer Game Expo.
Jerry: That's right, in August. They've contacted us and we've talked to them twice. They haven't gotten back to us on it yet, but it's a good possibility.
80sNut: That'd be a great tie in.
Jerry: We'd love to go out there... that's over where you are, in Vegas.
80sNut: Is the Expo coming here?
Gary: Yeah, we'll be there.
80sNut: In August? All right!
Jerry: We'll stay at your house.
80sNut: We'll hook up the old Atari 2600 and go crazy.
The album is definitely worth listening to. I'd buy it just to have a piece of history to hand down someday to
someone who never got to run from Pinky, Blink, or Clyde. There are few bands that you can say made a mark on music
history. Jerry Buckner and Gary Garcia dated it, stamped it and sent it for the world to hear.
by Martin Hennessy III