Peters Township native completes album, releases single
You often read about musicians who took circuitous routes toward realizing their artistic ambitions.
Mark Knopfler, for example, was a teacher before he founded Dire Straits, a 2018 inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. And Chuck Berry worked in a beauty parlor before essentially inventing rock ‘n’ roll guitar.
For Harrison Buzzatto, his road after graduating from Peters Township High School took him to Point Park University as a theater major and Vermont as a hockey play-by-play announcer.
Now, he’s in Los Angeles as a guitarist-vocalist in full pursuit of a musical career, having just released his debut single from his forthcoming album as Through Binoculars.
“The idea is that I gain some popularity out here,” he said, as he hopes to couple his entrepreneurial stripe with success in sound: “It’s really become my passion more than anything that I’ve ever really cared about in my life.”
His single – the energetic, exquisitely produced “Marlayna/One More Day,” which can be streamed through Spotify and iTunes, along with the Through Binoculars website – has its genesis as Buzzatto’s first songwriting effort, back in 2010 when he was strumming his guitar as a college freshman.
“It was a super-simple melody. It was a C chord or something like that, and it was about a girl with a cool-sounding name,” he recalled. “She didn’t really mean anything to me, other than that I just sang one day in my dorm room: ‘Marlayana!’ And it became a great song.”
The medley version joins eight other tracks on the Through Binoculars album, on which Buzzatto worked with Brian K. Smith, a guitar teacher and recording engineer at David’s House of Music in Peters Township.
“We had a good relationship right off the bat. He really understood my vision and really brought it to life,” Buzzatto said. “It took us about a year to make. We could have probably done it in less time, but you know how life is.”
Throughout his life, he has been exposed to a wide variety of musical genres, starting with the listening preferences of Dad and Mom: Dr. Mark Buzzatto would play reggae and classic rock, and Karen enjoyed the likes of crooner Tony Bennett.
Further influence came from bands that gained popularity more recently, such as Coldplay, Blink 182 and My Chemical Romance. Then came the one that prompted him to take his own songs and make them into music.
“What really inspired the record was the album ‘Crack-Up’ by Fleet Foxes, such a fantastic piece of art,” Buzzatto said about the Seattle-based band’s 2017 release. “When they made that record and came out of hiatus, I told myself, all right. It’s time to stop messing around and start to get myself in the studio, and start to make this thing.”
The nine Through Binoculars tracks, from the ethereal opener “Archipelago” to the acoustic-based title song, represent a concept.
“It does tell a linear story about a guy, a coming-of-age kind of album,” Buzzatto explained. “He goes through things: peaks, valleys, love, loss.”
Along with playing good music while he was growing up, he credits his parents with helping him pursue his endeavors. Mark, in fact, plays harmonica and auxiliary percussion on one of the album tracks.
“He really bought in to the vision,” Harrison said. “My mom, too. They’re really just the most supportive parents that anyone could want.”
For more information, visit www.throughbinoculars.com.