by Gavin Heaney
There is something deeply fulfilling about Jeremy Buck being the first act to hit the BeachLife Music Festival’s main stage when the festival opens Friday, May 1. Although the line up boasts household names, no one has more skin in the game than the music man who lives here in Redondo Beach. He built his career here, song by song, gig by gig, across more than two decades of doing it the hard way in the South Bay. When he walks out onto the High Tide Stage in Redondo Beach on Friday to open the festival, it will feel like destiny.
Buck grew up in Bedford, Indiana, a small town in Lawrence County where the work ethic runs deep and the music scene runs thin. Over 20 years ago, he packed everything he had into a 1989 Honda Accord and pointed it west.
“I knew I needed to be in California,” he said. “This was where it was at.
He found the South Bay and never left. What followed was the kind of career that doesn’t make for a neat Hollywood origin story, but makes for a real one. Gigging five and six nights a week at the Lighthouse, Hennessey’s, Mickey Finn’s, Sharks Cove, the Shore — every room in the South Bay that would have him. Van tours through the Midwest, up through the Northwest, into Idaho. Sync placements on ABC and The CW. Radio airplay. International commercial features. A shared stage with Snoop Dogg and Morris Day on Jimmy Kimmel Live!. None of it arrived in a single moment. All of it was earned, turn by turn. “I’ve never given up the hope and the dream,” he said. “To continue to be able to do what I love to do — make music, bring people together, and hopefully make a difference for that hour, ninety minutes, however long I get on stage.”
The band that will join him at BeachLife is the same band he started with. Guitarist Chris Hanna and bassist Joel Geist have been at Buck’s side for over two decades, The three of them — Buck on vocals and piano, Hanna on guitar, Geist on bass — have been rehearsing every Sunday since March, the kind of deep preparation that turns a gig into a statement. Buck’s wife, Carolyn cooks dinner for the band after each session as his two kids Zia and Lennon buzz around the studio. “It’s more than just a gig,” he said. “This is a lifestyle.” Their debut album, “The Secret Made of Dreams,” came out in 2005. The same crew that made that record is walking onto the main stage 20 years later, joined by longtime friends Steve Aguilar on keys, Brian Holley on drums, Dani Armstrong, Tia Simone and Charis Rey on backing vocals.
BeachLife marks what may be the biggest moment of that career, and he’s arriving at it with a brand new single to share. “Just a Little Bit” will drop on April 24 on all streaming platforms. It’s a funk-infused, punk-driven rock anthem that bangs like a festival opener. The song’s origin is South Bay all the way. The day after BeachLife organizer Alan Sanford called to offer Buck the High Tide Stage slot, Buck needed to post something on social media to announce the news. He sat down inspired, devised a guitar riff, recorded it on the spot, shot a video in his driveway and posted it.
“A week later I wake up in the morning and I have these lyrics coming to my mind,” he said. “Can you give me just a little bit? Can you give me just a little bit? That’s not enough, I want a little bit more. That’s it!” The social media post became a song. The song became the single. The single became the soundtrack to the biggest moment of his career. The subject matter, as with most of Buck’s music, is autobiographical. “It really sums up my career to this point,” he said. “It’s not enough, I want a little bit more. I’ve never been able to satiate this desire to continue to create and make music. It’s human nature to want more. For me it’s chasing the next song, and the next great stage I can perform it on.”
Buck knew from the moment the riff clicked that the production this song wanted was a room, not a laptop. “This needed a live band sound. Real drums. Everybody in the room at the same time, tracking like the old school way.” He booked Total Access Recording Studio in Redondo Beach — a South Bay institution whose walls have absorbed sessions from Guns N’ Roses, Sublime and Pennywise — and knocked the tracking out in essentially a single day.
“We tracked all the music in one day, and I did the vocals in about an hour.” Engineer Steve Ornest captured everything clean and fast. For the mix, Buck made a call he’d been thinking about since the song first took shape: Kevin Shirley, one of rock’s most celebrated producers, whose credits include Joe Bonamassa, Iron Maiden, Led Zeppelin, Journey and Aerosmith. Shirley mixed it at Ocean Way on Music Row in Nashville. “It just explodes out of the speakers,” Buck said. “I’m just so excited for this song.”
Buck is driven to stretch for the best, to treat an independent release with the same seriousness as a major label record, which says everything about who he is as an artist. Every step of his career has been taken with his bandmates, his wife, and a small tight circle of people who believed in the music. “I’ve done it all independently,” he said, “and I feel like right now, where the world is at, this is the place to be. All the skill sets I’ve had to learn just to survive in this industry — all the hats I’ve had to wear — have only prepared me for the next step. BeachLife is the launch pad.”
In 2005, the same year the debut album came out, Buck founded Rock for Tots — an annual charity concert that rallies South Bay musicians every holiday season to raise money and collect toys for children in need. Twenty years later it’s still running, as much a part of his legacy as any record he’s made. That’s not a publicity move. That’s character. And it’s the kind of thing that earns a community’s genuine affection.
Friday, May 1, 2 p.m., on the High Tide Stage, the hometown hero with the unflappable mohawk, who built his scene here and gave everything back to it, will open BeachLife 2026. Get there early. ER
