Interview with Buddie

December 10, 2025

On November 24, we had the chance to chat with Dan Forrest (vocals, guitar) and Patrick Farrugia (guitar) from the Vancouver-based grunge-pop band Buddie. Following the release of their latest record, Glass, they talked with Dominick about some of its themes—inequity, gender roles, the role of community—the album artwork, and how the band came together.

Glass is out now on Crafted Sounds! Watch the full interview below! 

Dominick: Hi everyone. It's Dominick here for BLIGATORY. I am here with Dan and Patrick from the band Buddie. They just put out their third album, Glass, earlier this month. You guys want to introduce yourself?

Dan: Hey, I'm Dan Forrest, and I sing and play guitar in the band.

Patrick: Hi, I'm Patrick Farrugia. I do other singing and other guitar in the band.

Dan: Yeah, and Lindsay Partin and Natalie Glubb couldn't make it today, but they're bass and drums.

Patrick: So apologies if our answers aren't rhythmic.

Dominick: My first thought when I discovered your guys' music, is there any significance to the spelling of the band's name, opposed to the traditional spelling of buddy? I do know there is a rapper that goes by Buddy, with a y, but as far as I can tell, you both came about, like, right at the same time.

Dan: Yeah, that's a good question. Honestly, I was 20, I was looking for something that looked, like, ‘physically good.’ Like, you know, the bands I grew up listening to when I was, like, really young, like 10, like Weezer, or like Metallica, there was like, a symmetry to the names, and they visually looked nice. And the evenness of the B and the E…also, I thought the Buddy with a Y, especially felt really childish looking, you know? And meaning wise, but like, when you added the I-E, then it's like, I don't know, subversive–die is in there. Yeah, helped add a little bit of mystery to it.

Dominick: This is something we touched upon in the Q&A that we did back when you shared “Stressed In Paradise” and announced the record. But could you expand upon how the current lineup of the band came about after you moved from Philly to Vancouver?

Dan: Yeah, it was kind of serendipitous in a way. I was moving for grad school, COVID happened, live music wasn't a thing. And I was just like, you know, music is a huge part of my life, I knew that wasn't going to stop. And I just went on the internet, searching around, just trying to understand, does Vancouver even have a music scene before I moved to the city, right? I knew some things about its history, but like, what's it like right now? I went on a couple of different forums and stuff. Ultimately, it was a Facebook group, and I just posted, like, “Hey, what's the Vancouver scene like? I have this band, are there bands like this there?” I shared some links, and then, most of the people that responded were like pop punk bands. And I was like, I don't know if this is going to go the direction I was hoping. But Natalie Glubb answered and was like, “Hey, like the music. We used to have a band called wild/kind that's not playing right now, and we're looking to jam if you want to do that when you get here.” I was like, “Oh, that'd be great. I wasn't even necessarily looking for new bandmates quite yet, I just wanted to understand the scene, but I'd love to jam and get to know some people.” Lindsay came along with Nat; they were bass and drums, the rhythm section of wild/kind. And then, took a little while before Pat came around. We were looking for guitarists for a little while, and never quite found the right fit. And then, I don't know…Pat, you want to take over?

Patrick: Yeah. I was kind of without an active band for a while. I had this project, AC-PDF, used to be called DOUSE, and I hadn't been playing live music, I was just doing the solo thing for a bit. But I kind of missed being in a band. So I was like, I'll just go on the Craigslist musician section, see what's going on. And I think I typed in the search bar “shoegaze,” because I'm a very pedal friendly guitarist. So, obviously that genre fits well with it. So, yeah, I looked it up, saw the link, and I'd recognized the band name, because my roommate at the time, Jesse, she's promoting shows, and she just did a show for Buddie. And [she] was like, “Oh yeah, these people are incredibly nice people. Good fit.” And so, I responded. Seeing My Bloody Valentine on the list of influences is like, “okay, hell yeah, let's message and see what's up.” I did a jam and, obviously, I hadn't played in a band for quite a while, so it was a feeling-out process–going out, and being social again. [We] jammed it out and could just tell it was, like, really good vibes. And everyone's just wanting to work towards growing the band, but not sacrificing the concept of having fun playing music. I could tell it was a new kind of approach. [With] previous bands of mine, it was definitely much more stressful, gray-hair inducing, kind of like, “let's be the best we could possibly be,” as in the most technical musicians writing the most technical music. And then with this it’s like, let's just write some good ass fuckin’ pop songs, you know?

Dominick: The music and the lyrics of Buddie have always been pretty heavy on themes of anti-imperialism, the importance of community, and so many issues that are tangled up in the broad reach of capitalism's global influence. Glass is obviously no exception to this. So, how has the move Northwest changed or influenced your perspective on these seemingly core beliefs, and what are some ways that maybe the music scene there is kind of reflective of that?

Dan: That's a great question. I think every time I've moved anywhere spent any time in another location, it's just made it very clear how the world works in another way by showing another setting. In Vancouver, it's really hard to escape how much wealth permeates the city. Wealth inequality is really stark here, in a different way than I was used to in Philadelphia. It's hard to say, exactly. The cost of living is a little lower in Philadelphia. Intense wealth didn't feel like it was a major part of Philly's city–there are rich people there, but a lot of them live in the suburbs. But in Vancouver, it's like, in order to own a home, you're already very, very wealthy, right? And then the the stark inequity between, like, there’s a couple of neighborhoods where people are living in deep poverty, and then a very short distance away, really, really blatant uber wealth. A lot of overt wealth; Lamborghinis and stuff, like driving around here, you see Ferraris and stuff.

Dominick: Patrick, are you from Vancouver? What's your story, or location-based journey?

Patrick: Yeah, I was born in the suburbs of Toronto, but, l grew up in Vancouver since I was, like, single digits age, so Vancouver is basically my home. Greater Vancouver, but yeah, I think living in Vancouver, I kind of agree. There's a large gap of wealth inequality. You have very poor neighborhoods, and then you have neighborhoods that Phil Collins lived in in the 80s–there is a deep, deep divide there.

Dan: Yeah, it just cemented it, really, like my understanding of how things are.

Dominick: Interesting, I feel like there definitely is some of that in Philly, but a lot of the wealth is definitely concentrated in suburbs. But there definitely is, these weird areas where you go from these nice–maybe not “nice,” they look cheaply made, but fancy-ish looking townhouses, and then you go the next block, and you have blocks of buildings torn down. So yeah, I’ll have to check out Vancouver and see how that compares, because I haven't been that far west at all.

Patrick: Yeah, it’s a beautiful city, I would recommend.

Dan: To give one other angle on it, it's like, more of a global city that has ties to global wealth, I would say. People come from all over, knowing that this is an amazing place to live and bring their money from anywhere in the world, right? Whereas, Philadelphia feels more like home-brewed in a sense. There's all the same stuff. Gentrification is happening. People living in deep poverty, being displaced. It's all the same sorts of oppressive forces. However, here it's clear that there's a flow that's coming from, like, global supply chains, and the CEOs of large companies have homes here. There's like 11 billionaires that live in Vancouver, there's over, what was it? I think 60 centamillionaires, like, there's “elite” wealth, you know? Yeah, it's very strange.

Dominick: This next question is not directly related to that, but obviously related to Glass, which I'll say it again, great album. And I love the artwork; I was looking through the Instagram of Haley Perry (@carnivorousart), who did the artwork for it. I really, really like their art style. And I'm wondering, how much collaboration came about during that process, how much of a vision did you have, or either of you, or the band, have for the cover, versus letting Haley take their art style and just kind of do their thing with it?

Patrick: If I recall correct, I think we kind of just let them do their thing for most of it. Maybe we had a couple notes here and there with, like, the background color. Like, I think they presented a few options of different backgrounds. But, for the most part, it was just like, hey, we enjoy this artist's style, let's let them represent that to our music, essentially,

Dan: Yeah, I think Pat's been friends with Haley for a while, has been a fan for a while, and was like, “hey, check out this artist.” And I was like, wow, yeah, it's, like, really cool stuff. It feels like it fits the vibe very well. Like, there's some eerie undertones to Haley's art, but there's also bright colors, and that contrast kind of sits in our music. And yeah, Haley mostly just checked in with us about themes a little bit, and then presented a handful of drafts, and then we just kind of whittled it down a little bit, and then eventually, produced the final product. And we’re just so grateful for their creativity and talent.

Dominick: Yeah, that's a good way to put it, the sort of eeriness and the undertones of that, because, I feel like, kinda goes for the case for a lot of the album. But I think of, like, “Stressed In Paradise,” specifically, because that was the lead single and it just really stuck with me. It's so catchy and it sounds so fun, but it's also just very clearly focused on these ideas of inequality and the inability to, like you said, escape these issues of capitalism that extend globally, and the issues of gentrification and people being displaced are present in any city. And, yeah, that's just a really good way of putting it. I'm gonna have to take another look at the artwork and really let that soak in.

Patrick: Yeah, I really appreciate the dream-like style of their artwork. One of the most creative visual artists I've probably ever met. But yeah, I think it kind of ties in well with, I guess, you know, dreaming of a better world in our music.

Dominick: In “Antarctica, 2005” you have the lines of, “we're watching Rocky, but I can't relate / I've never cared for a fight, never thought James Bond was tight.” Feel free to expand on the song and its meaning itself in answering this. But, I'm also wondering, who in place of these very masculine, over-the-top action heroes, were you all looking up to in the mid-2000s, be that fictional characters or real life?

Dan: When I was thinking about the line, I was just thinking about, like, certain friendships I've had, ideas about gender, and what were the culturally dominant ideas that were kind of imposed on us. And like, do we embrace that? Is that a choice? It's like, most of that kind of happens passively, as children, right? You absorb the social norms that are around you, and then, yeah, I don't know. I was thinking specifically about a friend that I would go over to his house. His dad was a really macho guy, trying to have his son be the best football player in our school. He actually moved schools to become a football quarterback at another school. And that is was what was playing in his house, and, like, shared to him. And then I was like, “Oh, is this who I should be,” right? So I don't know, yeah, I was mostly thinking about that, not necessarily who I was looking up to. Maybe that was part of the problem, is that I didn't see an image of “masculinity” that like felt like something I wanted to embrace?

Dominick: I'm going to out myself here. I don't think I've seen any of the James Bond movies or the Rocky movies, which is interesting because, I've done the Rocky Steps, I've seen the statue, but I don't know, likewise, those types of things never really stood out to me, as like, I want to be this big tough boxer man.

Dan: Music maybe self selects for, like, a certain type, I guess.

Patrick: I'll say that the Daniel Craig era of James Bond movies definitely helps tear down that sort of image of James Bond as this hyper-masculine, you know, obviously, there's the scene of him coming out of the water, all muscle-y and wet and whatnot. I would recommend those movies. They're good movies, the Daniel Craig ones, at least. Some of the older ones are a bit miss.

Dan: I don't know, all I can say is true story: fell asleep in the theater every time. I've been to three my friends were all going to around that era, maybe like 11 to 15, or something like that, late 2000s-ish. And, yeah, there's like, explosions happening and so much action, but it was so dull to me. I can't explain it. Nothing grabbed me from it, but, you know, to each their own. But yeah, as far as the masculine trope, that was definitely part of those characters, right? There's a lot to Rocky, it's not all just about masculinity; there's an underdog trope that's pretty cool, there's the Philadelphia pride, I love that. I'm always going to be a Philadelphian through and through. But yeah, the we should be beating people up, get the bad guys, be strong–that that is like the masculine ideal, I think there's a lot more to life.

Patrick: RRR has some good masculinity in it, for sure, if you've seen that one…the Tollywood movie.

Dominick: I guess I'll have to add all of these to my watch list.

Patrick: If you’re living in Philly, you should watch Rocky, and then just watch with a critical eye.

Dominick: I don't know if it was Golden Eye or if it was a different one. I did play the James Bond, at least one of the games, with my brother quite a bit when I was really young, and I really enjoy whatever the one very snowy level was.

Patrick: Probably Golden Eye, yeah. Insane soundtrack, so good.

Dominick: I have just one last question. It's a bit on the silly side, but I feel like I would be missing an opportunity if I didn't ask. I mentioned earlier that there's a rapper named Buddy, but I feel like I have to also mention some other similarly named bands. Might have heard of some of these, Friendship and Friend, both out of Philly. There is also a Cleveland band by the name of PAL that put out a pretty good record in March this year. My thought, is there any chance that we could get all of you together–or there's probably some other ones that could fit within this realm–as like, some sort of ‘power friendship’ tour?

Dan: Hey, if you pitch it, you know, we’d jump on board probably.

Patrick: Yeah, just need to pay those couple grand for the visas, and then we'll be good to go.

Dan: Oh yeah, true. Friendship, shout out to that band, one of the first bands that I encountered in Philly, and actually, like, was supposed to play a show with them when we were like, 21 right around that time, and one band member was underage, and we couldn't play the show, they found out that we weren't old enough to play. Band was called Twin, good times. But, yeah, they’ve gone on to make great music, it's cool stuff to see.

Patrick: Also shout out to friendship in general as a concept.

Dominick: Is there anything else that you guys really wanted to talk about in regards to the record? Like I said, Glass came out earlier this month via Crafted Sounds, shout out, fantastic record.

Dan: Yeah, I mean, go listen to all the other Crafted Sounds bands. They're playing in the Philly area quite a bit, and are also putting out great music, like the whole roster is doing great stuff right now. Also, we're gonna come play New Colossus in March 2026, which is the closest we'll be to Philly for the foreseeable future. It's in New York City.

Dominick: Well, thank you so much for taking the time to hop on here. Mentioned earlier, we've also got a Q&A on the BLIGATORY website. Touched upon some similar themes in this interview, but there's some more there as well.