{"id":2075513,"date":"2026-08-03T20:35:19","date_gmt":"2026-08-03T17:35:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2075513"},"modified":"2026-08-03T20:35:19","modified_gmt":"2026-08-03T17:35:19","slug":"buffalo-traffic-jam-talks-capturing-a-transformative-year-on-its-audible-photo-catalog-of-a-debut-album-pictures-of-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2075513","title":{"rendered":"Buffalo Traffic Jam Talks Capturing a Transformative Year on Its \u2018Audible Photo Catalog\u2019 of a Debut Album, \u2018Pictures\u00a0of\u00a0You\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.billboard.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Buffalo-Traffic-Jam-Kendall-Kelly-billboard-1800.jpg?w=1024″]<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\tTrending on Billboard\t\t<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n

\n\tFolk-rock duo Buffalo Traffic Jam\u2019s Frankie Cassidy and his bandmate Nathan Ross were on the road late last year, opening shows for Dylan Gossett, when Cassidy received the call that his grandmother had unexpectedly passed away.\u00a0He made the decision to leave the tour for a couple of days to be with his family \u2014 a decision that would ultimately guide the concept behind the duo\u2019s recently released debut album.\u00a0
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\u201cMy family is all from Maryland. I flew there to be with\u00a0them,\u00a0and we were looking through old pictures for her funeral,\u201d Cassidy recalls to Billboard. \u201cIt was bittersweet looking at all the pictures, and seeing her life unfold.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\tBillboard\t\t<\/p>\n<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

See latest videos, charts and news<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n\tThat moment of selecting photos that would most clearly portray key moments in his grandmother\u2019s life sparked the idea for the titular track of Buffalo Traffic Jam\u2019s debut album,\u00a0Pictures of You<\/em>, which was released July 31 on Arista Records.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI fell in love with this idea of how all these songs could also be a picture of our lives over the past year and how all the crazy things have been from graduating college to now touring and doing this full-time,\u201d Cassidy says. \u201cThis album is like an audible photo catalog.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tCassidy and Ross met while attending Montana State University\u00a0in Bozeman, Montana, where Ross was pursuing a degree in mechanical engineering, while Cassidy was studying architecture. Both influenced by artists such as Zach Bryan and Noah\u00a0Kahan, they\u00a0began\u00a0collaborating on music in 2024.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cOne day I was in Yellowstone National Park and ended up getting stuck in a buffalo traffic jam for a few\u00a0hours,\u00a0so I added it to our list [of potential band names] as a joke,\u201d Cassidy says of the duo\u2019s band name. \u201cThen a year later, we started releasing music. I used to work in a kitchen in\u00a0college,\u00a0and we\u00a0came up with\u00a0Cigarettes\u00a0In\u00a0the Handicap Stall [as another\u00a0option] \u2026we were always laughing, too, because especially in Yellowstone,\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0not buffalo,\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0bison.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\n\tCassidy and Ross graduated in May 2025 and that same month signed with Arista, on the strength of songs including \u201cRescue Me\u201d and \u201cForgot Your Roots.\u201d They issued a 2024 self-titled EP, followed by 2025\u2019s\u00a0Take Me Home<\/em>. It was the heartbreaking \u201cFool\u2019s Gold,\u201d released in September 2025, that became their breakthrough, reaching into the top 5 on Billboard<\/em>\u2019s Adult Alternative Airplay chart.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe new album builds upon that EP, and folds in a more full-bodied sound with a broader range of instruments. But the project is still infused with elements of a rustic, pared-back sound that\u00a0evokes\u00a0the feel of Montana\u2019s rugged terrains, lofty mountain\u00a0peaks\u00a0and wide valleys.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThey worked with five different producers on songs for the project, including Brian\u00a0Elmquist, Ryan Hadlock, Sam\u00a0Westhoff, Carrie K and Joe Becker, a producer they had previously worked with in Bozeman and who is known for his work with Sam Barber.\u00a0
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\u201cMe and Nate had written these songs together acoustically, but it just felt right making this album, working with different producers and it never felt like we were straying from Buffalo Traffic Jam, it felt like we were just elevating the sound the entire time,\u201d Cassidy says.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\n\tThey worked with co-writer and producer Carrie K on \u201cBuyin\u2019 Dirt\u201d in Nashville. \u201cWe were talking with Carrie and got to the topic of childhood homes,\u201d Ross says. \u201cMe and Nate\u2019s old, first-ever apartment, we lived in together, we talked about\u00a0driving by\u00a0there and seeing other people outside of it, and so we wrote it about driving by a family home and seeing another family there. Carrie\u2019s a phenomenal drummer, and that was the first time we used real drums and had a real drummer in the room, and the album is the first time we had full session players.\u201d\u00a0
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Cassidy\u00a0wrote\u00a0the album\u2019s\u00a0\u201cLuckiest Man Alive\u201d last summer, capturing\u00a0the whirlwind year the duo has had. Since then,\u00a0they\u2019ve\u00a0only added to their musical\u00a0r\u00e9sum\u00e9,\u00a0recently performing sold-out shows at the Troubadour, playing at Bonnaroo, and shows in Germany, Ireland and the U.K.
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\u201cAt the time, everything was just really crazy \u2014 it felt just way too much out of the gate, and life was weird,\u201d Cassidy says. \u201cBut at the same time, you know you\u2019re the luckiest man alive to be doing this right after college and pursuing your dreams.\u201d\u00a0
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\u201cThat\u2019s the biggest lifestyle change I\u2019ve ever experienced,\u201d Ross adds.\u00a0 \u201cFrom living in Bozeman for the past four years \u2014\u00a0and now we pretty much aren\u2019t in Bozeman, ever.\u201d
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They took the song to Nashville and finished writing and recording it with\u00a0Elmquist.\u00a0\u00a0
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\u201cHe\u2019s\u00a0an extravagant producer.\u00a0He\u2019s\u00a0got this homey little recording space in Nashville. It\u00a0doesn\u2019t\u00a0feel like the big Nashville studios, which sometimes I feel a little overwhelmed in,\u201d\u00a0Cassidy\u00a0says. \u201cHe\u2019s just running around the room, grabbing things\u2026 one of the drums in that song is literally just his leather sandal smacking the floor, and we thought it was cool and it made the final cut, he just modified it a little in Logic.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\n\tRoss and Cassidy wrote much of\u00a0Pictures of You<\/em>\u00a0while on the road the past year \u2014 a time span that has seen the duo evolve on the road as well as in the studio. When they were doing some of those early shows opening for Gossett, the duo says they had no tour manager at the time, and they jumped into learning the ropes of touring themselves.\u00a0
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\u201cWe learned a lot from our own experiences. We used my personal truck and ended up buying a little trailer.\u00a0It\u00a0was just me and Nate driving eight hours to the next show and staying at hotels. We wrote more together than we ever had\u2026 it\u2019s a little easier now that we have a whole crew, and we filled\u00a0out the band and all travel on a bandwagon,\u201d Cassidy says.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe split the tasks\u00a0[of routing and booking accommodations]\u00a0a bit for that,\u201d Ross recalls of the band\u2019s road-dog early days. \u201cThere was one time Frank booked the\u00a0hotel,\u00a0and we showed up at a hotel in, like,\u00a0Idaho at 4:00 a.m. on Oct. 6 or something, and Frankie had booked the hotel for some time in November. I had a couple of bad hotels I booked, too. There was one where we got\u00a0there\u00a0and the\u00a0sheets\u00a0were wet in the hotel. It was disgusting.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tNow with road support and a band with them, they launched their first headlining tour earlier this year, playing\u00a0up to 600-cap rooms\u00a0(\u201cWe didn\u2019t want to skip any steps,\u201d Cassidy says). They engineered their setlist to leave room for experimentation and fine-tuning the new album.\u00a0
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\u201cWe always kept this one slot open in our set list every night, and if we wrote something\u00a0that\u00a0week and we felt comfortable with it, we\u2019d try it out,\u201d Ross says. \u201cThen, it was a two-sided coin, because we wrote\u00a0all of\u00a0these songs with a mandolin and guitar.\u00a0Some songs you kind of wanted to keep that feel of just the guitar and mandolin, and maybe just add a piano in there and really keep it simple.\u00a0But other times \u2014\u00a0there\u2019s\u00a0a song called \u2018Graves\u2019 on this record, we had written with just guitar and mandolin. In our mind it was a folk\u00a0song,\u00a0and we took that to Joe\u00a0[Becker]\u00a0here in Montana and turned it into a kind of indie rock song that we all love.\u00a0So,\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0just experimenting with that sound and how simple or extravagant you want to go with it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThey have a stacked lineup of shows through next year, including two sold-out shows at NYC\u2019s Irving Plaza, stops at Atlanta\u2019s Buckhead Theatre and Chicago\u2019s House of Blues, as well as overseas shows in Australia and Europe. Though their tour schedule is increasingly taking them far from Bozeman, they take pride in\u00a0representing\u00a0some of the tight-knit musical community that is growing in the area.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThere\u2019s\u00a0just some cool music coming out of Bozeman. Sam\u00a0[Barber]\u2019s here, too,\u201d Cassidy says. \u201cI was writing with him about a month and a half ago.\u00a0It\u2019s\u00a0just so small and connected, and Joe Becker\u2019s\u00a0working\u00a0with him.\u00a0There\u2019s\u00a0like\u00a0one music store in\u00a0Bozeman;\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0like a community hub. You go in there and buy mic stands and\u00a0you\u2019re\u00a0going to be there an hour\u00a0just\u00a0talking to them about how tour has been.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Billboard<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

[analyse_source url=”https:\/\/www.billboard.com\/music\/country\/buffalo-traffic-jam-debut-album-pictures-of-you-1236308412\/”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.billboard.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Buffalo-Traffic-Jam-Kendall-Kelly-billboard-1800.jpg?w=1024″] Trending on Billboard Folk-rock duo Buffalo Traffic Jam\u2019s Frankie Cassidy and his bandmate Nathan Ross were on the road late last year, opening shows for Dylan Gossett, when Cassidy received the call that his grandmother had unexpectedly passed away.\u00a0He made the decision to leave the tour for a couple of days to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[48,226],"class_list":["post-2075513","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-billboard-com","tag-crawlmanager"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2075513","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2075513"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2075513\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2075513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2075513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2075513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}