The Story Behind Covers Volume One

Greetings, Buskers! 👋

Every band has a list. A running, ever-growing, passionately-debated list of covers they love playing live. Songs that make a crowd go properly mental. Songs that feel like they were written for four-part harmonies and a cajon. Songs you just can't help but belt out every single time.

Covers Volume One is our list. Recorded live. Released into the world on the spookiest night of the year.

🎃 Halloween at The Loft

We couldn't have asked for a better night to launch it. The Loft in Plymouth, sold out, fancy dress encouraged — and honestly? The crowd were as much a part of that record as we were. You can hear it in every track. The energy, the singalongs, the moments where the room just took over completely.

That's what a live covers album should sound like. Not polished within an inch of its life — real. Present. Human.

🎵 Picking the Songs

This was, diplomatically speaking, a vigorous process. Every member of this band has strong opinions about music (unsurprising, given we've been playing together for eleven years) and getting four people to agree on a final tracklist is roughly as straightforward as herding cats in a hurricane.

But that tension is what makes the record work. These aren't just songs we thought would go down well. These are songs we genuinely love — tracks that mean something to us, that we've worn in over years of gigs and festivals until they feel like our own.

📀 Limited CDs and Streaming

For those of you who grabbed one of the 50 limited CDs at the Halloween launch — thank you, and we hope you treasure that slightly chaotic piece of Busketeers history. For everyone else, the album is streaming now on all major platforms.

Give it a listen. Let us know which track is your favourite in the comments. And if you were in that room on Halloween night — we hope you remember it as fondly as we do.

Much love,

Ken, Luke, Olly and Matt 🎸

What Actually Happens on a Band Tour (The Honest Version)

Greetings, Buskers! 👋

People see the stage. The lights, the crowd, the set. What they don't see is the two hours before the gig where someone can't find the drum key, the sat nav is arguing with itself, and we're all surviving on a single bag of Haribo and misplaced optimism.

Here's what life on the One For All tour actually looks like.

🚐 The Van

The van is our office, our dressing room, our dining room, and occasionally our bedroom. It smells like guitar cases and instant coffee. Someone always has their feet up where they shouldn't. The aux cord argument is a daily ritual. We wouldn't change any of it.

⏰ The Soundcheck

Soundcheck is where you find out whether the gig is going to be plain sailing or a complete adventure. Sometimes everything clicks in twenty minutes and you feel like a proper rock band. Other times you spend forty-five minutes chasing a mysterious hum that turns out to be someone's phone charger. Both outcomes are, in their own way, character building.

🎤 The Green Room

We use the term loosely. It might be an actual green room. It might be a stock cupboard with a mirror balanced on a crate. It might be the car park. On a good night there's a rider. On a great night the rider has actual food on it rather than just a warm six-pack and a packet of Rich Tea biscuits.

🙌 The 60 Seconds Before We Walk On

This bit never gets old. Doesn't matter if it's a packed festival field or a Tuesday night in a pub with forty people in — there's something about that sixty seconds in the wings before the first chord lands that still makes every single one of us buzz. That's why we do it.

☀️ What's Coming Up

The One For All tour is still rolling — and festival season is just around the corner. If you haven't grabbed your tickets yet, head to the Tour page and come find us. We promise the soundcheck stories are worth it.

See you down the front. 🎸

Much love,

Ken, Luke, Olly and Matt 🎸

P.S. Drop us a comment — what's the best (or worst) venue you've ever seen us play? We have some opinions of our own…

11 Years, One Van, and No Signs of Stopping

Greetings, Buskers! 👋

Eleven years. We've been saying it to each other all week and it still doesn't feel real.

Eleven years since four lads set up on the streets of Plymouth with a cajon, a couple of guitars, and absolutely no plan whatsoever. No manager, no record deal, no idea what we were doing — just a shared love of music and the sneaking suspicion that people might actually stop and listen.

Spoiler: some of them did.

🚐 One Van. Many Miles.

If the Busketeers van could talk, it would probably ask for a long rest and an apology. Over eleven years it's carried us to festivals from Cornwall to who-knows-where, survived more late-night motorway service station stops than any vehicle should, and witnessed some truly questionable singing on the A38.

From busking pitches to Plymouth Pavilions. From the streets to Boardmasters. From open mic nights to sharing a stage with The Wailers. It's been quite a ride.

🎸 What 11 Years Actually Looks Like

It looks like Kendall, Luke, Olly and Matt still genuinely loving every minute of it. It looks like a debut album, a sold-out Halloween cover album launch, a live session with John Cornfield — the producer behind Muse and Oasis — at Sawmill Studios in Fowey. It looks like thousands of you singing along at Rock Oyster, Leopallooza, Tunes In The Dunes, and a hundred pubs and venues in between.

Most of all, it looks like you lot. The fans who've been there from the early busking days. The ones who found us at a festival and never left. The ones who bring their mates, buy the merch, and shout the words back at us louder than we sing them ourselves.

This band exists because of you. Always has.

🔥 And We're Just Getting Started

2026 is the One For All tour. New original music. Fresh merch. Bigger stages. The next chapter is well underway and honestly? We think it might be the best one yet.

So here's to 11 years. Here's to the van. Here's to every single one of you who's been part of this ridiculous, wonderful journey.

See you on the road. 🎸

Much love,

Ken, Luke, Olly and Matt 🎸

P.S. — If you've got a memory of seeing us early on — a busk, a tiny pub gig, a festival set — drop it in the comments. We'd genuinely love to read them.