OXFORD NOLAND

Oxford Noland is the indie rock brainchild of cousins Shua Harrell and Aaron 'Bucky' Buckingham. The two grew up skateboarding, playing golf, and wandering their grandparents’ strawberry farm around their native Plant City, Florida. Their musical connection was influenced early-on through weekend gatherings at the farm, listening to their family swap classic folk and gospel tunes.
“That family get-together is part, if not all of why we are the way we are with music,” Shua remembers. “I’d play guitar in the living room with all of our uncles as well as our Papa. It wasn’t that we even sounded great, it was just that we were there doing it. Because both our grandparents have passed away now, in my mind we are trying to share the same feeling people, that we experienced with our family.”
Eventually the cousins began playing together and pursuing their own musical direction, Shua on guitars and Bucky on drums. "The fact that we're family is so huge.” reflects Bucky. “Neither one of us have a brother, so being close in age we've really grown up like brothers.” Shua adds “I know family will always transcend everything. We’ll always be family and it would be impossible to break up. That’s what’s so beautiful about this. We take our lives experience and combine it to share the feeling of music and connection.” The familial trust enables a true collaboration between the two, which has been developing for nearly 10 years.
"Back when we first started playing, it was Americana. We had an upright bass player and we put out an EP under the name Bootleggers and Baptists.” Bucky says, adding “it's mind-blowing to think about that now.” At some point they went electric and swapped their bass player for a microkorg acquired on a whim from a jam session, but they wisely carried over Shua's potent and elevated lyrics, and songwriting to their next evolution. The result was a sound somewhere between Radiohead and Fleet Foxes; thus, Oxford Noland was born.