Phil Buckman was born on November 18, 1969, in Queens, New York. His career combined bass work with Filter and Fuel, television acting and commercial voiceovers. The move to bass itself began with a practical problem in a college cover band.
Buckman was playing guitar, but the group’s singer would stop playing bass whenever he sang. With another guitarist already in the band, Buckman took over the instrument. “It was a natural fit for me,” he told Chad Cooper in a 2011 interview for 88 Miles West. He had found an instrument that suited him by stepping into a job the band needed someone to do.
He left college to pursue music and became part of the Los Angeles scene with Tribal Sex Cult. Acting offered another way to earn a living. Buckman had acted before college, and when he returned to Los Angeles in 1990, he contacted his agent. His appearance had changed—long hair and earrings were part of his life as a musician—but he was available for roles that suited him. Television work followed, including parts in Drexell’s Class and Boston Public, while music remained part of his working life.
Filter brought him back onto the road in 2010, just as he had been planning to concentrate on acting and voiceovers. Most of The Trouble with Angels was already finished when Buckman and guitarist Rob Patterson arrived, but they helped write “Shot from the Sun,” which appeared among the album’s bonus tracks. In the same 2011 interview, Buckman described room for flexibility onstage, too: the musicians could change breakdowns and follow one another instead of repeating identical arrangements every night.
Fuel followed in 2015. Buckman recalled on his own website that the invitation had initially been to fill in for a week. The brief assignment developed into a much longer commitment, another instance of a temporary return to touring becoming a substantial part of his career.
By June 2020, he was describing the practical demands of that work in an interview with Bass Magazine. Fuel had been flying to shows and using rental amplifiers, so he had reduced his pedalboard to a Line 6 HX Stomp and a wireless system. The board fit inside a backpack that could go into his suitcase, while two basses traveled in a separate case. He had found the sounds he needed in equipment he could carry easily. At home, his interests were expanding into photography and video production.
Those interests came together on a 2020 cover of Muse’s “Hysteria.” As Buckman explained in comments published by Bass Magazine, he contacted guitarist Phil Demmel after seeing one of his remote collaborations and chose the song when invited to suggest something. Demmel recruited drummer Brian Tichy, while Buckman brought in vocalist Lukas Rossi. Each musician recorded at home, and Gabe Lopez mixed the separate recordings. Buckman also directed and edited the video, giving the others instructions for filming their performances. Demmel and Tichy shot their footage on iPhones. The project gave him responsibility for both his bass performance and the way the collaboration appeared onscreen.
In 2021, after filling in on a Steel Panther tour, Buckman stepped away from touring because he felt he was missing too much of his twin daughters’ childhood. After leaving the road, he converted the live room of his music studio into a photography studio, making space for the visual work he had begun developing alongside music.
