A powerful and prolific storyteller through his songcraft, Jake Smith, aka The White Buffalo’s body of work includes prominent song and soundtrack placements in the worlds of TV and Film including the TV series Sons Of Anarchy, This Is Us, Californication, The Punisher, The Terminal List, and the films Shelter, Safe Haven and West of Memphis. The White Buffalo’s dark blues and light Americana-roots-tinged folk provided a soundtrack of tunes for the entire seven-season run of the FX original series Sons of Anarchy, which included 11 songs overall. The last song in the series finale for SOA, “Come Join The Murder,” earned The White Buffalo his first-ever Emmy Award Nomination. NPR’s “All Songs Considered” hailed The White Buffalo as an “amazing storyteller,” the Los Angeles Times added “Smith’s baritone echoes with villains and misfits, drunks, and philistines,” while Classic Rock magazine declared TWB “America’s darkest country/blues export…imagine a blue collar Tom Waits, or Nick Cave pumping gas in a station just off the highway.”
The White Buffalo released his most recent critically acclaimed studio album, Year of the Dark Horse, in 2023. The Telegraph hailed Year of the Dark Horse “a big, bold, uncompromising album in which Smith’s almost confrontationally honest lyrics, rich melodies and emotional voice have been given the kind of expansive setting they deserve,” while American Songwriter described it as a “tilt-a-whirl of melting soundscapes, a funhouse of melodies that shape-shift in your ears.” Elsewhere, Saving Country Music said it “goes beyond a concept album, it’s almost like a mini musical of the past year of Jake Smith’s life. …a brilliantly written album.” A collection of 12 musical vignettes, Year of the Dark Horse was recorded at Neon Cross studio in Nashville with producer Jay Joyce (Eric Church, Brothers Osbourne, Fidlar)--the 10-track album earned The White Buffalo critical praise across the globe.
September 2024 saw the release of his first-ever live album ‘A Fright Train Through The Night. ’ Smith describes the record as “This album spans my entire career, over 20-plus years of writing and performing songs. With more than a hundred songs to choose from, some of these tracks I wrote in my 20s, and others were born just years ago. We selected crowd favorites and some deep cuts to give them a new life.” He adds, “We also did a completely reworked adaptation of the song ‘House of the Rising Sun.’ I wanted to establish a definitive version that was all our own, and representative of our sound, giving a fresh alternative to the original “Sons of Anarchy” show version. This album has all the emotion and passion of the live experience; it’s visceral, in a way that can’t be attained in the studio. What we do live is wildly different than studio albums. Pure and raw, no backing tracks, no auto tune, and not perfect, it’s the three of us giving it our all, us in our purest form.”