Rick Buckler

Paul Richard Buckler (6 December 1955 – 17 February 2025) was an English musician who was the drummer of the rock band the Jam.

Although the Jam's creative output came to be attributed primarily to Paul Weller, its rhythm section of Buckler and Bruce Foxton (bass guitar) were integral to its sound. In retrospect, Buckler felt that Weller had been given undue credit for the band's song catalogue to the detriment of its other members' contributions.

In the mid-1980s, Buckler briefly reunited with Foxton, and with Jimmy Edwards they performed in a new band called Sharp, recording some new songs for the short-lived Unicorn record label. After Time UK broke up, Buckler moved into production, running a studio in Islington, working on the album Bound for Glory by the Highliners (which he also drummed for briefly in 1990). He was also involved in the production of the debut studio album of the Family Cat, Tell 'Em We're Surfin (1989).

In the mid-1990s, Buckler abandoned professional music and went into business as an ad hoc carpenter, fashioning cabinets and 'distressed' furniture in Woking, Surrey. In 2005, Buckler re-entered professional music when he set up a new band called the Gift, named after the final studio album release by the Jam, with Russell Hastings and Dave Moore, with himself on drums, playing exclusively old material from the Jam's back catalogue. In 2007, Foxton joined as the bassist and the new band began touring under the name of From the Jam. After four years of touring, Buckler left From the Jam in September 2009.

Paul Richard Buckler was born on 6 December 1955 in the town of Woking in the county of Surrey, England, to Bill and Peggy Buckler (nee White), a telephone engineer and factory worker respectively. He received his education at Sheerwater Secondary School, in Woking. While there in the early 1970s, he joined other pupils Paul Weller and Bruce Foxton in a newly formed band named the Jam. Buckler began an A-Level in technical drawing but abandoned his studies after a year. He worked as a trainee draughtsman for four years until the Jam's breakthrough.

Biography summary from English Wikipedia, photograph via Wikimedia Commons.