Captain Buckles formed out of the city's deep bench of working musicians — the sidemen who spend their careers backing everyone else's tours and sessions. Guitarist Alexander Mallet (Florida, 8+ years in New Orleans), bassist and vocalist Smitti Supab (the band's leader, formerly of Los Angeles, 13+ years in New Orleans), keyboardist Phil Breen (Pennsylvania, 21+ years in New Orleans), and New Orleans natives Rob Davis (keys, vocals) and Ezell "EZ" Smith Jr. (drums) had crossed paths for years, backing touring and local acts including Eric Lindell, Samantha Fish, Russell Batiste, John "Papa" Gros, Glen David Andrews, and Chapel Hart. Around 2023, they turned that chemistry into a band of their own.
The band's sound draws from The Meters, the Allman Brothers, and The Band, filtered through the specific grooves and funk of New Orleans — hard-jamming but attentive to dynamics, irreverent but genuinely skilled. Their debut single, "Bucket of Fish," written by Mallet, arrived in July 2024. In 2025, the Threadhead Cultural Foundation awarded the band a grant to record their debut full-length album — an opportunity, as the band has described it, usually reserved for signed acts.
That album, Hurry Up, was recorded over three days at Dockside Studio in Maurice, Louisiana — the same room that has hosted Dr. John and B.B. King — engineered by Justin Tocket and produced by the band. Most of its tracks are Mallet's kinetic funk instrumentals, alongside vocal numbers like "Bus Station Blues" and "Raindrops on Mardi Gras" (sung by Davis) and the rock ballad "This Time," written by a close friend of the band, Michael Darby. Hurry Up was released November 14, 2025, on cassette, digital download, and streaming. The band performed "Raindrops on Mardi Gras" on WWL-TV's Great Day Louisiana ahead of the release, and plays regularly at Cafe Negril and BMac's Bar & Courtyard.
