Joe Buck has a problem with art and music today.

Lots of problems, actually. The country-punk songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, who was born Jim Finklea and performs under the moniker Joe Buck Yourself, was more than happy to count his grievances during a recent interview with GO! Magazine. For Buck, modern music lacks purpose and value; it’s too convenient.

“That’s why I love old music — not because it’s old, or old-timey,” Buck said from Winslow, Arizona, on a day off from his five-week tour that lands at the Volcanic Theatre Pub on Wednesday. “Because you can tell it has value and worth, and it was of purpose. There was a reason why it existed, not just to pass four minutes on a radio station in between commercials.”

Perhaps most egregious of all in Buck’s mind: Today’s artists aren’t giving back enough. That’s why Buck’s music is always about his audience and never about himself. He recalled meeting a fan at a recent show:

“Some girl, she gave me — she bought a patch; it was $5 and she gave me $11,” Buck said. “And I was like, ‘What are you doing? It’s only $5,’ and she goes, ‘Nah, I just want you to have it.’ And I was like, ‘Well, here,’ and I gave her two CDs, OK, and she’s like, ‘Oh, I didn’t expect that.’ And I go, ‘Yeah, well, there you go.’ You get a lot more by giving than you do by taking; it’s really that easy. Just by her generosity she received a lot more than what she (would have) got. … All the great artists, they were giving. Bob Marley was a selfless f—— artist; Hank Williams was a selfless artist; Louis Jordan was a selfless artist.”

Despite his vehement anger — and Buck is angry about all this, his voice rising to a shout at various points during the conversation — he’s not interested in living in the past. His music bears this out, from his early days with country-punk groups Gringo and Th’ Legendary Shack Shakers; to his long stint as bassist for Hank Williams III (grandson of Buck’s hero, Hank Williams); to the one-man band cowpunk shows he’s played since the mid-2000s.

Buck performs seated, playing distorted acoustic guitar and punctuating his songs with the kick drum set up in front of him.

It’s far from the traditional country sounds of Williams Sr., but that would be disingenuous given Buck’s proselytizing about honesty in music.

“I’m trying to push it backwards,” he said. “It’s like, cars aren’t cooler than they were in the ’40s and ’50s, houses aren’t cooler, buildings aren’t cooler, the music’s not cooler. I’m not a histrionic person; I used to be when I was trying to be Hank Williams 30 years ago or whatever. Well, I mean, I was young, I didn’t know. You can’t just throw on those clothes and sing old music and it’s 1951, because it wasn’t. But it’s like, how do you use that (stuff) and make it relevant today?”

In keeping with all this, Buck sticks to smaller cities and venues on his tours, driving himself across the country and staying at Flying J truck stops. His current tour started in Little Rock, Arkansas, and will take him up the West Coast and through Minnesota. He made his Volcanic Theatre Pub debut in September.

“Bend’s a pretty city; it’s like the prettiest cities in America are the farthest ones away from the interstate,” Buck said. “I know that’s very trite to say, because yeah, it’s pretty obvious.”

As a longtime advocate for legalized marijuana, Buck is looking forward to visiting Oregon dispensaries.

“I think the last time it was five days before (marijuana legalization) went into enactment,” Buck said. “It’s such a stupid thing that they make illegal. … I’ve been a pot advocate for so long, and I smoke pot, but I don’t do anything else; I don’t drink, I don’t take pills, nothing. But it’s a plant. And if you can make a plant illegal, you can make a tree illegal, you can make wheat illegal, you can make corn illegal. It’s an important issue.”

Buck, 53, a native of Murray, Kentucky, admits to being a “terrible drug addict” and alcoholic as a kid. Growing up on a farm, he found solace in art and especially music, picking up classical piano from his older sister. By 17 he was drawn to punk and indie rock, discovering bands such as Bad Brains, Black Flag and R.E.M.

“I really fell into the punk thing, and I hated country music,” Buck said. “Well, I didn’t hate country music. I just didn’t know what it was. They had already ruined it with the ‘Nashville sound.’”

A friend of Buck’s turned him on to Hank Williams in the early ’80s.

“I heard that and it was like — it sent me on my little direction,” Buck said, “which was, we’re not getting better, we’re getting worse. We just need to admit it so we can turn it around.

“Why is all the greatest music old?” Buck continued. “You can’t go from Mozart to Justin Bieber and call it progress. It’s not intellectual progress, you know what I’m saying? That’s all I’m getting at, is we’re declining spiritually, mentally, blah blah blah. For me, Hank Williams was a place to go back to and start. It wasn’t so far away for me — it was still 30 years before that, but still not far enough away that I didn’t understand it.”

Buck’s love of Hank Williams led to his long friendship with Hank III. The two met about 22 years ago, around the time Buck was playing with his first major band Gringo. Buck went on to play stand-up bass in Hank III’s Damn Band and punk-metal hybrid Assjack.

“I’ve had a Hank Williams tattoo since ’85 or something, so (Hank III) had heard about my tattoo,” Buck said. “… I was his buddy for a long time before I ever played with him; I mean, I just went around with him. I played drums and (stuff). I was his friend; I believed in him. I was always the guy that he would take because I would always start (stuff) in a good way — I mean, just calling bulls— on bulls—.”

These days Buck is still obsessed with older music, in particular jump blues and jazz. Before his first son was born in 2013, Buck listened to a lot of Louis Jordan and Charlie Christian, whom he cites as influences on his upcoming, as-yet-untitled album. The record, a follow-up to his 2012 set “Who Dat?” and 2010’s career-spanning “Piss & Vinegar,” should be released by the time Buck tours Europe in August.

“But it’s still me, it’s still the same thing,” Buck said. “I used a lot more archaic references this time I think, just because I was listening to that. Even ‘Who Dat?’ was from — I didn’t even know that that was like a football, like the New Orleans Saints had that name, you know what I’m saying? I heard it from old Jelly Roll Morton (songs) and things like that, so I thought it was funny.”

— Reporter: 541-617-7814, bmcelhiney@bendbulletin.com