Born and raised in central Illinois to a working-class family of Irish, Lebanese, and German descent, Buckley began singing at a young age. His journey from high school choir president to video game composer found Buckley taking many detours along the way. He found himself performing with indie bands, recording dialogue for major ad campaigns, archiving exhibitions from legendary artists David Wojnarowicz and Keith Haring, producing an interactive exhibition for Irish filmmaker Jonah King, and researching music-led virtual realities before returning to his first loves of composing and video games.
Buckley is also passionate about video game and music technology education. He teaches private lessons as part of his music production practice. Buckley also holds an M.S. in Creative Technologies where he published and presented his research on sound art and music-led virtual realities in Japan and the UK.