John Butler Trio Interview

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Led by award-winning vocalist and musician, John Butler, the John Butler Trio are the sound of summer, and they’ll be packing up their kit and heading to America and Europe for an endless season of celebration. Based in Western Australia, we spoke to John to find out more about his festival experiences, his memories of busking in Fremantle and what he gets up to when he really gets to travel.

Hi John, where are you speaking to us from this evening?
I’m in Margaret River and it’s beautiful, absolutely gorgeous. I’m looking at the sunshine right now.

You have a packed summer in the northern hemisphere, with an American tour kicking off in June and then getting onto the festival circuit in Europe in July; is it an advantage to escape the southern winter for the northern summer? Do you sort of get the best of both worlds?
Yeah, I’m partial to an endless summer, for sure! It’s great to see how both sides of the world do their summer season. Coming from Australia where we’re spoilt with great weather and a long summer, when you go to Europe, it’s a lot shorter and the minute there’s good weather, all the parks are full and everyone celebrates it.

And it’s the perfect time for festivals! Do you get to enjoy the festival vibe?
It always depends on the scheduling; sometimes I’m in and out and we’re not in one place for more than 20 hours so we arrive at 1am and leave at midnight. If I have time, I’m trying to see new bands and get inspired, but I really enjoy the festivals when I have time to.

I read a great quote from a fan of yours in Fremantle, who described watching you busking and how they’d go home and try to imitate you. How does busking compare to the sort of gigs and venues that you’re playing now?
What I liked about busking was that people would have a plan before they saw you and you’re there trying to snare them and hold them, which is an amazing feeling when you do hook them. But it’s also an amazing challenge. At gigs, although people are there to see you, you still have to try to make sure that they leave feeling like they’ve had an experience.

Did you have a spot in Fremantle that you’d regularly play?
Yeah, a spot of the Fremantle Markets was my main digs.

What have been your favourite venues over the years?
There’s a few; I really like Kuranda Amphitheatre in Northern Queensland, I like Red Rocks in Colorado, Brixton Academy in London, and Palais in Melbourne is a beautiful, old venue. But all the old places are nice; they don’t make those kind of theatres anymore so to play in a venue that is over 100 years old is quite an amazing feeling.

You’ve obviously played in venues all over the world; do you like to travel?
Yeah, and I haven’t travelled much, I’ve just toured a lot in the last 15 years! When I do get the chance to go travelling and not be on a regimented routine, I really enjoy travelling. We do a lot of camping, we have a 4WD and we go to very secluded parts of the planet that are very beautiful and simple. We daydream about doing more real travelling.

Where do you go camping when you have the freedom?
Southwest of Western Australia has so many places, and there’s actually a national park that’s named after my grandfather – Wiltshere-Butler National Park – so I go there quite a lot. We also go to the desert and find caves on this great, big red land that we live on. We go out for about two-and-a-half months.

Do you like to go back to basics when travelling then?
Going from touring, which is highly urban and extroverted at times, it’s nice to flip that and be somewhere extremely isolated and quiet and just play backgammon and swim in the river and light the fire at night. I like that balance. It feeds my soul so I can be on stage around the world.

And Australia must be one of the best places in the world to do that…
Yeah, we were driving in some pretty isolated places and I remember thinking, “There aren’t many places in the world I could drive this far, and not see anybody or cross a border”. It’s a very magical land to live and travel to.

Onto music, if you could add one member to the John Butler Trio to make the John Butler Quartet, who would you pick?
[Sings] Who would I pick… Maybe another drummer… Let’s go with Questlove from The Roots.

And what are your plans for the rest of this year?
I’m thinking of recording an album in the next few months, my wife and kids are coming out with me in America, so I’m looking forward to being with them on the road, and my wife is also an artist, so supporting her with her career as well. And I often paint and make pocket knives in my shed, so I’ll be doing a lot of that when I’m not on the road.

Don’t miss The John Butler Trio at BoomTown in Winchester, UK 13th – 16th August!
www.boomtownfair.co.uk

By Charlotte Mellor
@cmellor_03