By Mike Fordham
No, the John Butler Trio is not a jazz act. The Australian threesome mixes country, Appalachian folk, funk, blues and reggae into a soulful and hypnotic listen. Fans of the Dave Matthews Band, Ben Harper and Jack Johnson should give the band a listen. The John Butler Trio has been independent Down Under for quite some time, putting out several albums. It was last year’s What You Want EP and opening for the Dave Matthews Band and OAR that got them exposure in America. This buzzed-about troupe’s US major-label debut, Sunrise Over Sea, is out via Lava Records. With a jam-friendly vibe and grassroots ethic, the John Butler Trio may morph from an Aussie import into a rock powerhouse. The Chronicle had a chance to sit down and interview the guitarist/vocalist Butler, drummer Michael Barker and bassist Shannon Birchall.
The Chronicle: What’s the significance of the album title, Sunrise Over Sea?
John Butler: It’s just a brand new day. It’s a new beginning and starting fresh. I was becoming a father, taking some time off,, writing some new music, and playing with some new players. It was the end of one chapter and the beginning of another
Chronicle: Was there any overall theme for the album?
JB: No, there wasn’t a really overall theme. There’s lots of different themes throughout the album.
Michael Barker: The main plot would be this “sunrise over the sea,” a new beginning and then some subplots.
JB: It’s songs in and around the subject and around that time. Just before the change, during the change and after the change.
Chronicle: What made you opt to use just a banjo and your voice on “Damned To Hell”?
JB: It was inspired by some old school country, Appalachian folk, Gillian Welch/Doc Watson action. I just love those old recordings you hear, just one guy and a banjo or a guitar. I really just wanted to break it down to the bare essentials. That song just didn’t want any accompaniment. Other songs that I thought wanted to be solo on the album, like “Mist,” ended up being happier with the band. That song was meant to be solo on the album as well; it just didn’t turn out that way. Some songs just want to stand alone.
Chronicle: What is the overall message of “Treat Yo Mama”?
JB: It’s about respecting the planet as we would respect each other, as we’ve been asked to respect our parents. The planet that we live on is the giver of life. She provides us with many amazing things like our mothers do, so why not respect her? Why not respect her like we respect our blood, because it is our blood. That’s the simple theme behind it. I’m constantly surprised that common sense doesn’t prevail on certain environmental and political issues. I am constantly amazed with how much of us have been brought up with ‘treat people how you want to be treated’ and ‘respect your parents, and fuck up everything else. It doesn’t make any sense at all to me. I tried to simplify it in that you wouldn’t treat your mother this way. This isn’t healthy, why would you do this to your planet?
Chronicle: On the What You Want EP, what made you want to cover the Beatles classic “Across The Universe?”
JB: We were asked to play it. We were asked to play it for a TV mini-series called Marking Time. It was a mini-series about a young refugee girl falling in love with an Australian-born lad, and the trials and tribulations that came from that connection. They wanted us to play it, and we were like “Yeah, that’s cool.” We thought it was a decent version. It was a decent b-side. It was available as a B-side, and it was just kind of quirky. It was like, “Check this out! Look at this band doing it!” And, actually, as a version, ours came out pretty good. It’s really hard to sing. I took about a day to learn this song myself, and then I presented it to Shannon and [percussionist] Nicky [Bomba], and they all nailed it in like 15 minutes. I still think it’s a great song. It was the first song I learned start to finish. It’s good to hear in that arrangement, double-bass, open-tuned guitar slide and drums. It’s a cool configuration.
Chronicle: What made you decide to sign with Lava Records instead of continuing on your own?
JB: Being efficient with my energy, not wanting to live in America, and wanting to share music. Those were the big things for me. After touring America four or five times independently and releasing an album here independently, looking at how hard it was to make something happen on many levels and financially what a big job it was and trying to get everyone’s attention, I realized I’d was going to have to move over here with my whole family and a band that would be willing to. We’d probably tour for the next five years straight to make anything happen. We pretty much tour anyways pretty much constantly, but I didn’t want to live here. People who’ve done it in this country independently live here. There isn’t anybody outside of America independently that’s coming and made any big ways, not that I know of. [Signing with Lava] let us work with people who provide opportunities that I thought we deserved. We’ve been independent for the past seven years in Australia fully, and paid quite a lot of dues, and still very happy to pay more dues. I’m happy to bypass a few of those dues because I’ve already done a few of them, so if anyone can give us a few shortcuts here in the country, I feel worthy of it, and worthy that we can do the right thing by it.
Chronicle: What’s it like to be popular in Australia to just another working band here in the US?
MB: It’s humbling to say the least. It makes you realize that you’re selling yourself. When we get out there and play onstage, we want to put on the best show possible. We do that anyway, but it becomes more prevalent in front of a small crowd and really on the spot, and you’re in a new place, and you’re wanting to turn [the crowd] on. When you’re in front of for a larger crowd, you get the impression that you already have [made it], by virtue of the fact that so many people have turned up. You still put on a good performance. I think that’s something that springs to mind when you’re playing in a new territory. It’s exciting as well.
JB: It’s definitely exciting. That’s the biggest thing for us, to blow people’s minds for the first time. People expect one thing, and get something that they never expected. That’s really exciting. I don’t mind going to a country and paying my dues and earning people’s respect.
Chronicle: Is it bizarre to go from headlining theaters to playing in small clubs?
JB: It’s kind of really obvious. No one knows us here. Just because you’re big in one place, if you have the mentality that you’ll be big in another place, then you have your own head stuck up your own ass.
MB: We see it as a logical and natural process. There’s a flexibility that we have that I’m very proud of, in terms of being able to play a large production, but scaling it down to play acoustically in a room. We played in a toilet in Germany. We did a recording in a bathroom in Germany because it was the only privacy we had.
JB: People say, “I don’t care if we play in a toilet or for 3000 people, I want to play the same gig,” and it was for us. We approach it in the same way, though, and the same gusto and feeling.
Chronicle: With a fluctuating lineup, do you find that certain songs evolve over time?
JB: Even with the lineup that you’ve made the song with, it may evolve from its first jams two years down the track. Just by virtue of keeping it interesting sometimes, you might do something, like little things. Shannon [Birchall] might say do something in a part of a song. For example, in “Something’s Gotta Give,” at the end of the song, we do this where he accentuates it. Shannon started doing something, and we did it for ages. That’s what comes across before or after the recording.
There are some things that I want to keep the same. There are some aspects of the music I do like every time. On “Treat Yo Mama,” the drums stop because of the congas, then the rolling snare comes in. That’s just funky. You’ve got to keep that ’cause that’s the bomb.
Chronicle: Do you think that the band’s best work is done on album or onstage?
MB: It varies. In the live situation, you can often be under the impression that things are going great. When you hear the
recording, you go “Whoa!” Similarly, in the studio, it can be like that. You can get some real magical moments in the studio if you create the right environment. Often, musicians can freak out in the studio, saying “Oh my, we’re recording!” It’s just creating the right environment with the group of people that you’re making music with. It’s also creating the right environment live with the mindset to enjoy it, and try to create those magic moments.
JB: The intent is to capture the spirit of the song, the emotion in it. At the same time, it’s play as well as you can possibly play. You want to offer the juice every time. Whether it’s live or in the studio, you want to be putting down the magic, the stuff that inspires you as a player as well as other people.
Chronicle: If you could, what would you have named the band?
JB: I’m happy with the name. We should play as a quartet and still be the John Butler Trio (laughs). I think it’s appropriate for the situation that it is.
Chronicle: What comes first for the group, the music or the lyrics?
JB: Music, usually. The lyrics are inspired by the melody and inspired by the music.

The Chronicle interviewed Australia´s John Butler Trio, a grassroots group that would appeal to Ben Harper fans. (Image courtesy www.johnbutlertrio.com)