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On July 6th, 2010, in the course of Montreal’s International Jazz Festival, I had the chance to sit down with an amazingly talented man: here is my interview with John Butler from John Butler Trio.
CONFRONT: Hi John, Judith CONFRONT Magazine how are you?
JOHN: Hi Judith. I’m great how are you?
CONFRONT: I’m great. Thanks a lot for allowing us to have an interview with you
JOHN: The pleasure is mine
CONFRONT: So first let me explain briefly what we are. Our magazine is called CONFRONT Magazine. We are an online music magazine that some friends and I started almost 4 years ago. We want to bring music to the world!
JOHN: This is great
CONFRONT: Ok so let me start by some fun questions we call our CONFRONT questions that we ask all of our interviewees
JOHN: Perfect
CONFRONT: What would be the first and the last CD you remember buying?
JOHN: First CD I remember buying was an Iron maiden CD called Somewhere in Time and the more recent one was, I bought all The Cure albums again, so good…
CONFRONT: Oh yeah very good
JOHN: And I bought the English Beats too!
CONFRONT: Nice, this is very good too. Now what would be the first and the last concert you remember attending but as a fan?
JOHN: The most recent one would be Hush Habor in Central Park, New York City!
CONFRONT: Wow pretty amazing that must have been?
JOHN: Amazing!
CONFRONT: And the first one?
JOHN: The first one I went to was…(he says singing and playing guitar) …John Farham
CONFRONT: Oh cool!
JOHN: Well.. yeah. But the first one I would have gone to on my own …was probably Violent Femmes!
CONFRONT: So good
JOHN: OH so good….so good… sorry I just had a moment
CONFRONT: It’s all good! Ok so April Uprising…your fifth album that was released in March 26th 2010. this album comes with totally new band members. Does this changed your writing/creative process?
JOHN: Most of the time, I write it all and I ask the guys to add to it sometimes, but for this one it was a bit different! There was a lot of collaboration, co production, co arranging. For some reason this new band came with a lot of new good stuff…
CONFRONT: For sure.
JOHN: I guess I’m much more open to it then I was before and this new band gave me the opportunity to explore that…but you know at the end of the day, I came up with a group of songs and ideas and we’ve worked on it as a team. Whatever sounds the best is what we went for, that was the rule
CONFRONT: This is a great rule! Did this help you come up with a new style? I’ve read that this album was a new style… that you were able to bring a lot of styles together, was that the case?
JOHN: Oh yeah, it’s always been like that. I’ve always done match ups you know because I love hip hop, heavy mental, reggae, Indian Classical music and anything in between so I’ve always been like that. I love bringing styles together.
CONFRONT: Well that’s what makes you so unique and we love that
JOHN: Well thank you
CONFRONT: Well you being half American, half Australian, raised mostly in Australia…do you feel that your career would have been the same if you would have been raised mostly in the states?
JOHN:: I would have been in the army if I would have stayed in America. From time I was 18 months to the time I was 13 years old, I was madly obsessed with being in the arm forces.
CONFRONT: Ok… please tell us more…
JOHN: In America there is more facilities and more… they really set it up so that you want to be in the army, they even brain wash you with G.I Joe, they have camps and so on… and in Australia, well we didn’t have all of these opportunities… thank god…and then I fell in love with a girl name Tabatha…I know I’m going way out of track now, but this is relevant! Tabatha was in year 8 and I was in year 6, I was going out with an older girl…she was hot… it’s the first girl I ever fell in love with… and being with an older girl you couldn’t play with toy guns…
CONFRONT: Well there you go…
JOHN: although she didn’t say that t me I just knew it, it was not cool. So you know love defeated the war…
CONFRONT: nice, this is great. I’m very happy you went of track!
JOHN: cool!
CONFRONT: So what made you switch from wanting to be an art teacher to being a full time musician?
JOHN: Well I fell in love with off tuning, this way of playing guitar that is way more freeing and I just knew I wanted to be playing for a living… and there it went, I was a musician, playing in open mic nights, and here I am today
CONFRONT: Great, well we are very happy you decide to keep playing!
JOHN: Me too
CONFRONT: What would you want your legacy to be? You in 10-20-30 years? What do you want to leave behind? As a man and as a musician?
JOHN: Well you know being a man, euh… I guess if I had to leave any kind of legacy, I would love to be remembered as a good man, and being a good man means being a good father and a good husband and somebody who stands up for something and who believes in something, excels at something well to be that’s being a good man.
CONFRONT: Well this is a great legacy to leave behind!
JOHN: Well thank you
CONFRONT: This is it for me, thanks for doing this interview with us, it was a real pleasure
JOHN: Thank you
Here was my interview with John Butler Trio.
To learn more about them you can visit:
http://www.myspace.com/johnbutlertrio
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