John Butler Trio

Los Angeles-born guitarist John Butler was raised in Pinjarra, Western Australia. When John was the first child in the family to learn guitar after his grandfather died, his grandmother handed down to John her husband's lap steel guitar. His grandfather, also John Butler, died in the 1952 Nannup forest fires in Western Australia.

It took a while for that guitar to shape the younger John Butler's music career. At sixteen he started strumming on it. In his early twenties, after modifying his grandfather's guitar slightly, he started playing it in public, busking in Fremantle with a battery powered amp he borrowed off a friend. But his main guitar , then and now is the guitar he bought through the musician who taught John for five months, an old Washburn 12 String acoustic.

On the streets of Fremantle John Butler improvised on the instrumentals which distilled into the instrumental tape 'Searching For Heritage'. The healthy sales of that tape while busking, plus unemployment benefits helped pay for 1998's selftitled first album. the music style is born out of everrything he's heard and enjoyed, from Black Sabbath to Fleetwood Mac to Jeff Lang. The songs speak about life and issues. He's been labelled a "hippy".

The end of the busking days also called for the formation of the John Butler Trio with Gavin Shoestring on bass and Jason McGann at the drumkit - one of the busiest bands in the land, headlining shows and playing at almost every festival going. The band's recording debut came in the form of the John Butler Three EP in 2000. By the time the album 'Three' was released, the word was out. Triple J was giving high rotation treatment to the 'Three' track 'Betterman', and the independently-distributed CD landed the John Butler Trio on the official national sales charts.

During 2001/02 the group recorded 4 gigs, 2 in Melbourne and 2 in West Australia.. John chose 13 songs from those shows to release and included one studio song, 'Home Is Where the Heart Is' to what became 'Living 2001-2002', another huge success for the fiercely independent John Butler Trio.

To quote John Butler: "Surfing's not about being sponsored, and music's not about being signed".