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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".
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