Aussie-American singer-songwriter John Butler performs new ‘PRISM’ album
He was once a star of Aussie music and now this singer is making his way back to the top.
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John Butler, 50, felt lost.
He was more than three years into solo-producing his upcoming album, PRISM, and he was struggling.
Set on making the album by himself from the start, the Australian-American singer-songwriter tried his hand at doing it all – engineering, producing, performing and making all the beats.
“It was a pretty bold and naive thing to do,” he said.
For a long time during this process, Butler struggled, he said, to translate his ideas and put them into words.
“It’s scary when you put the work into something and then you don’t know how to bring it to life,” he said.
“You’re trying to get across something really big, something that you feel in your heart and mind.
“It’s quite a big thing to do that in music.”
It got to a stage where he almost gave up on the album entirely, instead making two completely new ones called ‘Running River’, an ambient meditation album, and ‘Still Searching’, an instrumental album.
During this time, Butler devastatingly lost both his father and father-in-law within 40 hours of each other.
But it was through doing those two projects, Butler said, and getting a hand from a producer, that got him around to finishing PRISM, which took five years to finish.
“I finally broke through those blocks, he said.
“And there were a lot of blocks – musical blocks, technical blocks, and emotional blocks.”
Celebrating the launch of PRISM, set for release in September, Butler will tour across Australia, including the Darwin Ski Club on October 2 for a one-night show.
The visit comes as part of his Australian ‘PRISM Tour’ – a national run of shows in city venues and across regional towns.
It’s the first time Butler, known for his guitar instrumentals, has toured Australia with a band since 2019.
PRISM also marks a formal departure from the John Butler Trio moniker.
Darwin, much like the rest of northern Australia, “deserves” music, Butler said.
“We live in such a big country, so we have to take our music to the people,” he said.
“No commercial on TV will be without music; no political campaign will be without music; no sports program or sports game will be without music – music is the glue among everything that most people don’t notice.
“Come ready to give, because we’re going to be coming to give too; we hope Territorians leave feeling better than when they walked in.”
Tickets are on sale at johnbutlertrio.com
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