Change for family? That’s human nature
They’re the reason he left the bright lights of vegas for the quiet life in the suburbs – his kids. And in the process, Phil Burton has found his own voice.
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Father’s Day is a good day for Human Nature’s Phil Burton and this year he gets to spend it at home in Sydney with his kids – the very people he and wife Justine moved home for.
As a family, they’d yearned for the simple life away from the bright lights of the Las Vegas strip that saw Burton perform a 2500-show residency for 11 years, so they made the decision to come back to Sydney in 2020 – and while settling back hasn’t been without its challenges, they haven’t regretted it for a minute.
“It’s probably taken us a lot longer to settle back into Australian life, and Sydney life, than we thought it would though,” Burton tells Insider from their St Ives home.
“We were warned when we went over to Las Vegas that it would take three years before you felt settled, and that turned out to be really quite accurate.
“Funnily enough though, we thought it would be much easier coming back because we’d be used to what was going on back in Sydney – but it’s taken us probably about the same amount of time to properly settle in here as well, so that was a little bit of a surprise.
“It’s coming up to three years now – and it’s probably just now that we’re really settling in and thinking ‘Yep, OK – we’re home’.”
Their daughter Willow is now 15 – far from the nine-month-old bundle she was when they first moved to the US. Son Xavier, now nine, didn’t know life outside of Vegas either – but always knew Sydney was where family was.
“When you’re living overseas, you come back to Australia and you’re the novelty, you know?” he says.
“You arrive with your family and everyone’s like, ‘Phil and the family’s back’ so he’s organising a barbecue, or he’s gonna have dinner at this pub, this night, so we’ll join him’ because it’s of special for you to be in town for a little while.
“But then when you come back and do it permanently, you’re not a novelty anymore – and you need to get used to that.
“I think it probably takes that three-year window before you start re-establishing relationships the way they were before you left. So it’s a challenge.”
In fact, reminiscing on his Human Nature residency, it’s Justine he credits.
“Still to this day, I can’t believe the sacrifices my wife made to do,” he says.
“To go from having a baby, and having all these family and friends around you, and then after nine months of that, suddenly going ‘right, we’re going overseas and starting over again’.
“What a time to do it.
“My admiration for her is still always there.”
Despite never having lived here, Burton says the key to acclimatising was that the kids both identified as Australian.
“They probably went through their own challenges, but I think more our daughter because, when we came back, she was 12 and just about to start high school, so I think she found it a little tricky at first,” he says.
“Our son seemed to sort of jump straight in – he was happy to dive into Aussie life and he loved it.
“But one thing we were really lucky with was that both kids very much identified as being Australian kids, just by recognising that this was where their family was, this was where their support network was.
“So I think that they felt that more than anything.
“And plus, Justine and I, during that while we were in Vegas, we loved the experience but, in the back of our minds, Vegas was never our home.”
He still performs with longtime band members Toby Allen and brothers Andrew and Mike Tierney when they come back to Australia, as they will this year for a series of Christmas concerts. But between gigs with his mates, Burton is flying solo for the first time in three decades – and he’s loving it.
“Vegas was an amazing experience – but it was a very intense experience,” he says.
“We were doing five shows a week – it was just constant work. Your head always had to be in the game of your work, so it was a very intense experience – but it ran its time and we were ready to come back.
“When they come back to Australia, it’s still the four of us but, when I’m away from that, I do have to figure out ways to keep myself busy, and at the moment, I’m planning on all of these amazing solo shows that I’ve got coming up through the next few months.
“It’s called Sweet Soul Music and I’m getting up on stage by myself and singing some classic soul songs, and I’m really excited about that.
“So there’s a lot of things like that, that I get to do now, that I get to branch out and I’m not working five nights a week as a member of Human Nature on the Vegas Strip.
“I get to expand my horizons a little bit and try out new things like solo shows, TV work like Dancing with the Stars, which was a great experience.”
An experience that he won too. And another way he’s pushing himself to try new things – like he did in February, when Burton had his first ever solo show in 34 years.
“I loved the experience, and I have to say I was a lot more nervous than I thought I would be, because it’s a very different experience getting up on stage and not having three other guys standing next to you doing the same thing,” he says.
“It’s something that was brand new to me and I really loved it … not that it was a better experience than Human Nature, it was just a very different experience, and I think the variety of the challenge of being up there on stage was really rewarding.”
Burton’s love of music started as a seven-year-old kid, inspired by his father’s incredible record collection. The sounds of The Beatles helped raise him.
“My dad was a great music lover and quite eclectic – he really liked all different styles, so one minute I’d be I would be listening to Glen Campbell, the next minute I’d be listening to Led Zeppelin or Black Sabbath,” he recalls.
“Then it would be Billy Joel and then Boz Scaggs – but I think the biggest one that I discovered was probably The Beatles.
“Dad had all of the Beatles records in a box set, and I would listen to them – and I don’t know if this is my analytical brain but, when I was a kid, I decided the way to listen to The Beatles was in chronological order. So I went through and listened from the very first album, all the way through their career, and it gave me an amazing insight into their development as a band.
“I would sit for hours and read all the liner notes on the sleeves and everything – I kind of miss that because that’s not really around these days anymore.
“I found all that stuff fascinating.”
Like him, his own kids are inspired too.
“Xavier plays the drums and percussion in his school training band, and he’s got a little electric drum kit here at the house,” Burton explains.
“He loves listening to music as well, but his big passion is dance music – he’s really into it, so he’ll put that on and then he’ll play the drums along with it.
“And our daughter is obsessed with music too. She doesn’t play as much music as he does, but she listens to music obsessively, and knows everything there is to know about the songs that she likes – she’s really into Billie Eilish and Olivia Rodrigo.
“So there’s definitely musical passion in this house, and there’s instruments lying around everywhere.
“There’s a guitar here and keyboard over there – there’s a glockenspiel in one corner, there’s a ukulele – and the kids will pass them and play them all the time.
“It’s a good way to connect with them.”
Coming home to Sydney has also meant bushwalks along Ku-ring-gai Creek at their doorstep, swims in the northern beaches just 15 minutes away, and Nippers for Xavier. But today – Father’s Day – it’s a chance to honour the simple life they once craved.
“That’s something you can’t do in Vegas,” he laughs of Nippers.
“So today we will keep it simple, go out to a nice cafe or a restaurant for lunch, and just chill out together.
“That’s all I want – a nice, simple day.
“One of the things that we actually wanted to do was come back and experience what it’s like growing up here – and sometimes it’s not necessarily a tangible thing, to figure out exactly what it is about growing up in Australia that’s so different.
“It’s so unique.
“But it’s those little things – taking the kids to Nippers, it’s walking along the beach – it’s those little things that all add up and you realise that people do often take it for granted just how lucky we really to be growing up in this country.”
Burton will play Sweet Soul Music at The Bridge Hotel on September 23 before taking the show across Sydney, including North Sydney Leagues Club on September 29. For dates and locations visit philburton.com.au
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