Warumpi Band; Neil Murray; Sammy Butcher; Gulf Country Frontier Days

Queensland’s Gulf Country Frontier Days Festival saw surviving members of the legendary Warumpi Band back on stage.

Warumpi Band founding member Sammy Butcher. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen

The Gulf Country Frontier Days Festival in northwest Queensland hosted a unique performance last month. Billed as Friends and Family Play the Warumpi Band, it brought the surviving members of the notable Australian rock act together on stage for an hour or so as they aired classic songs such as Blackfella/Whitefella, My Island Home and Stompin’ Ground.

Alongside singer and songwriter Neil Murray, guitarist Sammy Butcher made a few appearances, although lead guitar duties were handled by his son Jason. After experiencing a mini-stroke at his Northern Territory home of Papunya in 2016, the elder Butcher hasn’t been able to attack the instrument in the same way as during the band’s peak in the late 1980s, following its 1985 debut album Big Name, No Blankets. But when we spoke the day before his return to the stage, the influential musician was keen to reflect on his life and experiences.

“I never thought I’d be able to play in Paris or go see a place like Warsaw or Germany — all those places in Europe,” Butcher told me over muffins and a cup of tea. “For me now, as an elder, I can say I’ve done my part. But as a role model, I tell kids: ‘You can be somebody. You can be doing something. You can be a musician. There are others waiting in line to help.’ ”

A self-taught guitarist, Butcher learned by listening and playing along to the likes of the Shadows, Mark Knopfler and Chet Atkins. “I learned so much,” he said as we sat in the shade by the main road of the small Queensland town of Gregory. “But I encourage others: just be you, and respect others, and learn from others as a musician. That’s why as a band, we wrote songs about ‘Blackfella, whitefella / It doesn’t matter what your colour’. We wrote songs about the things we see in life, like getting out of jail and being responsible to families. I’m just grateful that people are learning. I’m always trying to give what I got. This is who I am.”

When he was touring with the Warumpi Band, Butcher shied away from interviews. “But as you get older and wiser, then you start saying something, because as an elder you say, ‘Shit, the young one’s not going to say something — I’m going to, because I see what’s got to be written, and what’s got to be said,’ ” he told me. “As a musician, I never thought I’d go all around Australia and the world. When I sit down by the campfire, I tell all the young ones I’ve been there, done that — but with honesty, you can do it too. They need somebody like us to tell them and educate them in the way.”

Butcher said that he tended to view Warumpi as the “people’s band”; rather than harbouring ambitions to be famous, he preferred to go with the flow, and was often surprised by where he and his bandmates ended up. “Warumpi was a band that just went anywhere; we played in the Opera House, on The Ray Martin Show, Sorry Day at the Big Day Out — and played in the dirt somewhere,” he said. Although the stroke two years ago had affected his ability to play the instrument he loved, he shrugged it off.

“I’m not going to dwell on what happened to me because I’m strong, and the people that I know of, my friends — they are the medication,” Butcher said. “I know there’s people who are struggling. But I say, ‘Look, just be respectful, humble and be who you are.’ ”