John Charles Wiltshire-Butler (born 1 April 1975), professionally known as John Butler, is an Australian singer, songwriter and music producer. He is best known for his time as the eponymous frontman of the John Butler Trio, a roots rock and jam rock band that formed in Fremantle, Western Australia, in 1998.
The John Butler Trio recorded five studio albums, including three that reached number one on the Australian charts: Sunrise Over Sea, Grand National and April Uprising. His recordings and live performances have met with critical praise and received awards from the Australian Performing Right Association and the Australian Recording Industry Association.
Butler was born in the United States and moved to Australia at an early age. He began playing the guitar at the age of 16. In 2002, along with several partners, formed the Jarrah record label. He is also the co-founder of The JB Seed, a grant programme that seeks to improve artistic diversity in Australia.
John Charles Wiltshire-Butler was born on 1 April 1975 to an Australian father, Darryl Wiltshire-Butler, and an American mother, Barbara (née Butler).[A] He was named after his paternal grandfather, John Wiltshire, a forestry worker who died fighting a bushfire in Nannup. Butler has British, Bulgarian and Greek ancestry through his father. His genealogy was investigated on an episode of the SBS Television series Who Do You Think You Are?, which aired on 1 November 2009. The show traced his family history from his deceased grandfather's war diaries through to ancestors in Bulgaria and the events of the 1876 April Uprising.
In January 1986, after his parents divorced, Butler's father moved the family to Western Australia. They eventually settled in Pinjarra, a small country town, and Butler attended Pinjarra Primary School and Pinjarra Senior High School. He began playing guitar at the age of sixteen after his grandmother gave him a 1930s dobro belonging to his deceased grandfather. In 1996, he attended Curtin University in Perth and enrolled in an art teaching course, but eventually abandoned his studies to pursue a career in music. Some of his first musical performances were as a busker at the Fremantle Markets. Butler was also participant in the Western Australian skateboarding scene, and is recognised for his involvement with the internationally renowned "Woolstores" street spot in Fremantle.
Butler travelled to Encinitas, California, after high school, where he spent two years with his brother Jim and began his music career in a band called Vitamin. His first gig was on 9 September 1994 at the Metaphor Cafe in Escondido, California. Vitamin were written up and reviewed in Go magazine, performed around the San Diego area and played one show in Houston, Texas, opening for Dive (which later became Osmant in 1995). Vitamin recorded two tracks, "Deadhorse" and "Mary Jane", at the Belly Up Studios in Solana Beach, California, in 1994. Vitamin bandmate Ozzie Rea fronted a Perth funk band, Proton. The two can be found on The Live at Mojo's CD and performed together on New Years Ever Y2K. The members of Vitamin were John Butler (12-string guitar, vocals); Ozzie Rea (vocals); Justin Bancroft (electric guitar); Taria Flower Star (bass); Duck Grossberg (bass); Desiree (congas); Gabe (Djembe); Jim (Harmonica); and Hailey Odom (harmonica). Butler was a busker on the streets of Fremantle playing his own compositions. In mid-1996, he released a self-recorded cassette of his instrumentals, Searching for Heritage, which sold 3,000 copies. He played different styles of music including "Indian, Celtic, bluegrass and folk". Butler had his first paid performance in 1997 at the Seaview Hotel in Fremantle. In 1998, North Fremantle Mojo's club owner Phil Stevens hired Butler as a regular performer. Stevens became his manager and later his business partner.
Butler was joined by drummer Jason McGann (Mojos sound engineer) and bass player Gavin Shoesmith to form the John Butler Trio and recorded the John Butler album which was released on Waterfront Records in December 1998. At various times the members of the John Butler Trio included drummers Michael Barker (2003–2009) and Nicky Bomba, bass players Rory Quirk (2001–2002), Andrew Fry (April 2002 – November 2002), Shannon Birchall (2002–2009) and Byron Luiters. The band's musical style was influenced by Black Sabbath, Fleetwood Mac and Jeff Lang. The band toured throughout Western Australia in 1999.
The band's second album, Three, was produced by Butler and Shaun O'Callaghan. It was released and distributed on Waterfront Records in April 2001. It featured the tracks "Take" and "Betterman", which both received radio airplay on the Australian alternative youth radio station Triple J and rated in its annual Hottest 100. The band appeared at the Big Day Out concert series and the Woodford Folk Festival.
The song "Zebra" was released as a single in December 2003 and received mainstream radio airplay and reached the top 30 on the ARIA Charts. It was selected as 'Song of the Year' at the APRA Music Awards of 2004. The album, Sunrise Over Sea, was released in March 2004 and peaked at No. 1 on the ARIA Albums Chart. It was the first independently released and distributed album to debut at No. 1 and Butler received the ARIA 'Best Male Artist' award that same year.
In September 2006, John Butler Trio released a promotional studio diary of the recording progress of their next album, Grand National, which was released in March 2007 and peaked at No. 1. In December 2006, Funky Tonight (EP) was released and included tracks from their live shows, such as "Daniella", "Fire in the Sky", and "Funky Tonight". The band performed at the Melbourne entertainment hub, Federation Square at Easter 2007. The one off performance featured musicians who had collaborated on Grand National, including Vika and Linda Bull, Jex Saarhelart and Nicky Bomba. The performance was telecast on JTV and was released on DVD in November.
On 21 October, Butler featured on SBS Television's documentary called Destination Australia – Bridge Between Two Worlds performing to refugee children in a class at Perth's Highgate Primary School. Butler's discovery of his Bulgarian ancestor's involvement in the April Uprising provided the title for the trio's next No. 1 album, April Uprising, issued in March 2010. Butler performed "How to Make Gravy" and the Kev Carmody/Paul Kelly song "From Little Things Big Things Grow" (with Carmody, Kelly, Missy Higgins and Dan Sultan) at the Kelly tribute concerts staged by Triple J in mid-November 2009, which was released as the 2010 live album Before Too Long.
On 19 February 2011, Butler performed for the first time with his wife Danielle, also known as Mama Kin, under the moniker Brave and the Bird, at the Gimme Shelter event (an annual fundraiser for the homeless) held at the Fremantle Arts Centre.
The early sessions for the John Butler Trio's sixth studio album commenced in mid-2013, following the band's largest tour of the US. For the first time in the band's lifetime, the members began with a blank songwriting slate, rather than using the initial ideas of Butler that had been introduced. Butler gathered with Luiters and Bomba at The Compound in Fremantle, Western Australia, which serves as the band's headquarters and the frontman's artistic space, and co-wrote material for the first time, deviating from the Butler-centric process of the past: "I had always brought the material." After contributing a large portion of work towards the album, Bomba eventually left the Compound space to work on his Melbourne Ska Orchestra project and was replaced by Grant Gerathy.
Butler explained in an interview during the band's US tour:
But a lot of these songs on this album I kind of magpied. Magpies are this bird in Australia that takes shiny things from anywhere and builds its nest, and so that's kind of what I do. I'll take a little of my own experience of having some heavy party time with certain friends, and then I'll hear some other stories about addicts or other intense relationships. I'll put them into the mixing pot and make up these characters to explore different possibilities and emotional landscapes.