Hello, dear friends, this is John Butler and you're about to listen to a podcast called Running the River. This is a new podcast that I have put together with my dear friend Dingo Spender. He, you may recall, helped me with the last podcast I made for my album Home. Here again we deconstruct and get under the skin and get our hands dirty in the substrate soil of what I was envisioning for this latest ambient album.
This is an album I made for wellness practitioners and practicers alike to defrag and decompress in this very busy, fast and quick world, and we hope you enjoy as we take you up down and across the river. This is Running the River.
So, yeah, I would love please tell us about the chronology, like what, what got you here? What led to this? What led us?
here. Yeah, where do I start? Where do I start? Because it's all kind of it's all some kind of venn diagram that's all over lane and intersectional. So, yeah, having the idea for a long time, you know, sitting out there on the back burner at some point, I'll do it, I'll get around to it one day. I will, I would, I should, I could, and you know, got back four or five years. It was interesting, it was the beginning of an interesting time.
Basically, I've been with some band members over 11 years, 12 years, more than I've ever been with any other band member Byron Luters, fantastic bassist, great individual, and Grant Goffey and drums. Then I added a couple of new players for home as well, and that went well. But at the same time, after 10 or 14 years in a row, people want to do other things.
They have lives and they have their own journey and their own path and life leads them in different directions and getting to those points and including myself, you know, and sometimes get into those points are not always a straight line hmm, and they're not always clean either. And it's simple and for me, I have a propensity to over complicate in my mind and also situations and read and put narratives over the top of things and see the whole world. That way I'm sure, I'm, not the only one.
So, you know, without going into any of the details, because I think all participants and all players are all fantastic people, including myself, and we all do our best and did our best, and we all also added our ingredients to the mojo and the gumbo that that, uh, turned into. You know, those last months of the last incarnation of the trio, um, and I found that difficult, like I always do. I find those things kind of, you know, testing, traumatic, challenging.
I, you know they stay with me a long time if you ask my partners, like it's, it's, it's a thing, and um, I put together another band in record time to finish my European and American commitments that I did want to finish with, like, some great players like Alana Stone on keys and vocals, oj Newcomb on keys and vocals, oj newcom on bass and keys, terry pie richmond on drums.
I put this band together in two weeks and by the end of two months we were headlining red rocks again for the fifth time and you know it was like whoa, it was a lot that happened there and like afterwards I was just like, and after this, I'm gonna stop not make any commitments to any new members, new bands, I'm going to go solo for a few years and just whoa, whoa. Relationships seemed complex, difficult, scary. I was a bit tapped out.
Being a band leader, an employer, a mate living on a submarine, been touring for 25 years, I was dealing with anxiety throughout the whole thing. That would come and go pretty intensely and I was just a bit cooked. I was just cooked and so I said yes, I will go off the road and at the in around you know, the last few albums I've been working with garage band and trying to teach myself as an engineer, really gently. And then I was like I'm going to get logic.
So I got logic and I was like, well, the first thing I should do is make this ambient album. It's really simple, you know, just like simple stuff, don't try really heavy. So I started making stuff and it was cool and exciting and I was like, oh, that's sick, and how about I just put a little beat to that little guitar beat to that? I was like, yeah, that's cool, like why don't I just back that little guitar beat up with a little midi kick?
And I'm like, oh, why don't you just put a little synthesizer? You know, you know, long story short, you know, all of a sudden, I was in another studio that I'd built in our spare place on the land. It's like a little small upward studio space. That was already there and I was in full-fledged I'm making an album by myself, full production.
Don't know what the fuck I'm doing Having a ball sitting up to four o'clock every morning making stuff and excited by the process Tracks everywhere, not knowing how to crossfade. Four o'clock every morning making stuff and excited by the process tracks everywhere, not knowing how to crossfade, just like just going for it and having fun and trying to, like you know, achieve some kevin parker thing. I'm like, yeah, I'll make it out by myself, why not? Never, never, never engineered.
Don't know really what the hell I'm doing. Crossfading is something and you know, um, why not? I've only worked with, you know, professional engineers have dedicated their life to the craft of engineering, my whole career. Why can't I do that?
And um, you know, um, met myself in it, yeah, and but in amongst that, uh, my partner's father and my father had both been dealing with long-term chronic illness that had come to a head and just shortly before I got logic and started doing that, you know, and something else, kind of majorly pivotal and massive precedent in our lives is COVID dropped. So COVID dropped, I'm at home, we're all at home, we're all not working and you know I'm recording a bit at home. I'll make this ambient album.
And our dads fall very ill, like a long time coming and now we're doing palliative care In a short time, within a week, dan was gone in lockdown Victoria in the family home with all of her five siblings and was all oh, not five siblings, sorry, all of her four siblings and literally they'd gone back to the family unit looking after the patriarch of the family.
One week later, my dad is finally told by a nurse you have to have care now and my dad had been kind of couch surfing and, like they call it, like furniture surfing where you can't walk properly and you're walking to the next object to lean yourself on. And I'd been saying, dad, I think it's time to come home. Let me look after you get some care. And he finally succumbed to that.
And so in amongst that Dan's gone now in lockdown in a pretty intensive situation doing palliative care at home, and within a week of that I've emptied our whole room. I've put it wherever it would fit somewhere else. I emptied my whole dad's living room into a trailer and took it three hours down south to Margaret River wherever it would fit somewhere else.
I emptied my whole dad's living room into a trailer and took it three hours down south to Margaret River and made his living room into my bedroom and then gave him care for the next month before he passed away. Danielle and my father, danielle's dad, nicholas, and my father passed within 40 hours of each other, wild, both in lockdown. So that happened and then they passed.
You know and you know the strain of that, the surrealness of that raising two teenage kids, 23 years of marriage and being on the road Band, kind of breaking up in a way that was very confusing and complex. You know and you know I'm kind of post-funeral. We're all a little bit shell-shocked and I'm sitting with this music trying to make it and it's getting more and more complex and the computer's struggling more to actually even do the right thing.
I don't know where sounds are coming from anymore and I am just starting to swim in my attention deficit and whatever trauma or PTSD that lurks around and the anxiety were just starting to ping and I couldn't see the forest, the trees, and through that kind of year and a half, two year I was kind of um, oh well, I was very soberly humbled and um and kind of brought back to fair basics and um, and kind of like not knowing if I had it in me anymore to do what I do, to do what I wanted to do, even
though the songs were still coming, even though they're like, hey, john, we're here, can you bring us to life so people can hear them, kind of thing. I talked to the songs, yeah, but I was like I don't know, I'm not thinking about like I got these songs, like they're not solo songs, it's like they're band songs, I hear them, not solo songs, it's like they're band songs, I hear them, I hear how they want to be and I'm like I don't know. I've been so stripped bare, cleaned off, lost confidence.
I've been really humbled by all of it. You know, like 20 years of interesting and amazing and not amazing behavior in a marriage raising two amazing kids, going through big times in life, two fathers dying at the same time, adrenal fatigue, but all that kind of stuff just and then just like feeling lost in. The only thing that I thought. I kind of like that was giving me some kind of you know solace.
I was just like okay, I don't know if I got what it takes to do much of it, of any of it, you know, solace. I was just like, okay, I don't, I don't know if I got what it takes to do much of it, of any of it, you know. And that was extremely humbling in a real like zeroing off calibration. That, of course, was necessary, but I was like how could I possibly ever lead a band again, how could I? Do I even have it anymore?
I'm not as naive and cocksure and abrupt and kind of insensitive as I used to be. You know, I'm not insensitive, I'm highly sensitive in the sense that you need a certain kind of naivety. The more you know about human relations, the more nuanced you have to get. And I didn't think I had the skills to deal with the complexity with how sensitive I'm and how many stations seem to be on and blaring at once with my attention span. So I was like, how could I get, possibly get back?
And I said, well, let's just work backwards a little bit, because these songs are not leaving you. Let's work backwards. How simply can we make the path back? yeah and the whole idea of smart. You know that smart acronym of you know I don't know what it's like set a goal, measurable, achievable rt. I don't know where they are. It was like what's the simplest thing I can do? I'm not listening to the things I've been working on for last two years. Yeah, I can't listen to it.
It's making me anxious, fucking whoa. Um, I'll start with the ambient album. Beautiful, I can maybe just do that. And then I was like in amongst that. Now we're post covid and all that. I'd worked with james ireland uh, for just two days. It was like a meeting just to see if we might do something together. Uh, for songs and, um, it was a really easy of days not being on the tools and being just on the instruments. And I was like, oh, that's right, engineers are sick and he was also a producer.
And so I was like in amongst this gumbo of thought, something started to crystallize and it was like, okay, there's this band that I want to have one day. I'm compelled to have it. I want to have it, I need to have it, but I can't go there now. Let's start at the beginning. Make this ambient. You need to heal. You actually need to heal. You're fucking fried, bro.
Now's the time to make this music, not for necessarily I mean, yes, of course to share but first for yourself, as a tool of coming back to how simple the process can be of recording, how simple music can be without all the complexities and overlays. And once that happened, the next thing happened is well, I want to make this instrumental album. The instrumental album is something that's very much connected to the intros of the songs and to some of the journeys of the music of the trio.
And I was like so it was like Heal Begin Again. First album was an instrumental album that I used to play on the street. I was like Heal, begin Again, yeah, start again. So instrumental album. Then I'll do this solo kind of guitar beat album that I wanted to do, and then I'll be through all that, slowly, baby steps, I'll be able to have a band again and what I saw was four seasons and the way my mind works. It needs story and narrative.
You can tell me, dada, until the cows come home and I'll be like, yeah, I understand you and I, yes, I understand that. But to feel something, to really integrate it as a concept and an idea and I need it has to be conceptual. I have to have a story. You want to teach me something about math or anything, or scales? Give me a story, give me a shape, give me a color, give me a feeling, give me a story, give me a history and I'll build something around it. That's what I need.
That's how my version of ADHD works and that's how I. And the minute I had those four seasons, I was like, oh, clear. And I also had this moment of clarity. I don't know if I had a good amount of serotonin or dopamine in my body at the time. Having worked with James, I was like I'm going to call two people right now and see if they're free to do the ambient album and the instrumental album.
And on the same day, in the same hour, I texted Dave Mann, a fantastic musician, engineer, producer, songwriter, performer, who lives in Market River. He's like anybody who knows Dave Mann knows he's actually the man. He can literally do anything.
He is the renaissance man.
And he does it well and he's a humble gentleman.
Forging steel tools.
Making house trucks.
Making.
Sailing across, sailing, yeah, just you name it. Playing guitar like a.
Singing like a Singing writing songs, engineering albums, Raising kids Just the whole lot. He's just the full package.
He's just like stop it okay.
I know Chill.
Really like-.
And he's a mountain of a man. He's six foot five. Yeah, you know, it's a lot.
I mean it's surprising anybody likes him.
Dave, if you're listening to this, just ignore that bit. If you're listening to this, just ignore that bit.
So I sent him a thing going I'm free on these dates. I just had that clarity. You know that you have those clarity Especially for me. It's like I get these moments of clarity. I can see the whole matrix for a second. It's opened up and I'm like I'm going to pounce. And it opened up my diary. I'm like I'm free on these dates, I'm just going to try them.
And I'm going to call somebody else, called a good friend of mine, katie Tunstall, who's a fantastic musician, engineer, songwriter, just badass woman, boss woman, and I knew I had this gig in Miami on Michael Frenti's Soul Shine Cruise solo and I was like I could maybe go to New Mexico where she lives and record this thing. So I said to them both at the same time you guys free, are you guys free?
And they both wrote me back within an hour, going yeah and I was like okay, it's on, and you know that's kind of asking you, that was, that was the, that was the journey to get to that moment I had to go through so much breakdown and and literally you know, and and literally be 20 songs deep into multi, multi-tracked songs and walk away from it all, yeah and and then go. Yeah, right, I need to actually work with somebody else yeah yeah, damn it.
Oh, I really wanted to do the kevin parker thing because I just wanted to stay the fuck away from people. Yeah, they were just too hard like complex, and I knew I was as well. It was this and it's like no, no, now we're starting to heal.
Work with people, yeah, work with safe, kind, powerful, humble badasses and and and dave man was yeah first port of call can I just say as well, you at some point in this 20 track huge um, I actually came in for a couple of, was it maybe two days three?
days, yeah, you did.
We did some stuff in the world. You were like, you were like the, the wrestler on the ropes going reaching out to tag someone into the into the ring, you know, and I was just like on the side going come, man, just tag me and tag me. So I flew over, yeah, yeah and um. You know, from my perspective, like the work you've done there, like it's epic, it's big, it's huge and I can't wait till we get there to this cycle. This season has passed beautiful journey of like rebuilding yourself.
To get to that level of complexity is is absolutely understandable because then you can serve it without it feeling like it's a burden to you. It's just a.
You're gonna have the tools to deliver it to and to do it the service that you know yeah, the things that need to be prioritized first and I was jumping the gun, yeah I was jumping the gun and the music was like okay, it's big music you can, but let's see how you go yeah and it's like the music always knows. Yeah, it was just like, yeah, you have a shot.
And I learned amazing things along the way and I think, failure is an amazing, amazing gift and tool and to meet yourself and also, you know, I like to think I'm pretty empathetic and like pretty, you know, self-conscious and aware, but it all it did definitely gave me, you know, just even another level, um, on just the appreciation of the skill of engineers. You know, um, you know and I knew that, but once again I got to feel that yeah, that's a very different lesson.
Feel it in to really feel it. It's a different lesson, isn't it?
Yeah and just going okay. Yeah, there's some things I'm better at and some things I'm not good at. And now we're talking about energy. Where am I going to be the most efficient? Where am I going to be the most potent? Yes, learn that thing, but is it?
it's not gonna best serve you for now.
Maybe that's maybe that self-produced, self-recorded things down the track. This is a journey and you're still reeling, bro. Yeah, you're still like trying to work out real simple, primordial shit, yeah. So, yeah, go back yeah you know, go back to, to the drawing board of your life schematics, yeah, and it's a circle, coming all the way around with a whole new understanding.
It's not like you're starting from scratch. You're coming, but it's like the context is that you are. It's a renewal, you know, like the beginning is the end. The end is the beginning. It's that beautiful circle coming around, but this time you've got all this new understanding, this new capacity to begin again and be humble again yeah, and that'd be a lot of death. I think that'd be a lot of death, the death of a band?
uh, death of confidence? Death of family members? Yeah, uh. Death of art recordings? Uh, a death within the marriage, I think, even, to be honest to say, a death of old ways in order to forge new ways. It was a real this, whatever you wanna call it, lifetime, the universe, it was like it was kind of nudging me in the directions.
And then and I am a, at times, obstinate, stubborn and like stupidly, not stupendously, but stupidly loyal to an idea, a cause, to people, to myself, to a concept, and I just stuck with something that I knew had to change and that was wanting to change, and all the different organelles of it was wanting to change, not just me and finally it just said poop and just kind of pushed me out of the nest and yeah, it's a rough landing and you know, I just want to
also, just, you know, give it that sense of like, the experience you've just explained and like what you've been through is such, a um, a broader experience for so many people about the kind of the gift of what covid kind of gave us.
As well as it was, it was a death for so many people of old ways and having to deal with our own shadows and take responsibility for stuff, and we all did it in different ways. You know, um, people changed jobs, people left partners, people moved houses, people, you know it. Just it forced us to deal with our shit and, in your case, like it's you you, as as any true artist does, you you turn to your art as as the place to, to synthesize all that you were working through.
Yeah, exactly and to discern and almost decode it all. Yeah, I mean, it's great unveiling. That's what I called covid yeah it was just a whole bunch of stuff we knew was behind the curtain yeah, and something just was like yo. Yeah, what's gonna happen with this shit?
yeah, yeah, and it all came out it wasn't just covid at blm, you know, just like yeah the facts just everything just was came to the fore and rested with social media and I think, all in all, there was a great unveiling that happened. I can't speak for everybody else, but what I noticed and I do have my own take on pattern recognition is that it seemed to happen for a lot of other people and it definitely happened for myself.
It was a great unveiling, a great zeroing off, a calibration, whether we all liked it or not, or whether I liked it or not, and that set the bed for it to begin the process in the hard times. I'm grateful for my people, all my family. I'm not worried about the world.