THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT - So Tired
It’s Good To Be Back - with Clint Boge
Written by: Rod Whitfield - Independent | Wednesday 15 December 2021
There was much joy and celebration in the Australian rock scene a few years back when Brisbane powerhouse THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT announced their comeback. That it was the classic lineup, the lineup that created the legendary debut EP and album and two superb subsequent releases, releases and accompanying tours that saw them find dizzying heights of success in Australia and the beginnings of a strong overseas following, was the cream on top of a very tasty rock n roll cake. Alongside the delight at the news, there was also a little surprise, given the less than harmonious manner in which iconic frontman Clint Boge left the band back in 2012.
The band recruited a new singer, released a single and went on tour in 2013, but it was ultimately decided that the magic wasn’t quite there and THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT officially disbanded in 2016.
Fast forward to 2021, the band is back, the members have put their differences aside and a riveting second comeback single, entitled So Tired (after having released the single Unbroken back in 2019) has just been unleashed.
Pictured: Kurt Goedhart, Ben Hall, Clint Boge + Glenn Esmond - THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT
Photo by: Damon Whitely
The Interview
Everyone is happy, the band members and their legions of fans across the nation and the world. However, when the question as to exactly how it feels to have the mighty Butters back is posed to the usually highly chatty and affable Boge, he is suddenly a little lost for words.
“Wow, that’s a toughie,” Boge says. “It’s certainly … how do I articulate how it feels, properly? For me, it was getting a piece of me back, if you like. Man, it’s really special. You’ve got me there, because I’m now thinking about it, I’m getting a bit emotional about it. I don’t think I realised how important it was to me until, when it was gone. It was so toxic at the time, I had to leave, it was killing me. I remember the day. Around that time my now ex-wife looked at me and said, ‘who are you?’, that was crazy.
“The toxicity that had built up around that time was horrible. To go on the holiday and then see them keep going and then stop, and then it was all over. And then catching up with Kurt (guitarist Kurt Goedhart) later on at the DEAD LETTER CIRCUS acoustic show, I didn’t realise how much of a piece of me it was, or how much of me I’d poured into that. To me, it’s not just a band, there’s something else in it, and I feel deeply privileged, and so grateful that I, not only got to be a part of it, but I got to be a part of the soundtrack for so many people’s lives, and to be the go-to and the beacon that a lot of people clung to to get through really bad times. You don’t realise that until you have people coming up to you and saying, ‘I was going to kill myself, and I listened to (TBE’s debut album) Begins Here or listen to your music and I didn’t do it.’
So you and your band’s music saved people’s lives, it doesn’t get any better than that? “No, it doesn’t, and I’m getting the chillies and the goosebumps just talking about it. So, it (the band) is as much a part of me as the large muscle pumping away in my chest. Just sitting here now, talking about it, it really is just super important to me, I’m getting a little bit misty about it! It’s a good question, you got me!”
When a band releases new stuff, there is always some apprehension, at the best of times, as to how said band’s audience is going to react. When a band has gone away and then come back, the feeling amongst the band members is even more pronounced. And that was exactly where Boge’s head was at in the lead-up to the release of the new single.
“When you’re releasing new music, there’s always that slight sense of trepidation,” Boge admits. “Are people going to get it? Is it going to go over well? So what we wanted to do was bring it back full circle and go back to, and I hate to say this because it sounds like a dirty word, but reboot the band and the sound, go back to the EP. I’m singing in the first person now, the lyrics were more coming from me. And with everything going on in the world, ‘So Tired’ was a timely message, everyone’s feeling it as well, we’re all feeling Covid-fatigue, there’s so much shit going on, we’re constantly being bombarded by bullshit from the mainstream media, especially the Murdoch media, man those cunts need to be fuckin’ shot!
“It’s the same thing, those people (in the Murdoch media) can split their moral compass, they can go to work and know that they can write bullshit, but they’re getting paid to do it, and Mr Murdoch said it’s okay. So we’re being constantly bombarded by this, so that anger and aggression, the story of the song is fighting that and fighting your own demons, it’s anxiety, it’s depression, I think we’re all experiencing it.”
Rather than make any pointless or unrealistic attempts to find solutions to all the problems, the song leaves things a little ambiguously, which is also reflective where most of us are at in this moment in history. “At the end of the song I say ‘will it ever get better? I don’t know.’ I left it open-ended. Then, when the chorus comes in with that big, melodic section, ‘it’s sad but true, when everything falls down on you, the only one standing is me’, and that’s kind of like, what’s left is the ego and the id, talking backwards and forwards. It’s the two parts of the self having this battle.”
That battle is also being represented by the jarring but seamless and cohesive sense of contrast that the song projects, musically and aurally, as well as by the lyrics; the pounding beats and Boge’s angry, staccato delivery during the verse leading into the soaring, almost soothing chorus section. “The physical self, the conscious self is being absolutely smashed from every angle, and it’s in the heavy section of the music. But then when the subconscious starts speaking, it’s kind of laughing back at the conscious self, it’s the more melodic, more pretty part of the song. It’s that contrast, and it’s very interesting when you look in-depth into the lyrics and how the two parts of the self are battling and talking backwards and forwards. It’s very interesting.”
Ultimately, the song packs a huge wallop and covers a hell of a lot of territory, lyrically and musically, over the course of its five and a quarter minute journey. “A friend of mine said, ‘I love the new song, it’s like four songs in one’. We’re giving the listener the full experience, you’re getting such a broad scope of the musical styles we’ve mucked around with over the years. It’s almost like you’re traveling through all of the releases that we’ve done in one song.”
With everything going on, with all of the uncertainty that still exists in Australia and across the world, there are no plans to tour off the back of the new single, but 2022 is looking like a massive year for the TBE comeback (pending everything going back to relative normal of course). It’s been a very fruitful, hard-working and creative time for the band, and the fruits of that labour and creativity will hopefully be tasted next year.
“What’s coming behind it (the new single), there’s another really full-on song coming,” he informs us, “and we’ve got a few twisty-turny ones, we’ve got a little bit more of a traditional sounding one from the Butters, coming in behind it, so the album’s going to be great. I’m really looking forward to it, we’re looking at releasing it mid-next year. They told us not to worry about touring properly until the middle of next year at the earliest, because everything’s go to rebound and everything, so we’re going to tour in September 2022.”
Pictured: Ben Hall, Clint Boge, Kurt Goedhart + Glenn Esmond - THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT
Photo by: Damon Whitely