The Butterfly Effect areback...

Tue 13th Jun, 2006 in Features

When I last spoke with Kurt Goedhart from The Butterfly Effect last September (http://www.fasterlouder.com.au/features/3220/), the band were preparing to travel to the United States to record their second album with producer Joe Baressi, who was wrapping up work on Tool’s 10,000 Days at the time and had earlier in the year produced Queens of the Stone Age’s Lullabies to Paralyze. Nine months later, the album Imago, their second, is about to hit the shelves and drummer Ben Hall is busy preparing to travel interstate for the band’s headline slot at the third Come Together festival.

“We’re really looking forward to it,” Hall says. ”We’ve only done a few shows since the Phoenix tour, so it’s going to be great to get back on the road.”  It has been an uncharacteristically long time between drinks for a band whose reputation has been built on tour schedules that would have many bands shaking in their boots. The album tour begins on July 13 in Toowoomba, and doesn’t wrap up until the Revesby Worker’s show in October, almost three months later to the day. And that’s just the first phase, as Hall informs me. 

“We plan to tour off each single, I think there’s space to release a second single sometime around September, so we’ll be around again for sure.  We’ve taken a lot from bands like Grinspoon in this regard – staging shows in places where you mightn’t expect a tour to stop off.”

The reason for all the fanfare is the aforementioned album Imago (pronounced imm-ah-go, in answer to the inevitable question). It’s an album rich in scope and melody, and a record that is clearly the work of a band not afraid to step out of their comfort zone and expand upon their sound palette. From the instrumental title track to the appropriately titled ‘The End’, Imago is a record that will surprise some and please a hell of a lot more.

Hall and the rest of the band couldn’t be happier.

“I love the record,”  he says. ”It’s not Begins Here, far from it, which is exactly what we wanted this album to be. We feel like we’ve finally got it right, and made the exact album that we wanted to. We’ve kind of left the nu metal sound behind us a bit, as you get older, your tastes vary and it’s the same as a musician. It’s still part of our sound, and every now and then a band from the genre, like Killswitch Engage for me right now, will come along and totally kick your arse, but we’re concentrating a lot more on melody and dynamics.  We basically wrote what we thought was good.”

It’s fair to say that while Imago is a definite progression for the band, at the same time it’s not a massive artistic left turn of the Kid A variety either. What it represents is a consolidation and expansion of the band’s strengths. With all due respect to the rhythm section of Hall and bassist Glenn Osmond, the real stars of this record are the guitars of Goedhart and the vocals of Clint Boge.

“We definitely wanted to give Kurt, and indeed the songs themselves, far more space in which to work,” Hall states.  The result is plenty of lead breaks from Goedhart, as well as a heightened sense of melody that, while hinted at on Begins Here and perhaps even more so on their eponymous debut EP, for the first time has come to the fore of the songs rather than being occasionally noticed through the massive guitar sound of those releases.

“It kind of makes me nervous that some of the songs aren’t as ball tearing or upbeat as those we’ve done before. You need to give this record some time, rather than expecting to love it straight away.” Tracks like lead single ‘A Slow Descent’ and ‘Reach’ however would sound absolutely oat home on either of those records.

Hall informed me that ‘Reach’ is in fact the oldest song on Imago. While tracks like ‘Aisles of White’ have been finding their way into many a recent setlist, ‘Reach’ was originally demoed back in 2004.  n the leadup to the Big Day Out festival that year, Hall was quoted as saying he didn’t think the band had written a song better than ‘Take It Away’ (on the self-titled EP). When asked whether his opinion had changed since this latest album, his response was ‘definitely.  I think songs like ‘Aisles of White’, ‘Gone’ and ‘Everybody Runs’ are better than anything we’ve ever done before’.

It wasn’t always so good during the recording however. While in September the band were tremendously excited to be recording with one of the most sought after producers in hard rock, the reality turned out to be a little different.

“We had the right engineer, and the right mixer, but Joe didn’t seem to like us much and vice versa.  And it’s a load of shit that conflict like that eventually benefits the art – let me just say that it would be a lot better to not have to deal with those sort of relationships at all.”

But with the pesky recording business out of the way, the boys are ready to hit the road again.  Catch The Butterfly Effect on these dates over the next few months. Chances are they’re hitting your town, and just quietly they may find their way onto a few festival bills too!

July
13 – University of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba, QLD (18+)
14 – Cooloongatta Hotel, Gold Coast, QLD (18+)
15 – The Arena, Brisbane, QLD (18+)
19 – Great Northern, Byron Bay, NSW (18+)
20 – The Plantation Hotel, Coffs Harbour, NSW (18+)
21 – Armidale Ex Services, Armidale, NSW (18+)
22 – The Cambridge, Newcastle, NSW, (18+)
23 – The Cambridge, Newcastle, NSW, (All Ages)
27 – Beachcombers, Toukley, NSW (18+)
28 – The Metro, Sydney, NSW (18+)
29 – ANU Bar, Canberra, ACT (18+)
30 – The Roadhouse, Yallah, NSW, (All Ages-15+)

August
02 – Lake Jindabyne Hotel, Jindabyne, NSW (18+)
03 – Sodens Hotel, Albury, NSW (18+)
04 – The Hi-Fi Bar, Melb, VIC (18+)
05 – Peninsula Lounge, Moroodoc, VIC (18+)
06 – The Hi-Fi Bar, Melb, VIC (<18s)
10 – Shadows, Mt Gambier, SA (18+)
11 – The Governor Hindmarsh, Adelaide, SA (18+)
12 – Pratoria Hotel, Mannum, SA (18+)
13 – The Governor Hindmarsh, Adelaide, SA, (Lic – all ages)
16 – The Foundry, Cannington, WA (18+)
17 – Prince Of Wales, Bunbury, WA (18+)
18 – 3 Bears Bar, Dunsborough, WA (18+)
19 – Heat Nightclub, Perth, WA (18+)
20 – Newport Hotel, Fremantle, WA (18+)
24 – Main Street, Mackay, QLD (18+)
25 – TBA, Townsville, QLD (18+)
26 – Brothers Leagues Club, Cairns, Nth QLD (18+)
27 – Fluid Nightclub, Pt Douglas, Nth QLD (18+)
31 – Mary Gilhooley’s Irish Pub, Lismore, NSW (18+)

September
02 – The Sands, Maroochydore, QLD (18+)
29 – Kawana Community Centre, QLD, (Unlic-All Ages)
30 – Southport RSL, Gold Coast, (Unlic-All Ages)

October
04 – UCU, Canberra, Act, (Unlic-All Ages)
05 – Oasis Youth Centre, Gosford, NSW, (Unlic-All Ages)
06 – Orange Ex Services, Orange, NSW (18+)
07 – Manly Youth Centre, Manly, NSW, (Unlic-All Ages)
08 – Penrith RSL, Penrith, NSW, (Lic-All Ages)
14 – Revesby Workers, Revesby, NSW, (Lic-All Ages)