Latest / HEAVY Music Interviews / Two Decades Of Rock with CLINT BOGE From THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT

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Two Decades Of Rock with CLINT BOGE From THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT · HEAVY Music Interviews

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Hey everyone, it's Clint here from the Butterfly Effect, just wishing you well
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and hoping everything is great in your world. Just letting you know that we're
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just about to embark on the twentieth anniversary tour begins here. Check your socials
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for the dates. Come and get around us. It's going to be a
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lovely evening of loud, raucous alternate heavy rock prog music and I know you're
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going to have a fat time, So get down and see us as soon
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as you can. Chris, what do you got for me? Let's go
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mad after that. I don't know if you've just round me out completely.
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There was an awesome show. Hey, you can't runner? Good, good,
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Hey, it's great to be hanging with you today. I'm stoked to
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be spooking the tour. The twentieth anniversary begins here. They said we'd never
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make it, mate, and we're here, so you know, bigger to
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everyone I said, mate, Australian heavy music is alive and well and still
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going. You've got all of the bands that paved the way and trail blazed
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back in the day and the can I just say I'm super stoked to be
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a part of it. Twenty years on, and can I just say I'm
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a little bit probably am a little bit heavier, I'm a little bit wiser.
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I've got a few more gray hairs. But we're still here. Oh
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yeah, Rother, and they're welcome, still here. It is made.
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It's good to have you, silly apps. Stoked, mate, stoked.
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I did say that the butterfly affected bark On The begins here twentieth anniversary tour,
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starting in Bruceman on February the first and going through Sydney, Canberra,
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Newcastle, Perth, Melbourne, Hobart, finishing Adelaide on twenty third. Like,
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I think you pretty much answered this already made, But how high are
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the excitement levels? We're nervous. There's a sense of anxiousness around the group
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at the moment, and we're nervous because we want it to be great.
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We haven't played some of these songs for twenty years. I think we played
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Without Wings in its demo format at the hard Rock Cafe on the Gold Host
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in two thousand and one Slash two, and that was the last time that
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thing got played over got played, I think two thousand and four that was
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the last time it got played. So We've had to relearn rejig and duck
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weave and dodge because the brain isn't as malleable as it was twenty years ago.
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And can I tell you I've pulled about a thousand million beers on that
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thing. I'm surprised I can still breathe. My cognitive function isn't too bad
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in the mornings, only by the other But look, the excitement is palpable
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around the group at the moment. Glenn's coming up this evening. We've got
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a I'm going in the studio tomorrow to do some touch ups for vocal stuff.
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We're doing a full band practice. Mate. It's it's all systems go
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with firing on all cylinders, which is great. Yeah, And demanded for
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the tour has been so high. Made like when you initially announced that there
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is only probably seven dates I think, but you've more than doubled the amount
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since then. That's that's got to be. It's got to be make you
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feel good that there's so many people want to come out and see this.
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It's capitalism at its best, let me tell you. But yeah, yeah,
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yeah, yeah, no, it's great because you know what the thing
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is. We wouldn't have extra shows if there wasn't demand for it. But
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how's this. Kurt was in the band room the other day and he was
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kind of having this insecure moment about who wants to come and see Butterfly Effect
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twenty years on? And I said, mate, I said, it was
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a very important album for not only for me but a lot of my mates,
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where they still talk about it as one of the seminole and one of
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the like, you know, the trailblazing albums of our generation, which was
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the early two thousand sort of thing of heavy rock bands in Australia, and
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like they always throw us in with Cog, Carnival, Sunklido and the list
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goes on and on, and I feel privileged just to be mentioned in that
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group of bands by itself. So that's huge. So to actually have people
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want to come out and see the show twenty years on and listen to those
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songs played in its entirety from start to finish, and there will be a
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non courset, so don't sweat it. You'll still get to hear you know,
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four or five, to get to hear his waffle on a bit more
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So, it's extremely exciting, it's extremely we feel extremely honored and humbled that
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there's still demand for the band twenty is on for that particular album. Yeah.
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Now on that note, made like you are playing the album from front
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and back in its anxiety. But how difficult is that today? Like when
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you write the album, I couldn't imagine that you ever thought you're gonna have
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to play the whole lot one day. So like the bits in there that
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it did, it's hard to reproduce, yeah, one hundred percent. So
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we've as I said, we haven't played Like with Our Wings since it was
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in its demo format, and of course there's a lot of orchestration. Back
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in the day, we didn't have backing tracks, so that's why we didn't
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play it, just purely because it wouldn't have sounded like we wanted it to
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sound. So but now with like backing tracks and we're taking a full menagerie
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of other musicians on the road with us this time around, and we've spent
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an absolute bloody monster on our production on lighting and and sound and crew and
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all the rest. So look, we've thrown it to the absolute well because
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we want to make this as memorable an experience as we can. But it
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was very hard in the beginning for us to reproduce some of those songs.
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That's why they didn't get played, whereas something like one second Insanity is you
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know, it is what it is. But we're looking forward to presenting this
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album from front to back with all the extra pieces we're going to throw in.
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And we're in the reversal space the other night on the weekend actually,
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and we played through just you know, Me, Kurt and Ben, and
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it sounded amazing. It was it was really kick at us. So yeah,
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I can't wait for people to hear it because it's it's never been played
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in its entirety. So this is going to be a brand new thing for
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the crowd and for us, which keeps us fresh and it challenges us.
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As I was saying, you know, there's a nervousness and anxiety around the
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crew. So and that's a good thing because when you've got the band on
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the toes and we're all hoppin', it means care and we really want to
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you know, go out there with a with a bang. So take us
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back. So when you first started, like the album begins here, like
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you'd had your your EP came out there was pretty successful, but you st
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now to write your debut album, Like what what? What were you thinking?
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Oh? What were we thinking? Probably about the after party more or
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less than anything else, thinking about you know, all all the naughty things
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we're thinking about that. No, all we wanted to do was it was
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was right, a really kick ass, dark, brooding album. That's it.
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We knew the strength of the EP. We had a great success with
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the EP. We had a lot of support from you know, alternative radio,
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and it was just at the time when the Internet was starting to really
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pick up and was booming, and you know, people were communicating that way,
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and all of the streaming sites were starting in their very infant stages.
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So and look, we were very lucky to have road Show as our record
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company, who put us on the startup movies. I mean, you would
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have remembered seeing our film clips at the start of any of the roato stuff,
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which was huge as a promotional tool. But we weren't really trying to
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do anything other than just write a great album with like big choruses, big
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riffs, you know, smashing drums. It was just i mean, four
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kids really in a rehearsal space trying to be as loud and as obnoxious as
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possible, but with a sensive kind of maturity about this album. And it's
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funny because when Kurt was sort of writing it and I hear these demos on
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the daily or you know, weekly, I would sit there and go,
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man, where's this coming from? And it was so easy to write over
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and so easy to sing over, and it really just clicked. And then
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shortly after that's you know, and that's the story. I mean, you
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know, they got picked up, people really gripped to it. Shortly after
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we're doing you know, touring through Europe and America and people are coming to
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see this and you know, to us big numbers. So that was amazing.
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And I can't thank everyone enough for their support because it's truly humbling and
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I feel very privileged to be a part of it. So yeah, it
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was tough. We didn't set out to write anything exceptional, but I think
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we did. I think there's a darkness around the album. It's kind of
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like this, I don't know, there's a brooding sense of I don't know,
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just I don't know the words. Anyway, it's brooding. It's a
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great piece and I still love it. I still love it. I still
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listen to it. I listen to it. Well, I've been listening to
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it every day, trying to remember bloody lyrics that I've forgotten. They just
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can't sit in my brain anymore. I've been going, what's going on,
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I'll get it right on the night, cheat cheeks out there on stage with
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you. I've got yeah, I'm going to have some chicken in the third
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row with a T shirt with all my lyrics on it. It's just I
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have to wear my glasses now to see it. So when you finished making
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that album, like it's it finished, it's put it to bed, it
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was ready to get released, Like did you have any inkling that it was
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going to be the breakthrough for the Butterfly Flap? Like did you know your
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albums that it was that good? I didn't think so, I didn't know.
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I actually had a chat with Nick the Nick Carpenter, the singer from
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Devolved, at the Trocadero and the Gold Coast just before the begins. He
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came out and I said, man, I'm really scared. I don't I
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don't know if people are going to like it. And he looked at me,
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put his hand on my shoulder and said, I think people are going
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to like it, man, I think you'll be all right. And he
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hadn't even really heard it, so that's, you know, that's one thing.
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But him and our old manager, Dave Leonard were who produced the album,
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were great mates. So no, we were kind of very hopeful.
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And I think when you've kind of got that young mentality, younger mentality where
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you're just really enthusiastic and it's kind of you're just happy to have an album.
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And we had a record company and we had like you know, there
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was offers coming in for tours in overseas and stuff, and when the album
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came out, that was really We played at the Waterloo and Brisbane like two
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thousand and early two thousand and or mid two thousand and three, and we
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played Perception twin for the first time and no nobody sang it. And I
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sat there and went, oh shit, what have we done. We've buggered
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this. And we did a whole national tour. By the time we come
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back to prison because they just kept us touring. Everyone was singing every word
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and that's when I knew. And we sold out the Waterloo, which was
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like eight hundred people, which was huge, and you know, we've gone
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from like selling a couple of hundred tickets to selling out the Waterloo, And
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that was a big deal because I still remember a made of money and he
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said, man, if you even half fill like venues like you were doing
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well, you know, and then it's you know, we had all these
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sold out stickers all over our tour poster, which was massive. And case
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in point. Here's the thing that people may not know. We used to
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get thirty bucks a day. That's all we got paid. And yeah,
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so when we'd sell out a venue we were allowed to get sixty, we
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got double. So that's when we knew we were starting to get there.
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We could eat properly because on thirty bucks a day, let me tell you,
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even back in the early two thousands, you get maybe breakfast and dinner
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if you're lucky. Yeah, well that was your budget from the road each
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day. Thirty bucks a day, man, that's all we could afford.
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And no one was working at the time. We couldn't work because we're on
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the road so much. But we were trying to pump the money back into
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the band and pay off recording debts and all this sort of stuff and pay
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for you know, to us to Europe, which aren't cheap in America,
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and so like we had to live like paupers, and we lived off thirty
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bucks a day. So you had to decide whether you want to eat lunch
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and dinner or breakfast and dinner. And when the writer, when they bring
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the writer out, because they usually give us a case of beer, it's
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like you'd protect it. You just call them. We call them rider spiders
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because it's people that come in your room and drink your piss while you while
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you're out on stage. Anyway, Yeah, you'd kind of sat. We
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end up stashing beers, Like we put a six pack over here. We'd
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take a six pack out on stage and we'd put another six in a drum
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case because we because you had to be tired. That's the way we lived.
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But it was glorious and we had the best time. It was the
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most fun I've ever had. I just wish I had a worn ear plugs
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and looked at it partly deaf. Now good times. Anyway, I hope
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that the question I waffled on there. But anyway, now you released the
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singles one Second of Insanity, Brave Always, and Beautiful Mind off that album.
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But what was your personal favorite song beginnings here. That is a great
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question. Man, Gee, it's it's hard. It's a hard pick.
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It's like picking one of your favorite kids. I know we've all got one,
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we just don't. I think, you know what, I really love
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the lyrical content in Consequence. I think that's is and also that like the
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build in the middle section and through the middle. Although you know, feeling
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Silence has got a special place, I think ly lyrically, Consequence probably rock
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Out is my favorite, to be one second of Insanity, and for the
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moodiness and the darkness to Beautiful Mine. So I know that's three, But
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then I've got you know, it's kind of like they're all my kids.
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I don't really say one better than the other, but those three, I
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think those three really typify the band sound and the direction we were going in.
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Yeah, so I've you mentioned before that you still listen to the album,
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But do you think that the songs have aged well? Like, are
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they still as relevant now as what they were about? That? Yeah,
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that's man, Bloody Hair another good question. Yes, I think they have
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for me, especially like going back and listening to them again, it's like
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they don't sound corny. They don't sound like trite. It's you know those
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things that sometimes musicians come back to and say, I don't know where my
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head was out, I was on drugs, or I was you know,
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trying to I was having a stab at me X or some shit for me.
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They the reason why they have lasted and they're so relevant to me now
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is because they covered some really important issues in my life and sort of like
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help me. They're very cathartic and help me sort of get out a lot
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of shit that was, you know, down deep. And so people have
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said, you know, how is it singing those songs every night? It's
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like therapy for me? Man. It means I get to go out and
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share them with the crowd. But also they've evolved. They don't mean what
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they used to mean. They still do have that meaning, but they've evolved,
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do you know what I mean? So the lyrical content sort of more
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about things that happened later on in life and and what asks back to things
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that happened early and etcetera, etcetera. So you know, it's covers the
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whole gambit of the evolution of a song, and I think they've aged beautifully.
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The sound is still relevant to me. It's a timeless sound. We
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didn't lock ourselves in to say, like, you know, a hair metal
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or a prog rock. Essentially, you know, it covers progue, alternate
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rock, heavy metals. It's all encompassing. So and I think that's why
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it's lasted so long. And also the fact that it was coming from the
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heart. The songs are real. There was this you know, sort of
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destructive force inside the band that was that was happening the time. There was
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relationships forming and breaking down as fast as they'd formed, you know what I
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mean. It's that it's a relationship like any other. But how we've lasted
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this long, Well, I did take a breaker when on holidays. We
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like to call it. It was the blip, you know what I mean.
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But it's yeah, No, I think they've aged beautifully. Yeah,
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well so that album was twenty years ago, bro, So how would you
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say the Butterfly Effect has grown and changed musically as a band in decades?
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Yeah, Look, we were very fearless back in the day. We were
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just young kids, Like we didn't really have a sort of a barometer if
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you like to sort of gauge it and have a metric to what was you
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know, what was being cool or what we thought we needed to be and
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how we thought we were going to sell albums, because you know, there
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is a business element that creeps in and it's horrible because I think that distorts
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your creativity at some juncture, at some level, it doesn't matter what you
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do. And I think the best people in the then the most famous people
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have harnessed it and used it to propel themselves forward, whereas some people can't
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and they just fall apart. But we had great management, We had really
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good record company that let us do whatever we want. You know. There
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was a lot of infighting and a lot of shit that went inside the band,
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but that's that's what it is. There's so much of that you know
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sort of thing that that's what creates the great music and all those great stories,
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the evolution and like we've just sort of progressed as we went, you
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know. And it was like a conscious choice to write a Margo and change
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the styling because I wanted to write again here Part two. Final Conversation was
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supposed to be a concept album that never really saw its due in my mind,
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because there was a whole graphic little graphic booklet that was coming with it,
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and a whole bunch of other stuff. But of course, you know,
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budget time getting people to do that, and then into four you know
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that evolution again. It's like, you know, some some guys that used
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to write some heavy music and try while trying to relive the not the glory
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days, but just taking a different skew because like you know, we're all
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forty plus years old. I yeah, like I said, I wanted to
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write Begins Here part two. We had a bunch of demos and songs that
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I think would have been perfect, but the guys really wanted to look elsewhere
17:15
and try some different styles, which is cool because it worked. I mean,
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Omago was our biggest album. So but yeah, man, it's the
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evolution, and I think you've got to let it happen, do you know
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what I mean. We've grown as people who've become men. We've all got
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families, we've all got kids, responsibilities, and that changes you whether you
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like it or not. Also, the world's a different place. The music
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industry is a different place. There's streaming kids. Kids today have tension spans
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and bloody knits, you know what I mean. It's crazy man, it's
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like you know, and it's also finding your place in the industry still and
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feeling relevant because I listened to some of the new stuff like spirit Box and
17:52
sleep Token shit, and I'm just going, wow, they're just blowing us
17:57
away, do you know what I mean? And you listen to Bloody Bring
18:00
Me the Rise and all those guys, and you're like, where, you
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know, I feel like a They feel like a sharp needle, and I
18:07
feel like a sledgehammer, do you know what I mean? It's very different.
18:11
It's the lyrics, yeah, man, So like you know, Sleep
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Token's lyrics are just next level to me as a lyrics lyricist, you know,
18:17
the next level, and his vocality is fantastic. And you know,
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you listen to the spirit Box and their productions off the chart and I'm like,
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wow, you just feel like a dinosaur, dude. So look,
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in that respect, you just you can only do what you do and do
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it to the best of your ability as you sit today, hit I'm kicking
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shit. Yeah, so just as you can do it today, you know
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what I mean? And look, nobody expects, you know, forty late
18:45
forties dudes to bounce around the stage like they used to and to be honest,
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I don't know if that looks cool. That's why main Arnt stands up
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the back or sits at the picnic table at the front just because he was
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bored. Well, that could be it too. Yeah, yeah, I
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don't know. I got a full head of hairs. That's what I'm doing
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about now. You mentioned the album for Maylo that came about in twenty twenty
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two after a bit of our hiatus through the band. So how was they
19:10
received? I did fans welcome you back? Were they accepting what you were
19:11
doing? Oh? Absolutely, Yeah, it was amazing. I think a
19:15
lot of people were just glad that we were back. I think was the
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Reformation tour when we kind of got back together and at the end of twenty
19:22
seventeen and then you know, the Reformation tour in twenty eighteen, people were
19:26
stoked. And I've talked to many people and this is the resounding story that
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keeps sort of coming back. Is for a lot of people, it's like
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a time machine, do you know what I mean? They get to relive
19:37
that time where they had the best summer of their lives with their mates that
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are at school. You know, the end of school you know, they
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meant their missus all that sort of stuff and partners and all the rest.
19:45
There was a guy that came up to me that brought his eighteen year old
19:48
son to one of our shows in Adelaide. Blew my mind, he said,
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he said, I came to see you when I was eighteen, and
19:55
eighteen years later I brought my son and I just give him a massive huger
19:59
and I said, I'm stoked that I got to share that moment, because
20:03
I mean, how often do you are you going to get that? Do
20:04
you know what I mean? Parents bringing their their adult children to the same
20:08
show that they watched more or less, you know, like eighteen years ago
20:12
or twenty years ago. And that's and it's bizarre to be because I just
20:17
sit there, I'm like, bloody hell. It's it's like I say,
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man, I can't I can't stress it more. It's it's a it's a
20:25
real privilege, and it's a real moment that you've got to just you know,
20:27
envelop yourself in because yeah, how many more of those are we going
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to get? And we could be dead tomorrow too, you know, let's
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hope it. Now. This two winds up on February twenty third, mates,
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So what's next to the butterfly effect after that? If he got planned?
20:44
So he's just taking this one and see what happens. Yeah, well,
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I'm going on holiday after that. I'm out of here. I'm going
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to Japan for two weeks. Yeah, I'll be lucky if I get two
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weeks before I got to come back and get to work and work on some
20:57
new stuff. But there is some new riffs being tossed around, being punted
21:03
around the band room. I'm not privy to them because they don't like to
21:06
show me stuff too early because I start singing on it, and then when
21:08
they go and change it later on, then I sit there and crack the
21:11
shits because they've changed me good you know, good melodies and shit, which
21:17
annoys me greatly. Can I tell you I've come up with some really good
21:19
stuff, says me. And they go and change it, and I'm like,
21:25
man, let's go back to that rib now we don't like that.
21:27
I'm like, yeah, but the vocal is excellent. No, no,
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man. So there is new music in the works. There's talks of Amago
21:36
twentieth anniversary. Just so you know that you've got the scoop. We haven't
21:38
talked about that. Yeah, yeah, so there's all that stuff. Man,
21:42
Look, we're still going to keep going until well, either we can't
21:47
stand each other, or someone taps us on the shoulder and politely tells us
21:51
to please go away yeah or yeah, or I get hit by a bus
21:56
down bloody down Adelaide Street in Brisbane. But now, man, look we're
22:03
stoke to keep going. I think for us, it's just what we do
22:06
and it keeps us young, and it keeps us feeling relevant to some point.
22:11
And look, you know, we take you know, we've looked at
22:15
bands like Screaming Jets. They're still going, you know what I mean,
22:18
And they're like all in their fifties and whatever, and they're still making great
22:22
music. Bros Tattoo like Angries into his seventies, you know, John Farnham
22:25
still going before he got sick, you know, Jimmy Barnes, and the
22:30
list goes on and on. Mate, all Australian legends. And to me,
22:33
like, I mean, I went and saw ice House not too longer
22:36
and it was exceptional. They were fantastic, So I loved it. So
22:40
we're going to keep going. There's plenty of new music we're doing. You
22:41
know, we're doing tours and we're going to keep playing for everyone that wants
22:45
to come and listen to us beautiful play. Well, thanks very much for
22:48
your time, made pleasure. As always. The tour kicks off in Brisbane
22:52
on February the first. Better pour my finger out and get a ticket because
22:56
they're selling really fucking quick, so hopefully I'll see you that brother man would
23:00
be good to see. And just one, just one thing on the end
23:03
there, just wanted to say thank you to all the fans and to yourself,
23:06
thank you for having me. But also check out the socials and get
23:10
your tickets, but also check out the gin that we released not too long
23:12
ago and enjoy itself. Dreap responsibly. I may all enjoy the rest of
23:19
your day. And now I'll hopefully see you one of the Brisbane shows.
23:22
Brother. Thanks brother, we'll see you mate, big love, Take care,