Butterfly Boucher Interview

Butterfly Boucher Interview

On the heels of recent sold-out shows in Sydney and Melbourne, and in the middle of a North American tour with Missy Higgins and Katie Herzig, Butterfly Boucher is planning a return to her homeland this November for her first extensive Australian headlining tour.

With the tour also comes the release of Butterfly's new single, Not Fooling Around. A synth-heavy dance song meets film-score that lyrically treads a fine line between mischief and regret. "Not Fooling Around might be one of the trickiest songs for me to recreate live, especially when I'm just playing solo! But at my recent Melbourne show, without any prompting, the audience backed me up, singing the song with me from top to bottom. I was blown away," she says.
"After that experience it seemed like a no-brainer to make it my next single… the fans have spoken!"

Following the success of her first single, 5678!, Boucher invited her fans to join her for '20 Seconds of Pure Dance," asking them to submit videos of themselves dancing to 5678! for 20 seconds. The participation was overwhelmingly positive and is captured in a compilation video which premiered the 21st of August on recordstoreday.com, set to the new Moist remix of the song, it features over 70 entries from her fans across the globe. 'It's been an amazing experiment to see people willing to be silly and share it with world. It was incredibly inspiring to see the lengths people went to to join in the fun,"

After her forthcoming Australian headlining tour, Butterfly will rejoin Missy Higgins as bassist and vocalist for a final year-end tour of Higgins' highly acclaimed, Boucher produced album 'The Ol' Razzle Dazzle."

She says, 'As much as I probably need a big fat holiday, I really want to see this chapter through. It has been a fulfilling year, getting to work with Missy, to co-produce her record and then help bring it to life on the road. It'll feel good to play these songs with her for one last tour. Plus she's generously invited me to play one of my own songs during her set, so how could I refuse?"

Interview with Butterfly Boucher

Question: Tell us about Not Fooling Around?

Butterfly Boucher: I'm really excited about Not Fooling Around being a single because it was one of my favourite songs off the album right from the start and I wanted it to get out there. I'm happy Not Fooling Around is going to get some extra loving and I hope people respond to it. It's a fun track to play live because it's quiet dynamic but it's also really hard to play live because it is such a synth heavy number and I usually just have a guitar (laughs) and I make the song go back to the bare minimum of what it needs and it's fun.


Question: What should we expect from the upcoming shows?

Butterfly Boucher: On the tour that I'm coming back through in November I am going to have a band with a drummer and a keyboard player which will be really fun!


Question: What was it like to tour with Missy Higgins and Katie Herzig?

Butterfly Boucher: It's been fantastic and we've just finished a run in the States and it really was a great tour! This tour was really enjoyable and we were all on a bus together because in America you get a big bus and you can drive around in that which is a lot harder to do in Australia because you tend to fly everywhere. On the bus we'd watch movies and all became addicted to the same TV series, it was such a great tour and we're all great friends by now and it was almost like being with your family on tour (which helps a lot).


Question: Do you write your own songs? What's your inspiration?

Butterfly Boucher: Yes. If I knew, I would tell you...

The music always comes first, for me; there are some people who can just write lyrics out of thin air and then the music later and I've tried that on occasion but it never works! The music and making noises in the studio trigger feelings for me and from those feelings I start to get lyric ideas and a story comes together. You never know what will inspire you but sometimes it could be going out to someone else's show and being blown away and then going home that night and making noise; other times it's actually you forcing yourself into the studio and sitting down – it's about self-discipline and if you keep going something will eventually come of that. Half of writing is sifting through ideas and knowing how to edit yourself and half of being a good writer is being able to recognise when you're doing something that's not very good (laughs).


Question: What music/artists do you listen to when you are not playing your own?

Butterfly Boucher: I'm quiet terrible and I know I need to get back to listening to music but the times I listen to music is when I'm driving, cleaning or cooking and that's hardly even when I'm on tour! I really love the last Leaky Lee album and I listen to a gorgeous Laura Veirs song titled July Flame on repeat and an Ane Brun song called These Days. I am all over the place with music and lately I feel like there are songs that stand out but not always a whole album.


Question: Do you prefer performing live or recording?

Butterfly Boucher: No because they're quiet drastically different as they use different parts of your brain. I think naturally I lean towards being in the studio, I love doing that and I have since I was really little; I grew up watching my Dad in the studio and I have this real love for that. At the same time, as much as work as it is to perform, it is such immediate interaction with the crowd and that makes all the work at home balance out and you get to see firsthand how this music affects people. I usually go out after my sets to say hi and sign CDs because I enjoy being able to talk to people and see how music has touched them makes it feel less selfish. Performing is a lot of work and is quiet draining whilst also taking you away from being at home but I do feel like that's where you can give back to those people who support you and buy your album.


Question: What has been your favourite part of becoming a music artist?

Butterfly Boucher: Wow, out of my whole career? That's tricky! There have been some great highlights; early on I opened for Sarah McLachlan when I was 23 and we did big arenas and that was really exciting especially because my debut album had just come out and we ended up touring the world together!
In the last couple of years I really feel like I am finally finding where I fit in, in the industry and the fact that I have broadened what I am capable of doing as I have begun producing, writing with other people and playing for other people rather than just being a solo artist, I now have a lot more outlet to make more music and I feel like I am in the most healthiest place, I've been in a long time of being able to play and enjoy music. I'm really happy with the last three years although the other years were great but they had extreme highs and lows which I learnt a lot from but they could be frustrating because things weren't moving the way I thought they would.


Question: If you could collaborate with another artist, who would it be?

Butterfly Boucher: I'd actually really love to work with The Jezebels, that would be fun although I don't know how it would work dynamically but I really think they are sweet and talented and I'd love to be a part of them experimenting on the next sound that they're going to find.


Interview by Brooke Hunter