John Butler joins 2022 Port Fairy Folk Festival line-up

He's a major headliner for the 45^th instalment of what has become an iconic seaside festival on Australia's music calendar.

Butler has cemented himself in the Australian music scene as one of the country's most revered singer-songwriters over his two-decade career.

The ARIA award-winning musician has attended the Folkie many times over the years.

"I reckon I've played Port Fairy at least three or four times, this would be my fourth time I think," Butler said.

"The last time I had I had a really good jam with Jeff Lang - he invited me on stage for a song and I really remember that fondly.

"I've seen my wife play there a few times and just my own shows as well. I just love the whole scene, it's a beautiful place."

Butler says festivals like the Folkie hold an important place in the music landscape.

"Culture is heavily influenced by music, it's what most of us listen to when we're not talking, or doing or working; there's music on somewhere. Music is heavily ingrained in us as a people.

"Festivals for that reason provide a space for culture to celebrate itself and to really experience the magic of music.

"I always think that my job is to give people the chills. When I'm watching something, I want to feel the chills and when I do it's so magical and I want to feel it again. But it's kind of a little rare as well, so it makes it even more special.

"Festivals kind of up the chill factor and the chances for feeling them, and I think that's really important.

"When people get the chills in the audience, it has a very physiological effect on on people and it's a good thing that makes them feel not so alone and makes them feel connected, it makes them feel wonder and like, not fully understand what's happening to them.

"That's an amazing little ride to go on and that music can do - and festivals facilitate that on a mass level."

The Port Fairy Folk Festival started in the 1970s on the back of a truck and has grown from strength to strength each year.

But what is folk music, 45 years on?

For Butler, it's a music by the people, for the people.

"Folk is a long, long tradition of telling stories and telling people stories - average people stories, not like celebrity stories or famous people stories, but everyday stories," he said.

"I feel like the earliest forms of folk spoke about the happenings of the day; the minstrel going from village to village and singing it. It was a form of news but also a collective kind of temperature read on where society was at.

"I feel like it's a people's music. It kind of explores all the different aspects of what it means to be human, and part of a community."

It was his grandfather's guitar that played a role in his start in music.

"My grandmother gave me my grandfather's guitar when I was 16, though I wasn't really learning guitar to get it," Butler said. "I was the first person to learn in the family after he passed, and I'm named after him.

"Another five years down the track I discovered slide music and all of a sudden, this dobro slide guitar made perfect sense.

"It was like the guitar was waiting for me to catch up."

Since then Butler has had a long career, remaining a key part of the Australian music scene for over two decades.

But who is John Butler now? He's still trying to work that out.

"Who am I now as an artist? I guess I'm gonna still a singer-songwriter, but I'm making more different music probably than ever," Butler said.

"I make a lot of beat driven in hip-hop influenced and dance influenced music nowadays with banjos and guitars. That's what I'm kind of working on at the moment.

"I think I'm somebody who's probably a little more open minded and a little less righteous than I was 20 years ago. I think I see a lot more gray in duality and nuance, especially in this day and age that we live in.

"I find it very hard to wave any flags anymore, is what I'm really trying to say."

A lot has happened since Butler began releasing music in the 90s, but there are two career-defining moments that stick with him.

One was headlining at the legendary Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Colorado, USA.

"It took 10 years, and I actually I lost money in America for 10 years," Butler said.

"It was a huge undertaking that took ages and ages and a lot of work, a lot of groundswell, a lot of building a fan base up and a lot of investment and time.

"Australia had everything to do with that even though it's another country; without Australia, I would never have even been able to afford to make a career in America."

The John Butler Trio has sold out Red Rocks five times and even now, each time feels like a big achievement.

"That was the pinnacle gig and one of my favorite venues on the planet, it's so majestic."

Butler's support of First Nations artists, environmental advocacy and political activism has been a major feature alongside his musical career.

He admits it's taken many years to be able to sit with the duality of living; a theme explored in his timeless 2004 track 'Zebra'.

"Not everything's really black and white, there's a lot of gray in between and so I'm just trying to stay really open-minded, trying to keep upgrading my language and my politics and at the same time maybe not get too caught up in what circus maybe happening at the moment," Butler said.

"I find it a little bit too simplistic for how complex human beings are. You know, I'm a nice person, and I'm a dickhead.

"That's a very human trait to not be flawless. Can I be a decent progressive male, and still find out that I have a systematic and pre-programmed societal sexism in me? Yeah.

"Am I woke or am I not? Things are very complex.

"I think all you can really do is stay really open. Keep listening. Keep not taking it too personally."

Music flows in the veins of the family.

Butler and partner Danielle Caruana, a performer known as Mama Kin, have a teenage daughter Banjo Lucia who is making waves of her own in the music scene, releasing stunning emotional track 'That's Not Loving' in 2021.

"I think I'm more inspired by her than proud of her," Butler said. "I'm always proud of her whatever she was to do, we've always told our kids: don't feel like you have to make music because that's just what your mum and I do.

"But Danielle and I were like, how did she get so good? She's only 19. Like what happened?

"We've had several friends go, she's better than both of you combined.

"It's pretty amazing just to watch. Sometimes I spin out that I even have kids, that I'm a parent and I go to teacher and parent meetings. I'm like, God, this is so grown up.

"So I'm still like, wow, I have a daughter first of all, wow. And then I'm like, wow, she's really good. So it's actually quite surreal most of the time to actually watch what she's doing.

"Hopefully she might be at Port Fairy as well - Danielle's gonna be playing so if we can get Banjo there then it'd be a family affair."

See John Butler at Port Fairy Folk Festival on March 11-14.