AS HE RELEASES HIS FIRST NEW SOLO RECORD IN OVER TWO DECADES, THE SONGWRITER, PRODUCER AND FORMER SUEDE GUITARIST, REFLECTS ON A CAREER THAT’S BEEN “A MASTERCLASS IN MUSIC”
BILL DEMAIN
Bernard Butler never meant for there to be a 25-year gap between solo albums. It’s just that after 1999’s Friends And Lovers, he got very busy doing other things – among them, producing Duffy and Tricky, co-writing with Texas, Edwyn Collins and Altered Images, going on tour with Ben Watt, as well as making a Mercury-nominated duets album with the actress Jessie Buckley. “Each experience gave me something new to think about and develop,” Butler says. It was the latter project’s freewheeling songwriting process – open tunings, random phrases lifted from books, unconventional structures – that informed Butler’s latest release Good Grief. Against a painterly canvas of acoustic guitars, strings and brass, Butler’s fathoms-deep voice explores the big topics of love, loss, joy and being awestruck by the random beauty of life. “A lot of the record is about that bewilderment we all feel,” he says. “That thing of, ‘How did I get here? How has this all happened?’”
How does it feel reconnecting with your solo career and your fans after 25 years?
We’re all completely different people, right? Anyone who heard me back then is now a different person. As a fan, unfortunately, you forget how you’ve moved on. Your connection might feel like, “Oh, it was just yesterday that I was listening to your record, and I’m the same as I was then. So can you connect with me now in the same way?” With this new record, I don’t feel like I’m trying to reconnect with anyone at all. I’ve made so many, I don’t see the distinction between where I write something, play something, produce something, sing something. The records all kind of pile up for me in one continuous body of work.
Do you feel like there’s more at stake for you as an artist at 54?
I wouldn’t call it more at stake. But has time changed my approach to music? My approach changes daily. When I make a record, whether it’s Sam Lee or Jessie Buckley, it changes what I do, how I think. That’s the greatest thing about my musical journey: to take something from each experience and develop it. That can be a slight surprise for people who are fans, who might see me as only one thing.
There’s lots of natural imagery in the lyrics. How does nature affect your songwriting?
I’ve lived in North London all my life. So I didn’t grow up learning a great deal about nature. I find
