THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT A NEW STAGE With two albums, an EP and three singles under their belt, The Butterfly Effect continue to impress with their hard rock edge, consistent touring and a formidable live performance. Following the success of their most recent national tour, the offers to join the summer festival line-ups are coming thick and fast. With a spot on Peter Garret's Rock The Vote concert as well as a slot at this year's Homebake festival, The Butterfly Effect are reaping the rewards of their toil. But if that wasn't enough, they've also secured a slot on the Big Day Out tour, will be playing at a massive New Years celebration on the Gold Coast and are also performing at next years Overcranked festival. Alongside these commitments, the band is already beginning to work intermittently on some new material. "The plan ultimately is just to tour as much as you can off the back of the release ('Imago') and then pick up the summer festivals," explains Ben Hall, the group's drummer. "We haven't had a great deal of time off. Ever since we finished our tour, which was like the start of November, we've had a show or a couple of shows every two weeks." "We set the gear up in the room and start writing and get a few ideas on the go and then we pull it all down and go to the shows and then come back and do the same thing. It gets a little bit frustrating because we'd really just like to get a chunk of the writing out of the way rather than having to constantly pull down and set up again but we'll get to do that once Big Day Out finishes next year." According to Ben, one of the most interesting experiences from the last period of touring was their invitation to play at the Rock The Vote concert, which really gave the band some perspective on a number of local and international political issues. "As you get a little older," Ben says, "you start realising that maybe John Howard isn't doing the best things for the country. I know I've chosen to ignore it for sometime because it didn't seem that my opinion mattered a lot anyway, but it's probably time to get educated, especially with all the problems the world is having at the moment." So with a new found political interest, what would The Butterfly Effect like to see changed in the political realm? According to bassist Glen Esmond: "We'd make everyone fucking more educated." Guitarist Kurt Goedhart believes that "just more surf, brother" is the answer. Ben, who posed the question to his severely unprepared interviewee band mates, says that, "the environment" would be his main focus. "I think there's a few issues coming our way that we're going to need to sort out pretty soon." Tim Brown The Butterfly Effect play Odyssey NYE at Dreamworld on New Year's Eve. 'Imago' is out now through Roadshow. back to top ^

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