Interviews

Kurt Goedhart - The Butterfly Effect 'The Four Guidelines of Making IV'

Walladmin

Heavy Metal Wordsmith

Aug 31, 2022

7 min read

A new dawn is approaching with the impending release of The Butterfly Effect's brand spanking new album IV hitting earholes on Friday and ahead of its drop, Ebony Story sat down with guitarist Kurt Goedhart for a chat about the making of their first album in 14 years - 14 YEARS - and the intricate focus the band had in the studio.

Setting the scene - The last time we heard new material (in album form) from the band was 2008's Final Conversation of Kings which scored the boys their third Gold Record certification from ARIA and was the last release for TBE in the 2000s decade - following 2003's Begins Here and 2006's Imago. After that era, the band went their separate ways - starting a hiatus and consequent live performance lineup change which took us all the way to their long-awaited comeback tour (with the original lineup) in March 2018.

When quizzed about all that time off/away from the band, to then coming back hard with the OG lineup playing shows and ready to make new music again, Kurt was more than happy to share the journey of getting the team back together and the feelings involved:

"It's been excellent. That was the right amount of time to have off [laughs]. So it's actually, I think there's six or seven years we had for our hiatus; or I hate us as Dave Grohl calls it. It just made it really refreshing coming back to it... We had not stopped playing music [entirely]; so Ben (Hall - drums) and myself still continued, you know, not obviously as full time as what we once were, but we were still getting together and sort of fluffing over some ideas and what have you.

So we had time to build ideas and then obviously, all the relationships renewed when we came back together. So that was really cool. [We] didn't want to knock each other out or anything, or wrench each other's necks. So yeah it was great, it was really excellent. And then yeah, time heals all wounds so we were back and we were hungry again. That was the most important part of the whole thing - once we started sort of writing, [we had a] a couple of tracks sort of come together pretty quickly. And then we're like, 'Fuck yeah!'"

The tracks they were working on, ended up being their drip-fed singles (released for tours and festival appearances) such as 'Unbroken', 'So Tired' and 'Nil By Mouth', but it was the triumphant return-to-form on 'Visiting Hours' that really struck a chord with fans from the early years with its sound that threw back to the glory days of the band's upcomings.

When asked if there was anything on the upcoming album he was especially proud of, Kurt, like a proud music dad let it all out, divulging:

"There are many highlights for me on this record. I was talking to the band about this when we were playing this week sometime. The whole record (as a whole record goes), is the first record that we've recorded that we finished, that I can't fault. Like I cannot fault it. Every record we've ever done - immediately as we stopped recording I'm like, 'Ah shit, should have done something here and change that there, shorten that length and added a solo here...'"

"As far as wanderings and wafflings and ambling along the winding musical path happens, the intro would be the closest thing that we have to I guess prog, and it is probably the piece of music that I will definitely be stoked about until the day I die. It's amazing!"

With the whole album in the spotlight, Kurt shared with us the simple guidelines The Butterfly Effect stuck to in the recording process, which was:

"I created four words that (as the band wrote the songs) they had to adhere to this... It had to be dark, heavy, simple and catchy as fuck. That was the four guidelines. If it started straying outside of the brief of those four words, then yeah [we were doing it wrong]. Once you hear the record you'll hear that. Everything is concise, everything is succinct [and] everything gets to the point..."

"There's always, I guess regrets not a very good word, but yeah... This one I listened to it front to back and it's the most complete record we've ever done."

If that doesn't set fire to the burning passion inside you have for these boys, then I don't know what else will. Time will tell if it stacks up to the previous releases from the band's immaculate back catalogue, but if they're proud of what they've come back with, then we're sure the fans will be lining up in droves to get their hands on it any way shape or form.

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The Butterfly Effect LIVE - Tix here[/caption]

Especially at their upcoming album tour alongside Thornhill and Caligula's Horse. With less than a month from IV's release until the first gig of that tour, Kurt reckons that'll be plenty of time for fans to take in the album so they're ready to sing it all back to the boys as loud as they possibly can:

"From release day to the first show I think it's about a month so it's a good time, hopefully, for the album to be absorbed. So yeah, it's a pretty exciting time for, you know, a few old diggers getting into it again!"

Age is just a number, but legacies live on forever and this band have one of the best in Australian hard rock history. Cannot wait to get stuck into this on Friday!

Words by Paul ‘Browny’ Brown @brownypaul

Pre-Order IV here