Interview with Matt Buttler

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Recently I had the opportunity to talk with Matt Butler, the musician and conductor behind the Everyone Orchestra, who I also discovered can add, “great orator” to his list of talents. Never one to shy away from leadership, you could say Matt conducted the interview, as he energetically and expressively weaved eloquent science and philosophy. From his experience with EO to conducting as an instrument the maestro lays it down for you.

The Everyone Orchestra will play at the upcoming Bear Creek Music Festival on November 14-16, a funk and soul leaning Florida festival with a touch of bluegrass, adding this years DNC performers Yonder Mountain String Band as a headliner. Matt didn’t have much to say when I asked him about suggestions for the Bear Creek Super Jam other then questioning what super jam really meant; he mentioned that he was still putting the EO lineup together, which is a whole process unto itself, as Butler acts as both band leader, musician and agent. I followed up with Matt recently and he released the full lineup,

“ Bear Creek Line up: Super funky EO....
Jon Fishman, Michael Kang, Eric Krasno - guitar, Nigel Hall - vocals/
keys (Lettuce), Kofi Burbridge - Flute/keys, Janis Wallin - Bass
Avis Berry- vocals and more TBA...”

Bear Creek could possibly be Fishman's last festival before a potential yet still hypothetical reunion with Phish, and I got to sneak in a question about that as well. Regardless of whether this theory will prove true, expect Fishman, Butler and the rest of the Everyone Orchestra to bring their A game down to Suwannee this November.

AB: How much of what you do is improvised and how much is written down or memorized.

MB: The amount of improvisational music versus songs that we perform really depends on what the makeup of the group is, I would say at the festivals that I've done recently, the last one I did with Fishman was once hundred percent improvisational, but then again I also just facilitate people leading something. Ryan Montbleau led something, I don’t know if it was a song or what but no one had ever heard it before except for his keyboard player, and they just kind of rocked it with him, each one is different in that sense.

I've done shows before with my old band mates Jambay and Steve Kimmock, where we’ll do an improvised set, then we do a complete set of music of all songs, and conducting is playing a different role throughout; whether it’s improvised or part of the song, conducting plays a different role as far as the utility of it. Most of the time its not a rehearsed thing, its about being off the cuff and a little bit pressurized, and the musicians need to be ultra kind of aware and on their toes and communicating in a hyper way, I don’t mean hyper but ultra aware and sensory.


AB: what’s the process for putting together a lineup for an Everyone Orchestra show.

MB: Basically each Everyone Orchestra at this point is pretty much different, they don’t have to be a different lineup all together I'm not married to that idea, but I'm definitely interested in mixing and matching different personalities, instrumentation and genres, and kind of keeping it interesting for everyone in more ways then just improvisation, just meeting new people, and kind of being a beacon of people coming together, musicians coming together and performing in a way that’s kind of raw and real; that’s the crux of how I put the lineups together and how each different one is coming together. I build the lineup each time around someone that’s kind of a catalyst or an anchor for the show, it will be built with either a band or someone like Fishman or Kimmock, or some of my old friends, there’s all these different ways that they come about. I just did one this summer with this promoter who puts on sacred music events and he introduced me to like 13 new musicians that I had never met before from a world music, kind of sacred music/yoga music, type of genre and we did an EO with them, and it was phenomenal, it was just kind of fun to do it with people outside the jam scene as well as with people inside of the jam scene.

It’s pretty wild.



AB: Besides your charity work for the Patagonia foundation, given these crucial political times and the upcoming election, what are some thoughts on Headcount (the youth voter registration effort).


MB: I've known them for years, when they were first kind of starting out; I don’t know it’s kind of all blurry, I’ve done a couple different things with them. We’ve done a couple of things, Brownstein's a good friend, kind of looking for some collaboration kinds of things, I’d really like them to invite me to one of the Headcount All-stars, to be a guest conductor.

That’s the whole idea, of conducting as an instrument, in the jam scene, it’s a little different, it’s kind of new I think, and the idea of like sitting in and conducting I don’t know who's done it quite like this, it’s kind of a new concept to share out there.


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