Photos by Suzy Perler
Conductor, producer, arranger, counselor. Matt Butler takes on all these roles and many more in his Everyone Orchestra project, which draws together a variety of musicians for collective improvisation, with Butler at the fore, dry erase board in hand, guiding the action. Butler has enlisted many celebrated players for EO performances, including members of Grateful Dead, Phish, Widespread Panic, moe., String Cheese Incident, Derek Trucks Band, Tea Leaf Green and Railroad Earth as well as Adrian Belew, Taj Mahal, Maria Muldaur and many others.
In addition to his national Everyone Orchestra gigs, starting tonight, August 26, he will begin a monthly Everyone Orchestra residency in his current base of operations, Portland, OR. As he explains, “Starting in August I’ll be doing a monthly show in Portland, so I can integrate into my local community and use the Everyone Orchestra to engage a bunch of local musicians I haven’t met yet. I’m looking forward to that recurring local production and just mixing up the whole creative musician pot as well.”
Butler first toured with the group Jambay starting in the late 80s and as of late also has gigged steadily with Hot Buttered Rum. In the following conversation he looks back on the former group, hints at what may follow and also acknowledges that he will need to cut back his touring commitment with HBR, as he spends much of the fall focusing on EO.
The first time heard I heard you play was with Jambay, a group that I think was maybe a little ahead of its time. I’d love to hear your take on the band, what everyone’s up to and whether you’re ever tempted to put together a reunion gig.
You know it’s interesting, I’ve gotten a lot of love the last few weeks for Jambay. I was just out at Horning’s and there were a lot of older people who were around in the 90s jam scene and lot of them told we were kind of ahead of our time. We were sort of an amalgamation of Umphrey’s, Phish and then almost a Mother Hips or a singer/songwriter band. We hit it hard, played over 1000 shows and I can say the only reason why I’ve been able to do what I do with the Everyone Orchestra is because of who I met back then, which became the seed for building the Orchestra.
Ken Kesey at one point just went gaga over us. He was convinced we were going the next big thing and did everything in his wacky power to get us to open for the Grateful Dead. He actually did position us to open for the Grateful Dead at Autzen Stadium but they cancelled that year because Jerry had some health issues. It was devastating and who knows what would have happened.
Chris Haugen has a new project called Seahorse Rodeo and I helped him to do that record. He’s one of my best friends. We talk all the time and play whenever we can. He’s sat in with Butter and played a whole bunch of Everyone Orchestra shows. He’s also played on my solo albums and other projects.
Mike Sugar, the bass player from Jambay, he’s a producer and multi-instrumentalist. He’s done a whole bunch of Everyone Orchestras.
Shelley Doty’s still playing. She sometimes felt she was a bit of fish out of water in the jamband scene but she was great at being who she was wherever she was. She’s a real busy mother and she definitely has a career in the Bay Area but she doesn’t tour and I think that bringing it back would be about re-integrating with her.
We’ve been talking about doing some stuff with Jambay. I don’t think we’d go on any long tours but there’s a wealth of incredible music. There’s like 150 songs that were written in that period.
The bottom line is we were burnt out and penniless at the end. We should have been counseled, “You guys don’t have to tour all the time, you don’t have to make all of your living off this right now.” We should have chilled out, focused on the Bay Area and just relaxed. Instead of playing 160 shows a year we should have played 70 shows and I think we could have gotten over that hump. But we were so frantically touring, we couldn’t see the forest for the trees. Shelley left to do a solo project and then Chris, Mike and I tried to run with Jambay and do it as a trio but that just didn’t fly. It was really good, a whole new collection of songs were written for the trio, like 40 songs but we just kind of lost steam of how to move it forward.
It all seems to be coming around now though, now and I miss that music tremendously.
Here’s another one that goes back a few years. In terms of the Everyone Orchestra’s formation, I seemed to remember that Tye North seemed to be the conductor early on. Can you talk about the moment when he literally handed the baton over to you?
It was my idea from the beginning, it’s definitely my baby but it’s been a lot of things. It kind of started out more as a variety show where I had Jambay, ALO, Taarka, Michael Travis and Tye North on the bill. ALO did a set and Jambay did a set and EO did a set with me and Travis drumming and Tye North conducting. Another early concept is we wrote the set list as a bunch of jam ideas on a big piece of paper behind the band.
But the very first Everyone Orchestra, my appendix popped so I missed it. Zach Gill from ALO actually led that one. Meanwhile I almost died and the doctor told me, “I don’t know how you survived but you did,” and everybody said it was the best gig they’d ever done, even though I wasn’t there (laughs). They all donated the money to my health costs and there was a strange cosmic nature to the very first Everyone Orchestra.
Early on I was the drummer. I had been to Zambi a couple years before [the open-ended Zambiland Orchestra] and I was hosting these open mics and I had all these ideas regarding large group improvisation. At the beginning I didn’t think it was only conducted improvisation, that was part of the show which was a much broader variety show. So I basically asked Tye and Jamie Janover, they were my first conductors, and I knew they knew about conducting from Zambiland, so it was a natural fit.
I was getting opportunities, we were doing shows. I happened to know the best drummers around in [Jon] Fishman and Travis and [Jason] Hann and [Jeff] Sipe and they said, “I’ll play that’d be great, sounds like fun.”
I did this series of EO shows at these Pangaea benefits in Portland where I was playing this percussion rig with Jason Hann and Fishman and I thought, “I don’t have anything to do right now.” (Laughs) I’d created this incredible thing, it was going great and the energy was there. But eventually I felt that the conducting role was a bigger responsibility than I was giving consideration to in asking people to do it and I thought I’d try it one time.
I thought of a conductor as like an instrument. It’s not like the conductor is controlling everything but the conductor can facilitate things that are going on, can let things happens that are already happening or can make a change. And the idea that you can hold up a card with anything on it and people are going to do something is exciting, it’s a dangerous proposal. And I believed I could help produce incredible music that people would think is totally composed just by facilitating improvisation.
So I tried conducting one time and received a huge wave of accolades and encouragement for me to investigate it and do it more. Then I took it upon myself to kind of make it my instrument, and it’s evolved to where I can go into a festival and do a 90 minute set and conduct and facilitate it. It’s not a variety show and I like where it’s landed, it’s such an incredible melting pot. A lot of people ask me if I miss playing drums when I’m conducting and I don’t. I have trouble switching gears between playing drums and conducting. So when I’m conducting Everyone Orchestra, I tend not to play an instrument and I just give myself over, my ears and my whole spirit over to the musicians, to be there to take them on ride and also to be taken on ride by them.
In your role as conductor, what preparation do you make before a given performance or is it all on the fly and in the moment from the get go?
I don’t think about how I want it to sound. I think about who I have as players and that ultimately dictates what happens. I try to be in touch with all the players, just be in communication with them and make sure that everyone’s comfortable on stage, that they can hear well and that they’re fed and happy, so that they’re going to have a clear path to musical discovery.
And then I have this thing of getting everybody to agree to be on the same page of not knowing what’s going to happen and just going for it. And that’s part of my job, different people need different counseling before we get on stage to get into that state of mind in a comfortable way.
Sometimes at festivals people are coming from different stages or just landing from their flights and up until the moment we’re announced and I’m on the conductor’s stand looking at the players, I haven’t had a moment with the group to discuss what’s going to happen. Everyone knows the concept and how I use the dry erase board and the signals that I use and I have everyone take a breath and then go. I’m like a cheerleader for that.
When you approach a musician or management you don’t know to enlist someone new for a certain EO performance, how do you describe what the experience will be like?
I definitely use the phrase conducted improvisation and tell them I act as a facilitator. Early on I’ll mention a few people I’ve worked with and most people will say, “That sounds interesting.”
So much of it though is about personal relationships and being able to talk to musicians at a festival and say, “This is what I’m doing I’d love to have you be a part of it at some point down the road if the timing’s right.” I feel really blessed that for the most part I think the musicians have a fun and interesting time in EO and sometimes they’re very surprised: “That was insane, I loved that.” Sometimes we’ll have that perfect mix of craziness, a perfect moment of almost pop song beauty that we came up with on the spot and some high energy dance music and it’s all just perfect.
Fishman has said that he loves the musical vacation of Everyone Orchestra where it’s a departure of having expectations either within the band or as an audience member, in that literally anything can happen in EO for better and worse. That’s one thing that Ken Kesey taught me and the Grateful Dead taught me, that the mystery of the unknown is what’s interesting and in those moment of searching musically you won’t always land on the golden nugget but when you do it really really shines.
In terms of that pop song beauty you just described, that’s the way a number of bands write music, just through jamming together. Have you ever gone back and listened to past EO shows, with the intent of using those kernels to write songs?
I have thought of it but I haven’t really taken that through to fruition, mostly just due to lack of time and energy. I have so much recorded live EO and it’s a strange thing to listen to sometimes, it’s not like other music to listen to. Sometimes, it’s like, “What’s going on here?” It’s kind of bizarre. It’s about being there, it’s very experiential. I’m also a producer and I like to work in the studio and using these types of tools to work with bands or in the studio is something I’m ready to do more of.
I’m clearing my schedule so that starting in the fall I’ll be focusing exclusively on the Everyone Orchestra and EO related projects and the studio is a big part of it. But to get back to the question, no, I haven’t gone back and mined a tune that was created and use that as a jumping off point to write something. I think a lot of that music could be used for music or TV if edited just a little bit with Ableton and I’d like to do more stuff like that.
I don’t have an EO studio album and the whole concept doesn’t lend itself to the studio album concept because it’s all about live and interactivity with the audience but I am going to do something in the studio over the next six months or so which might have a small audience but it’s basically to come up with a bunch of ideas.
I’ve worked with a band like the Mother Hips where they’ve brought me in as conductor, like a fiddle player. They’re a really refined California rock band and I’ll sit below them and Tim [Bluhm] will make a head motion like he’s turning the conductor on and it’s free reign for me. I’ll stand up, conduct, take them somewhere new and then I’ll give him the signal and throw it back to him. It’ll be at the band’s whim as to when they want to bring the conductor back in. So instead of conducting the whole show, it’s just little segments within the show.
Like at one point in a song if the chorus is repeating I’ll hold up a sign that says repeat the chorus and I’ll have them keep on repeating it and have the audience singing it. Then I might take the band out so that just the audience is singing and then take it a little bit higher and then throw it back into the song. I’ll do little tiny moves like that and then sit down for 10 minutes. It’s an interesting application of the conductor role. I’m working on a couple pitches for other bands to do this in a larger setting because those are some of the most fun shows I’ve done.
You mentioned earlier that part of the experience is counseling the players before a given show. Can you like of someone who might have been reluctant or anxious but then went in and absolutely nailed it?
Russell Batiste. This was at Bear Creek a few years ago, I had Porter Batiste and Stoltz as my core band. The Orchestras come together all sorts of ways but sometimes I’ll have a core band and I’ll just build on top. In that case I had trouble getting in touch with Russell and the band and it’s not that he had reluctance with improvisation at all, it was just “Who’s this guy, he’s going to hold up these signs?” So when I sat down with him, literally 10 minutes before the show he was like, “You got the wrong drummer. I don’t want to be told what to do.” But I tried to explain, “I don’t have a grand design on what I want you to play, I want you to have fun and I’m going to be following you as much as you’re going to be following me. I’m just going to be used as a vortex for dynamics and other things.” Then as I was talking further, I explained, “There might be a situation where I give you a signal to keep going and then I break everybody else out, so it’s just you and the sax player.” Then he started to understand what I was talking about and he softened up to me and said he’d try it.
This was just as we were about to go on stage. It was a surreal night because we were in Florida and it was about 31 degrees. But then we got up there and I started conducting and he looked at me, “Oh I get it!” He was so happy and he became the star of the show. He was coming up with background vocals and he was just so into the game. It’s almost like a group Frisbee game and I act as the referee and the coach and the supplier of Frisbees to keep it moving. That was the most dramatic transformation and now whenever I see Russell he just gives me big hugs and he is all love. And he’s one of my heroes and I wanted to do good by him but what a ride…
Adrian Belew did one at Smilefest when Smilefest was at its peak and we had a two hour set in front of 10,000 people and as we were walking on stage he said, “I know you told me what we were going to do and I’ve done every musical thing I can think of but I’ve never been in front of this many people with no idea of what the music is going to sound like.” And then like five minutes into it he gave me this look like, “I got it!” and it was really epic.
I’m sure you’re asked this quote a bit but looking back if you were to close to eyes and think of Everyone Orchestra, what show or series of shows jumps out at you as being particularly satisfying or otherwise memorable?
It’s tough because each of them is so unique and memorable. I did this run of shows maybe five years ago in the Bay Area with Kimock and Chris and Mike from Jambay and Jamie Janover and we had a three piece vocal section and the synchronicity of the band was so tight at the end of the run there was chorus after chorus, singable and hooky and everyone seemed to find their parts fast. I like to discover a change or a progression or a chorus and go away from it but then go back to it, which is what we were doing quite a bit over those four nights.
These sets I did at All Good were the shortest Everyone Orchestra sets I’ve ever done. They were 30 minutes and 35 minutes but there were to a huge audience and they were phenomenal. We did the cycle, it didn’t get cut short.
It sounds like you have a lot on the plate with Everyone Orchestra. To what extent do you find that this conflicts with your role in Hot Buttered Rum, now that you’ve been touring with that band?
I’m not going to be touring with Butter in the fall, I’m taking a break to tour with EO. As the summer was coming along, I was having too many conflicts with Everyone Orchestra which is my baby. Before I joined the band for this last stretch I played with Butter about 10 or 15 times a year and they played in Everyone Orchestra. We have this symbiotic relationship and they asked me to fill in because Zac [Matthews] left. I agreed to do a week of shows and I just stayed on. A year and half later it was like, “Whoa, I’m still here.” It’s a transition. I’ll continue to play with Butter but I won’t be hardcore touring like I have been in the past year and a half.
Dave Brogan from ALO has played a bunch of shows with them and there’s this young guy Lucas Carlton from the band Izabella who’s been playing with them as well. I just became too unavailable for them to fill out their schedule. And I have 2 kids, a family in Portland I did almost 160 shows last year. It’s a little too much right now and I have a film project, a book project and this studio project aside from just playing with EO and it feels like now’s the time to make this all happen.
