Interview: Evil Eddie From Butterfingers On Their Upcoming Tour

Aussie Hip Hop legends Butterfingers are set to kick off their ’15 Years Of Fatboys’ Tour this Friday night in Noosa. With their debut album ‘Breakfast At Fatboys’ being released 15 years ago, the guys will be playing it in its entirety for fans as they play a whopping 20 shows nationally. GC Live had a chat to frontman and lyrical genius Evil Eddie recently about the upcoming tour.

This Friday you are set to kick off your ’15 Years Of Fatboys’ Tour! Playing a whopping 20 shows nationally, you must be getting super pumped for this one?

“Hell yeah! I mean it’s not our home turf exactly because we’re from Brisbane but we don’t feel too out of our constituency out there and actually our sampler/keyboardist he lives up at the Sunshine Coast anyway so we kind of have one foot in that camp but yeah I am stoked to be going on the road!”

Being the Aussie Hip Hop legends that you are, tickets have sold really well and your Brisbane show at The Zoo has sold out! No doubt that one will be a huge party!?

“Yeah it is always a little bit difficult to escape the party to be honest! *laughs* Our bass player happens to own a bar in the valley, so we are obviously going to play the show, have a good time and then the after party continues at Sabotage. I have no idea what time I am going to make it back to my house, it is going to be punishing!”

The Zoo holds some sentimental meaning for you, it was where you played your first gig?

“Yes it does, I used to work there and they helped us get a start. So, the first gig ever was at The Zoo and there has been many many gigs played there since!”

The Zoo has changed a lot over the years, it is looking great with the recent revamp!

“Oh totally, it looks really good, I always loved it, but it has a new lease on life with the roof being opened up and the stairs being taken away so that the mosh pit doesn’t get cut in half, it is really good.”

I am a fan of and have heard many good things about Fresh Violet who is supporting you on your tour, you must be looking forward to touring with her?

“Oh totally, we played a show with her in Melbourne last time we toured the country. Since then she has put out a whole bunch of music with clips and she has really gone from strength to strength, I think. I have a feeling because she really has the combination of being really dedicated, being talented and being really positive, I just can’t see how she’s going to fail. I think she is going to be really massive soon.”

‘Breakfast At Fatboys’ was your debut album and a huge hit with your fans then and now, you are playing it in its entirety on this tour, what are some of your favourite tracks from the album to play live?

“Well, generally speaking I like playing whatever the crowd enjoys hearing. The buzz for me comes from seeing people getting into it. But I am pretty stoked about playing some of the tracks that we haven’t played for such a long time, there is a handful, maybe 5 or 6 songs that we haven’t played probably since 2004 or 2006. To be honest they are sounding really good in rehearsal and I can’t wait to actually play them. I have actually become a better performer but also a better singer, I am just stronger vocally and I feel like I can pull stuff off that we never really used to nail that well live before. You know like songs that are not the hit singles either, they are just album tracks, I guess. Songs that got dropped from the set because other songs where better or whatever and maybe part of that was my performance of them but I feel like now we are just nailing it! *laughs* I want to bring them back to the set permanently.”

What are you looking forward to most about this tour?

“The comradery of being on the road, that is something that you can kind of miss if you haven’t done it even just for a couple of months. We rehearse all the time, but it is not really like hanging out you know? We are all busy people, so we get there, bang out the tunes and then go back to whatever else we have got going on. So, it is some solid hanging out time for the band members. I just love the whole thing, I love playing shows, I love having drinks after the shows, I love hanging out in between the shows, *laughs*

What are some of your best or funniest memories from previous tours or shows you’ve played?

“When we used to tour, we would take my Kingswood on the road. The first time we ever went we had a map, this was back in early 2000’s right, so we had a paper map and I decided the way we were going to go. We were travelling from Brisbane to Melbourne. We couldn’t get a show in Sydney, so we were going straight to Melbourne. So rather than picking the major highways, I picked the straightest line possible and that straight line happened to be over many many hills, and we had this old Kingswood and a trailer on the back and four of us in the car. It didn’t have heating, so the car was like freezing and we all had doonas and blankets and stuff for our legs. Every time we hit a hill, we would like slow right down to like 20Ks and hour or something stupid, crawl up hills and it cots us something like 15 hundred bucks in petrol. And that was back then as well when petrol was a lot cheaper. It was so expensive. And then we broke down on the way back and I think Damien our drummer had a mobile phone, he was the only one to have a mobile phone at that point, but he didn’t have coverage. So, we were broken down on a highway that didn’t even have any lights or anything on it, we were just sitting in the dark! I hitchhiked to the next town to try and get coverage and call a mechanic or whatever. The guy who picked us up, the truck driver happened to be a friend of my dad’s, it was really weird. In the middle of absolutely nowhere. Saved by a truck driver buddy of my Dad’s who I didn’t even know!”

Thanks to Bewilderbeats, New World Artists and On The Map PR, you can catch Butterfingers on their ’15 years Of Fatboys’ National Tour through march and April on the following dates at these venues! GC Live highly recommends you get to as many shows as possible!