The John Butler Trio is a jam band from Australia led by guitarist and vocalist John Butler. Two albums released by the band Three (2001) and Living 2001-2002 (2003) have gone platinum in Australia and reached the top ten of the Australian album charts in those years. The 2004 album Sunrise Over Sea debuted at number one on the Australian charts on March 15, 2004 reaching gold record status in its first week on sale. This success is more impressive given that the bands releases are marketed independently by Jarrah Records which John Butler co-owns with West Australian folk band the Waifs.
The band has won an ARIA award for "Best Independent Release" for Three in 2001 and has been nominated for three others. Three was released in the U.S. in 2002 and the John Butler Trio toured the U.S. in that year supporting the Dave Matthews Band and John Mayer.
John Butler was born on April 1, 1975 in Torrance, California from an Australian father and American mother. He was named after his paternal grandfather, a forestry worker who died in 1952 while fighting a bushfire in Gannup, Western Australia. He moved to the small Western Australian town of Pinjarra on January 26, 1986 when he was eleven.
At sixteen, he started to learn the guitar and his grandmother gave him his grandfather's 1930's dobro guitar. This guitar was to be presented to the first child to learn the guitar and as none of his grandfather's children did take up the guitar, it was awarded to the first grandchild to learn the guitar. It is still one of John Butler's most treasured possessions.
In 1996, John Butler attended Curtin University in Perth studying to be an art teacher. At Curtin University, he learned open finger tuning which allowed him to play Celtic and Indian music. He started busking on the streets of Perth where his home grown compositions received a strong response. In mid 1996, he released a self-recorded cassette of his own instrumental compositions called Searching for Heritage which eventually sold 3,000 copies in Perth. By the end of 1996, he had dropped out of Curtin University to pursue a musical career and started playing at open mic nights.