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Join the Purr Mailing List: Happy to be part of the Independent Promoters Network Also part of
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the
butterflies of love From Connecticut to Britain, with love... "We formed last August, learnt to play guitar, wrote some songs and released an album." Jeffrey Greene, singer and guitarist in Connecticut's greatest export, The Butterflies of Love, isn’t joking. In fact what he says is so sincere that it becomes increasingly difficult to gauge whether he’s fooling us all, or is genuinely one of these individuals who loves what he is doing so much, that he never ceases to be excited by it. The facts are simple. Jeffrey and Daniel write beautifully fragile songs about love. All band members are over six foot. Daniel works as a teacher, Jeffrey as an art curator in local prisons, Neil recycles art. Jeffrey asserts, “we do our jobs every day, the band will never be full time. We’re not involved in the music industry, because we would be charting right now if we were!” So, The Butterflies of Love are not your conventional rock’n’roll band. Although they’ve “only been together as this strong unit for about a year”, the long version of The Butterflies of Love story is infinitely more complicated, involving numerous drummers and bassists and name changes. Jeffrey and Daniel go back a long way, as Jeffrey explains – “we were just playing for ourselves really. We had no idea what playing live would entail, having a drummer and bassist. We would get so nervous, but as it has worked out, Dan and I have come to understand the orchestration of songs and began to hear ourselves both from behind the music and in front of it. We’re never doing a job, we’re just having a great time, playing music” The music is not something to be entered into lightly – as their debut album “How to know The Butterflies of Love” demonstrates, music is about emotion, moods, creating an ambience and something that is eminently worthwhile. Imagine sitting in a log cabin in the middle of wood, the fire blazing, cheeks glowing, a good book in one hand…. You’re not even half way there yet. Daniel describes it as “a romantic strain of rock’n’roll, not necessarily about love of girls, but definitely of something”. The love that this record demands is pure and untainted – ‘you made me feel like I could rob a bank’ just seems to express it all. The album was released on Fortuna Pop!, Britain’s quirkiest label, a move that suited their underground status. “ They only had this one record out called ‘Taking Pictures’. It was so crazy, but we’re not after contracts or deals, we just want a nice place to sleep when we’re playing." Despite universal acclaim, from John Peel clapping on air to national newspapers drooling with delight, this is The Butterflies of Love’s first proper outing into the hedonistic world of touring, coinciding with the release of new single ‘Wintertime Queen’. And they’re loving it. At the moment, the enthusiasm and passion that Jeffrey exudes is unrelenting – “This is all so exciting. They make all these posters for us, there’s a photographer waiting, interviewers, I get to hear my best friends play on stage next to me – it’s INCREDIBLE to be in strange places where you don’t have to look for things to do because you’re what’s happening.” Yet Jeffrey is modest in his reaction to praise – “It’s surprising how some people dig it. We don’t really know what people think, we just read reviews written by individuals. Everyone in England could hate the band.” Jeffrey makes it clear that “the music will become incorporated into other things that we do. I love designing single sleeves and that’s how it all fits together, but we’re not in this as a vanity project, we’re not looking to be rock stars.” This may not deter them at the moment, but fame and recognition is already creeping up on them, and it is not something that is held back easily. If it is possible to remain detached from an all consuming music industry, to continue to be entirely self involved, then The Butterflies of Love will succeed on their own personal level, one where they admit that they have “no living contemporaries”. They have no long term plans beyond “travelling all over the place, seeing some crazy things”, and for The Butterflies of Love that’s just the way it should be. Enjoyment placed high above fame. Novel, maybe, but totally understandable. louisa thomson back to interviews>>> |
 
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