Solo Sister

"It definitely wasn't a place I set out to go to,” admits Adelaide-born Butterfly Boucher, on the line from Nashville, where she's called home now for 12 years. “I originally came over as part of my sister's band [The Mercy Bell] and Nashville was a place where we had some family friends, so it was really just a free place to stay while we were having some publishing meetings in America. But it just kept on coming up in my life. I left Nashville actually, early 2000, and moved to London and tried to build my career there, but London's just so hard, it's just so.

“I ended up doing some demos and the two producers that were really interested in working with me just happened to be from Nashville. So I ended up going back to Nashville, which was kind of fluky because we'd been playing my demos to people from Sweden, Japan, you know, all across, but out of everywhere was Nashville. So I came back, ended up making my first album in Nashville and stayed, made great friends and it was wonderful; the first time I was independent, wasn't in a band with my sister – just me. Nashville was the perfect-sized city.”

Most readers will know Boucher best right now as the producer of Missy Higgins' 'return' album, The Ol' Razzle Dazzle, and as her touring band's bass player, but since settling in Nashville she's released two albums, and is back in Australia to tour her independent eponymous third record as an artist in her own right. As happens all too often, signing with a major wasn't all Boucher had hoped it be.

“Yes, you'd think I'd have learnt after two major label deals with my sister's band,” she laughs. “Honesty, going in to do my debut solo album, I was very open to the idea of not signing to a major label, just 'cause I had been part of disappointing stuff like that. So when I finished the album and started shopping it, which was a nice way of doing it because I could do the album I wanted to do, [but] it just so happened it got that big and got to the major labels and they were all schmoozing me and it just felt like a good fit at the time. “I don't regret it. I still learnt a ton, and even through those years of struggling with the label I was still making friends and still being recognised by people in the industry and had really good supporters, even in that circle.”

Regaining control of her career once more, Boucher decided she'd like to get back to basics and cut a three-piece 'rock' album. Then she met producer David Mead, and the next thing she's touring a three-piece called Elle Macho.

“I might have had six songs on the go at the time [I joined Elle Macho] and I think only two of them ended up on the album – the rest it didn't make sense after a while,” she admits. “But the two that actually survived and I was able to re-vision, The Weather and I Wanted To Be The Sun, are more band-y so they're easier to pull off live. But [my ideas for the album] drastically changed – it totally freed me up 'cause in a way, wanting to do that three-piece band album, without realising it, I wasn't letting myself be completely in the moment. [Then], I realised I could do what I want, like put massive synths on stuff, which I love.”