Tony Butler

When Big
Country’s lead
singer Stuart
Adamson died
tragically young by his own
hand, the music world lost one
of its unique voices. e band
had come to prominence with
the success of their debut album
e Crossing and developed
a cult following, as well as
garnering rock royalty fans like
e Edge. In the aftermath of
it all the band’s bassist, Tony
Butler, took his life in a different
direction. “I was adamant
I didn’t want the band to
continue,” he explains, sitting in
a studio in Barnstaple. “Not just
because I felt the band was its
own entity, and without Stuart
it was no longer Big Country,
but also because I wanted to
do something different.” And
what could be more different
to the relentless touring and
recording that is the rock star’s
life, than taking up teaching.
On the recommendation of a
friend Tony went back to school
and earned his qualifications.
“It was a big change. I had to go
back and bolt on an ‘academic
module’ to my brain,” he laughs.
Working for the Academy
of Music and Sound, at their
Petroc college in Barnstaple,
North Devon, Tony passes on
a lifetime of experience as both
a session player (for acts such
as e Pretenders and Pete
Townshend) and a rock star. It’s
a line of work he truly loves. “It
feels right somehow. I’ve done a
lot with my time on this planet,
and I’ve been very lucky to have
worked with the absolute crème
de la crème of the business, and
I think because I have a sort of
‘Google-ability’ to my name,
people want to listen.”
While earning his crust as a
teacher, the calls for the band
to reform have continued long
and hard from the band’s rabid
fan base. Although Big Country
arguably never reached the
heights they deserved, they
maintain to this day a loyal army
of followers around the world.
When the fan club started a
Big Country convention Tony
agreed to go along with his
former bandmates and perform
some songs. Mike Peters, the
Welsh singer best known for
his work with e Alarm,
was asked to front the band
for that performance. e gig
went down well, as expected,
but there was no thought of a
permanent reunion. A short
BAND: BIG COUNTRY
BASSIST: TONY BUTLER
Bass
From A
Big Country
Out of the limelight for some time, Big Country are
back, with Tony Butler’s melodic, growling bass in
full swing. Ben Cooper finds out about the reunion,
the new single and the signature bass.
UK tour as a three piece, and
a live album Twenty Five Live,
to celebrate the band’s 25th
anniversary, rekindled hopes but
nothing more would be heard
for some time. e seeds for
the reunion were sown proper
from an unlikely source. “We
were asked to play at a tribute
concert to Kirsty MacColl. We
had been friends with her, as her
husband Steve Lillywhite was
our first producer. In the end we
didn’t play, but we’d asked Mike
to sing for us, and that idea stuck
in our heads, and I softened to
the idea.” And so, in December
and January of 2011 the band
undertook a UK tour, which was
met with a rapturous response,
and followed with more dates
in April as well as slots at major
festivals in the summer. e
band even made a return to the
world of recording, releasing
a single in August, ‘Another
Country’. “e fan’s loved it,
and Radio 2 found yet another
reason not to play our material,”
Tony says with good humour.
Indeed, part of the band’s failure
to break huge in their heyday
is attributed to the response
from the music Mafioso. “We’ve
always had a great fan base
throughout the UK, except in
BASS GUITAR MAGAZINE 43