EXCLUSIVE: Will Butler + Sister Squares Discuss New Album + Tour

Producer, Michael Kalish with Will Butler and Miles Francis.

MK: We’re beyond excited for your upcoming show on October 17 at Deep Cuts.

We never miss a Will Butler appearance in the Boston area. I often think of the white blood stained suit you wore at The Middle East in Cambridge. A fashion statement for the ages. Do you still have it?

WB: In the guest room closet.

MK: Your new album, Will Butler + Sister Squares, is available September 22 on Merge, and features Miles Francis, Julie Shore, Jenny Shore, and Sara Dobbs — who have supported you on tour for the previous three albums under your name. What can you share about the writing process and collaborating with these incredible musicians, and why the name change now?

WB: The name change now is because, well, this is really a band record. Which isn't to say people didn't contribute on previous records, but it was just my name on the sleeve--a very different vibe. This record started by going to Miles and saying "I want to make a record, and I want to make it together, and I'm not sure it's a Will Butler record." And as it progressed it became a "Will Butler and Sister Squares" record. Half the record was written with me and Miles ping ponging ideas off each other in various basements around NYC. And then we took some of those ideas and took them to the band, and played them live, and took them apart and rebuilt them. A song like Saturday Night came from a little instrumental thought I recorded on my own, but Miles took and made into a song, and then Julie took and structured it and wrote a chorus. There's a lot of parts on this record that are 4 or 5 people singing in a room; sometimes on one mic, sometimes on 5 mics--but just humans in a room, trying to make something beautiful.

MF: I joined Will's band in 2015 when he was touring supporting Policy, his first album as a solo artist. He had already made the record, and he put together a band to play the music. I met him through the band I played in at the time, Antibalas, when we opened for Arcade Fire on tour. I was enthralled and inspired by his performance style, and as we got to talking more, we connected on a philosophical level about music and what it is to be a musician. Over the next seven years, we played lots of shows and worked on Generations together, which was a lot of time for me to learn more about Will's musical voice and witness Jenny, Julie and Sara's connection as lifelong friends and as musicians. When the time came to think about a new record, and a deep folder of demos and ideas was presented to me, I jumped at the opportunity to produce the album, together with Will. There wasn't much thinking involved, it was just a natural progression, putting the pen to paper on where we were at as a group at that moment. The name change was part of that. The time that we've been a band, 2015-2023, have been some of our most formative years personally but also some of the most frightening years in our country and world. All of that is reflected in the album we made together.

MK: One track in particular has been repeating in our office and heads - LONG GRASS. The energy and motion are captured perfectly in the recently released music video, showing a dance rehearsal of sorts. How does the band decide which songs will become videos?

WB: It was obvious from the moment we played any of these songs live that Long Grass would be the first single of the new record, whatever it was, and we'd do a dancy video for it, ha ha. It just felt like a single! And with the record coming out in fall--which I love, it's totally a fall record--it felt right to put Long Grass out in the summer. Jenny is a choreographer, and she and Sara grew up doing music theater together, so there's a strong core of dance in the band. I'm the weakest link, never took class or anything. But I edited the video, so I edited around that.

MK: Your solo work delves into political themes, do you feel that you have a responsibility as an artist to speak out on these issues, and with so much uncertainty in the world right now, how do you think music can help bring people together and provide a sense of hope?

WB: Yes, I think music brings people together in a way that comes before politics, before ideology--honestly, kind of before conscious thought. It's a weird, strong, old thing--music. I don't think bringing people together is a good in and of itself, ha ha. Big groups of people do plenty of bad things, and the bonds that come from music I don't think have a particular moral dimension. So I do think it's important to act and live in ways that have a definite moral vector. I think politics--in a country like ours, with some form of democracy as it is--allows us to structure the world; to make things more fair, to make lives better, to help people live longer. At its best! Again, "politics" in the abstract can be terrible. But a fine tool.

MF: One of the powers of music is dismantling the feeling that you are alone. When you feel something, and then you hear a song that either directly or indirectly addresses that thing, it lets you know that you're not alone. The song almost reaches a hand out to you. The song isn't necessarily hopeful - it can be ominous or post-apocalyptic, for example - but just the act of forging that connection is in itself hopeful. This album deals a lot with time and memory, two regular subjects for our band - being present in our time together now, the memory of a simpler "before time," mourning lost time, thinking of the future and moving on to new things. We connect through the uncertainty of it all, and the goal is to extend that connection through our songs and our shows.