Interview: Jason Aalon Butler of letlive. – Spotlight Report

jamilqaisrani4@gmail.comMarch 19, 2025

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Interview: Jason Aalon Butler of letlive. – Spotlight Report

After a seven year hiatus, the time has come, gratefully, for the inimitable LETLIVE. to return and give their love to the world. Perhaps for the last time addressing Fake History and The(ir) Blackest Beautiful, founding frontman Jason Aalon Butler relives the past, what brings him to his present, and what is held in the future for the generation-defining band.

SR: Good morning, Jason, or perhaps good evening to you?

JAB: It’s afternoon but happens to be quite overcast in LA.

SR: Okay, LA, you’ve had one heck of a start to the year.

JAB: Yeah, it’s been pretty wild. I was here for all of that, then I flew over to be with my kids and family in New Zealand, and had to come back yesterday to do some music stuff.

SR: Oh my gosh, I’ve had the pleasure of speaking to so many musicians like yourself lately, who have just gone through the same thing (international transit). I’m exhausted and I live a pretty boring life, most of the time. Not right now, obviously; I don’t know how you do it!

JAB: I think it’s a large mindset application, to be able to do it. The physical part is inevitably gonna wear you out. You know, I woke up at 6am and I think I went to bed at 1am, so you just go, it is what it is, figure it out; it’s a lot of mind of matter in this situation.

SR: I can resonate with that, we’re all coming off Knotfest week here, and it’s 6:30am as we speak in Adelaide with a full day of work as a teacher ahead. My kids are having a very fun time with ‘Tired Bel’ at the moment, but we do it because we love it.

JAB: Oh my goodness, that’s awesome! I considered a career in education, but music took over.

SR: Well, I’m very lucky where I am, I’ve been able to combine my love for both. In fact, I was asked at my interview, “What is your love, your passion?” and my response was, “I don’t know, metalcore?”

JAB: (laughing) I love that, and that type of awareness too! That authentic adoration for something that can hold space in your life. I, myself, am in the middle of my own journey, and amorous feelings outside of my job. I’m just trying to understand where I exist, outside of being a career musician; invested in my spirit rather than having to perform, if that makes sense?

SR: Totally! In fact, I spoke of this with artists recently – whilst rewarding, it’s still a job and has its moments. A good segue, I wanted to thank you for joining me today on behalf of SPOTLIGHT REPORT, it’s so good to see you again, and I mean that literally; we have met before. Do you have any inclination of where?

JAB: I have no fuck… oh, wait in Australia right?

SR: Yes, sorry that was a horrible question – you can tell the teacher in me.

JAB: Yeah, it’s so good. Oh, Soundwave!

SR: Yes! We actually met the previous year, 2013, in the pit in Adelaide when you supported Deftones’ Koi No Yokan tour. It was the first time I’d ever seen letlive. and you were doing parkour off the club walls!

JAB: (laughing and nodding) Oh, yeah, yeah!

SR: Then, the following year at Soundwave, I won the meet and greet with letlive.

JAB: No way! Woah!

SR: I rocked up on the little golf buggy at the Adelaide Gaol and thought, “he’s not going to remember me” but low-and-behold you did!

JAB: That is so crazy. I love that, and here we are a decade later. Eleven years.

SR: We’re all a little older, perhaps not wiser.

JAB: But we hope to believe, right?

SR: Yeah, one day I’m sure I’ll grow up. On that, after a seven year hiatus, letlive. are back in our lives! How are you feeling about that?

JAB: I don’t know, Bel, I don’t know. It’s interesting, I’ve been asked this question by my friends and those close to me, how I feel about it, and I know there’s a need for it; for us, for the band, and I think that was our way of answering a call or whatever energy, thoughts or feelings.

However you want to put it, whether cosmic or by our own free will, I’m interested to see how bringing back those songs and scenarios that were the fuel and catalyst for that band, at the time, play out for me now. Having gone through fatherhood and relationships, and, I believe, some sort of growth, as well as some stark and difficult realisations – all of which were necessary – part of my path. As I said earlier, part of making me who I am, a human being on this planet.

So, I know that letlive. is a tool to explore that, but, previously, seven or eight years ago I was way better at escapism. As you said, we get older and whether or not wiser, however we look at it, you do start to be confronted with these elements of 3D and reality, and how they interplay with emotion, your spirit and soul. It’s a lot, but, again, I think it’s meant to be a lot – the world and these constructs; conditioning makes us believe that we’re not supposed to feel those things and we feel shame, then depression or anxiety about it.

So, I’ve currently, quite literally this morning, spent hours meditating to be able to feel what I believe I need to feel, to have these conversations today.

SR: Introspection is always very difficult, and it’s interesting how much of it is a double-edged sword. When we were all younger, at the beginning of a mental or cognitive journey, you have no precedent and make rash decisions, but the stakes are not quite so great. Now, the consequences are so much higher.

JAB: Yeah, absolutely.

SR: On that, the yours sincerely… tour officially begins in June, with a selection of US/European festivals before coming to Aus in September. Touted as ‘a proper farewell’, more importantly, you’ve described the reformation as “happening out of necessity…the world needs letlive’s love right now.” What exactly do you mean by that?

JAB: I just think we need to remember what it means to feel unabashedly. Whether that means something good, bad, sad or happy, and try to find (balance may be too ambitious of a word) a sense of comfort in the spectral nature of existence. So very often, whether it be in our jobs or even intimate relationships, we are encouraged not to feel; too much, whatever that relative metric is for anyone, or someone, where you’re constantly hearing, “it’s too much, you’re too much.”

I think letlive. has always been a form or area where people can feel ‘too much’ and feel safe, and feel encouraged, feel celebrated in those feelings. I think within the collective conscious throughout the world, the Western world in particular, we’re all so afraid to do the wrong thing, because it’s on camera, or what might be said or felt about us due to the advent of this extremely, ever-growing surveillance of social media. By that, I mean, even if you think you’re doing something innocuous or cute, whatever, it’s going to be picked apart by some person you’ve never met, that has no context of your life, and that, or has the potential to, affect you in really quite a grave way.

“…I think letlive. has always been a form or area where people can feel ‘too much’ and feel safe, and feel encouraged, feel celebrated in those feelings…”

Now that we’ve seen the way that the world’s developed, whether that’s through technology, capitalism, our social interactions writ large, I think that’s what I meant – it’s somewhere you don’t have to worry about any of that shit for a couple of hours, and hopefully that can sustain you for as long as you need.

I know that’s ambitious, but that’s what I hope.

SR: We certainly live in a time where societally we’re bombarded by the sheer volume of everything out there. Living beyond the Information Age, I so often say, I’d take quality over quantity any day of the week, and, even just a couple of hours, it does have the potency to negate our living in a robotic or inauthentic way. Looking at the time, we have always liked to chat and that’s gotten us in trouble before; going back to Soundwave, I think you were a little late to get on stage that day.

JAB: (laughing) Eh, that’s alright.

SR: In closing, I think Jeff’s quote encapsulates it all: “letlive. represents a part of my life that refuses to be silenced. Coming back to it feels like fulfilling a calling—one that reminds me of why I ever started all of this in the first place.” Of all the amazing moments letlive. have shared with the world, which song are you most looking forward to performing live again?

JAB: Man, I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately.

We’ll be playing through all the albums. The Blackest Beautiful reminded us of the worth of the band again, and at first we thought we should do this anniversary of the album re-releasing, but then went “fuck, we should do a proper tour”; more so, the anniversary of the album prompted the idea and then we took it further.

With that, one song, I don’t know.

SR: Apologies, that was another awful question to ask!

JAB: No, it’s okay! I think that for me, what I keep thinking about, is the first song – whatever that is. The first song, in each area, like, okay – we’re gonna do an LA show, shows in Australia, we’re going to the UK. I think that whenever I step onto someone’s stage, I’ll be playing somewhere I haven’t been with letlive. for however many years. That will be my favourite song.

(With eyes closed) That’s just how I see it, whatever that feeling is, I’m being reminded of it, because it’s different everywhere you go.

SR: Every stop does have its own aesthetic, and, unfortunately, I must let you move onto it right now. I wish I didn’t have to go to work and you didn’t have other people to speak to; I could speak to you all day.

JAB: I know, I know.