Gizz Butt
Gizz Butt (born Graham Butt, in Manchester, England 1966)was best known for his guitar playing in The Prodigy's live tours throughout 1996-1997.
Early Years
Coming from a musical background, Graham began playing the guitar at the age of eleven and would jam with his eldest brother to the sounds of Jimi Hendrix and Chuck Berry. He later took a series of guitar lessons with a unknown Manchester based guitarist and fast began to learn how to play the guitar. By early 1978 his family had relocated to Peterborough and Graham formed his first band, The System. He was quickly recruited by another band, The Destructors who had admired his guitar playing very much.
By the early 1980s Randy Rhodes and [Eddie Van Halen]] were becoming a influence on Graham’s guitar work and by 1984 he had parted ways with The Destructors and gone onto join The English Dogs. While in The English Dogs he toured the USA and It was at this time that Graham’s fusion of Punk and Metal based guitar playing was started to get him noticed by the likes of Metallica and helping influence the Thrash Metal genre. By 1987 Graham had moved on again, formed another band, Wardance.
As the bands' vocalist and lead guitarist Graham was now perfecting his sound and it was the bands active exposure to Europe that brought the influence of Yngwie Malmsteen to bear on his work. Graham at this time had now learned his own way of guitar playing and had influenced the growth of guitar based music. His next influence on guitar was the neo-classical genre which very successfully added to his already big influence of guitar playing.
The Prodigy Years
After being ‘blown away’ by The Prodigy’s Music For The Jilted Generation album (He became enthusiastic about the Prodigy after hearing Jilted on the English Dogs' tour bus) He later found out that front man Liam Howlett was holding auditions for a new guitarist since Jim Davis had left. Graham was given the role of new live guitarist. He toured with the prodigy for 3 years and gave the band a certain ‘Punk Image’ with his vicious guitar playing on ‘Their Law’ and wearing his studded Punk Jackets which he had worn in the earlier days.
After The Prodigy
After playing with The Prodigy throughout the 96-97 period, Graham formed Janus Stark (named after a 70’s comic book character) in 1998 who had US chart success with ‘Every Little Thing Counts’ (radio station 102.1 for Milwaukee also holded a ‘Stark Marathon’ which included every song from their album Great Adventure Cigar and a few Prodigy tunes.) Graham still continues to play with the English Dogs, and has formed another band in 2003 called The More I See.
Trivia
- Graham got the name 'Gizz Butt' from a character named 'Gizzard Puke' from The Kenny Everett Show.
- Graham has a cat named 'Pwabble' which was named after a word that one of the worshippers of the dead shout on the James Bond movie, Live and Let Die
Websites:
- www.gizzbutt.com