After 32 years of busting out soulful melodies as a part of the boy (man?) band Human Nature, Phil Burton has announced that he is stepping back from the group.
Burton has announced that he won’t be joining the band’s residency in Las Vegas, but will still play with Human Nature whenever they perform in Australia.
In an interview with Stellar, the 47-year-old shared that the reason for stepping away from the band is to concentrate on his family life.
“Las Vegas was a fantastic experience, but it was time to come home,” he said.
“When there are opportunities to play, they’ll fly here and I’ll jump back on board, and it will be the four of us as always,” he told the publication.
“Covid put things in stark reality – where do you want to be? Where do you feel at home? And Australia is where we felt the most safe as a family,” he explained. “I haven’t had time to think about what I’ll do next.”
Fellow bandmate Toby Allen has explained that the rest of the band will need to rework their songs so that they are able to perform as a trio, rather than as a quad.
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“We can’t take out every song Phil sang – there are some key songs there. We’ve started throwing around some ideas,” he said. “We won’t get a feeling of what it’s like to work as a three-piece until we’ve lived through it.”
Human Nature was hugely successful in Australia in the late ’90s and has since gone on to spend seven years in Las Vegas doing residencies.
Speaking of their residency at the Venetian in Vegas which began in 2016, Burton spoke of being grateful for how well the band was received in America.
“We pinch ourselves as four Australians to be so heartily embraced by American music fans,” Human Nature’s Phil Burton said. “We’ll be playing music from all eras, and we’ll throw in some Motown and some music from our pop career and the ‘boy band’ days.”
For more on this topic head to the Pop Observer.
Listen to ‘Tellin’ Everybody’ by Human Nature:
