IN: The John Butler Trio are an Australian roots/rock band led by guitarist and vocalist John Butler, an APRA and ARIA-award-winning musician. They formed in Fremantle in 1998 with Jason McGann on drums and Gavin Shoesmith on bass. By 2009, the trio consisted of Butler with Byron Luiters on bass and Nicky Bomba on drums and percussion, the latter being replaced by Grant Gerathy in 2013. The band's second studio album, Three (2001) reached the top 30 in the Australian album charts and achieved platinum sales.

In April 2001, John Butler Trio released Three and relocated to Melbourne to promote the record on the east coast. The track, "Betterman", was on high rotation by Triple J. Three peaked at No. 24 on the ARIA Charts. It also remained on the alternative charts for nine months reaching No. 3. At the ARIA Music Awards of 2001 the album won an award for 'Best Independent Release'. "Betterman" reached No. 5 on the Triple J Hottest 100, 2001. Shoesmith left the trio to form his own band, The Groovesmiths, Butler replaced him with 19-year-old Rory Quirk, who was on their first tour of the United States in 2001. Quirk, in turn, left in 2002 to pursue a career with his band, Quirk. Andrew Fry joined as the next bass player. The success of Three led to its release in the US in 2002 and two tours of the US followed. The band supported the Dave Matthews Band and John Mayer as well as playing at the Bonnaroo Music Festival and the South by Southwest Festival. The band also played at the Splendour in the Grass Festival in Australia. Butler, his manager Phil Stevens and fellow Western Australian folk artists, The Waifs, founded Jarrah Records in July 2002. As a result of intensive touring, the band developed a great live reputation in Australia. The band released Living 2001-2002 in February 2003, a double live album which had a top ten debut in the ARIA album charts and went on to achieve platinum sales. Butler took a brief break after five years of solid work since 1997 for the birth of his daughter Banjo.

Were there any other achievements?

OUT: The success of Three led to its release in the US

IN: William Clark Styron Jr. (June 11, 1925 - November 1, 2006) was an American novelist and essayist who won major literary awards for his work. Styron was best known for his novels, including: Lie Down in Darkness (1951), his acclaimed first work, published when he was 26; The Confessions of Nat Turner (1967), narrated by Nat Turner, the leader of an 1831 Virginian slave revolt; Sophie's Choice (1979), a story "told through the eyes of a young aspiring writer from the South, about a Polish Catholic survivor of Auschwitz and her brilliant but psychotic Jewish lover in postwar Brooklyn". In 1985, he suffered from his first serious bout with depression.

Styron was born in the Hilton Village historic district of Newport News, Virginia, the son of Pauline Margaret (Abraham) and William Clark Styron. He grew up in the South and was steeped in its history. His birthplace was less than a hundred miles from the site of Nat Turner's slave rebellion, later the source for Styron's most famous and controversial novel. Although Styron's paternal grandparents had been slave owners, his Northern mother and liberal Southern father gave him a broad perspective on race relations. Styron's childhood was a difficult one. His father, a shipyard engineer, suffered from clinical depression, which Styron himself would later experience. His mother died from breast cancer in 1939 when Styron was still a boy, following her decade-long battle with the disease. Styron attended public school in Warwick County, first at Hilton School and then at Morrison High School (now known as Warwick High School) for two years, until his father sent him to Christchurch School, an Episcopal college-preparatory school in the Tidewater region of Virginia. Styron once said, "But of all the schools I attended...only Christchurch ever commanded something more than mere respect--which is to say, my true and abiding affection." Upon graduation, Styron enrolled in Davidson College and joined Phi Delta Theta. By the age of eighteen he was reading the writers who would have a lasting influence on his vocation as a novelist and writer, especially Thomas Wolfe. Styron transferred to Duke University in 1943 as a part of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps V-12 program aimed at fast-tracking officer candidates by enrolling them simultaneously in basic training and bachelor's degree programs. There he published his first fiction, a short story heavily influenced by William Faulkner, in an anthology of student work. Styron published several short stories in the University literary magazine, The Archive, between 1944 and 1946. Though Styron was made a lieutenant in the U.S. Marine Corps, the Japanese surrendered before his ship left San Francisco. After the war, he returned to full-time studies at Duke and completed his Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) in English in 1947.

Where did he grow up?

OUT:
He grew up in the South and was steeped in its history.