By the time a band finds an international fanbase they've often built a following in their home town.
But, through the arcane machinations of the Spotify algorithm, four-piece Newcastle group Butterknife are working in reverse.
"Compared to a lot of bands in Newcastle we have a lot of streams, however we're not necessarily very popular locally," says singer and bassist Athena Christensen.
"We're more popular across the world. It would have been a lot more convenient if we'd started to be popular locally and then it spread out. Right now we're at a stage where all our fans are scattered everywhere."
The group's 2019 debut single, misty, a yearning love song that opens with rain over slow piano, found its way into "Discover Weekly" playlists, uniquely curated mixtapes for each individual Spotify member.
The track is fast approaching 1.4 million plays, with Butterknife currently sitting on 34,000 or so monthly listeners.
Misty's sung from the perspective of someone who's jeopardised something special and wants to make amends; an aching portrayal of blossoming love. The sentiment struck a chord with listeners, with social media messages arriving from as far afield as Turkey and Brazil.
Says Christensen: "A couple of the messages we got were like, 'You don't understand how much this song got us through what we were going through at the time'."
Butterknife's genesis can be traced back to year nine music classes at Newcastle High School, when students were asked to form small groups and get creative. Christensen, May and keyboardist Lilli Sullivan gravitated to one another.
Along with former member Lulu Gillam, the girls formed an early iteration of the band under a name they refuse to reveal, even off the record.
Starting life as a folk-centric band, with May and best friend Gillam as the principal songwriters, the sound has since evolved into expansive indie-pop, replete with soaring vocal harmonies, rock embellishments and an array of influences.
"Me and Lulu would write little songs on guitar and then bring them to the band," May explains.
"It was singer-songwriter stuff. But once we brought [those songs] to the band everyone would have their input and, as time progressed, it got heavier."
About two years ago the group "rebranded" to Butterknife. Gillam departed and the three remaining girls continued writing as a trio until Finn Kingston proved to be the final piece.
With a gig approaching, Christensen asked her good mate Kingston, a known drummer, if he could fill in on guitar that coming weekend. Despite minimal experience on the six-string, Kingston wasted no time buying a guitar, learning the songs and joining Butterknife on stage.
A few more gigs followed and the drummer-now-guitarist was asked to be a permanent member, allowing May and Kingston to both spend time behind the kit during sets.
"The dynamic's changed quite a bit," Christensen says. "Instead of just Gracie bringing songs to the band, if anyone has an idea for a song they can bring the basis of it to the band and we can all tweak it as much as we like. And there's a lot more different influences now."
The group records and produces all their own music with, as Christensen jokes, "a release schedule of one song every two years".
But the band has more tracks in the bag, with a song called February likely to be the next cab off the rank.
While the three songs Butterknife have released online are in the synth-tinged indie-pop vein, including 2020's dazed and this year's infrared, their live shows expose RnB grooves and punk elements in their unreleased material.
"I wanted to introduce RnB, hip hop and punk," Christensen says.
"The process of creating music with us is very fluid. Sometimes you might contribute lyrics, sometimes guitar, sometimes drums - you're not confined to your instrument."
May adds: "The stuff we've released is indie-pop rock, I guess? But with the new stuff it's more punk rock. All four of us have very different music tastes. So, as a genre, it clashes together and makes whatever you would call Butterknife."
