Professional skateboarding’s loss is roots music’s gain.

About a quarter of a century ago, John Butler — the soulful Australian singer-songwriter and leader of John Butler Trio — almost rode his way down a different vocational path.

Butler once traveled to Southern California in search of sponsorship by Powell-Peralta, one of the biggest, most iconic skateboard and equipment makers from the late 1970s into the early ’90s.

Alas, he did not land that coveted sponsorship. And though he’s six albums deep into the occupation of working musician, the 39-year-old Butler is still on board.

“(I don’t skate) as much as I like to, but I had a great skate the other day at my local skatepark. Had a ball,” he told GO! Magazine last week.

“I used to bring my board (on tour) a lot, actually,” he said with a melodious accent. “I just haven’t lately. I’m thinking about bringing it out again.”

That being the case, you may want to keep your eyes peeled if you’re in the vicinity of Ponderosa Skatepark in Bend today. Butler said he might bring his board along while on tour for his most recent album, “Flesh & Blood,” which brings him to town tonight for a show at the Athletic Club of Bend (see “If you go”).

“For people who haven’t seen us before, we’re not any one type of band,” Butler said. “I think a lot of people see an acoustic guitar and they think, ‘groovy, chilled out music.’ We play everything. Sometimes we get pretty heavy, and sometimes it’s like a Celtic instrumental. Other times it’s reggae with some hip-hop.

“It’s really quite eclectic music (that) just kind of lives in its own world, where it’s just drawing from everything that’s modern, and everything that’s old.”

He’s not kidding. You know how people sometimes complain that such-and-such band’s songs all sound the same? Give “Flesh & Blood” even a cursory listen and you might think you set your preferred music delivery device to “shuffle” or stumbled upon some other playlist.

Fairly quickly, John Butler Trio’s versatility comes to the fore: He can slow things down and get earnest (“Bullet Girl”) or blues-rocky (“Blame it on Me”). He can grind out a gritty rocker (“Livin’ in the City”) or get you tapping your toes to pretty acoustic tunes worthy of Jack Johnson (“Spring to Come”). Other tracks defy categorization, like the dreamy, album-closing kiss-off, “You’re Free.”

“The only thing I went into this album with was just trying to bring as much color out of the band as possible,” said Butler. “One of the trio’s (strengths) is this experiential side where the band can flower. I call it flowering, where you can start off very gentle, and very fragile and very acoustic, and then it kind of breathes open to this distorted symphony and comes back down again, and it sort of breathes and flowers.”

With “Flesh & Blood,” Butler wanted “to get good songwriting mixed in with” the band’s power, he said.

“I think (my writing) started off with a lot of experiential journey music, and then as I got more into songwriting it kind of went away from that,” he said. “So now I’m trying to join them both together.”

Butler has been writing songs since he was 16, but likens his teenage efforts to journal entries.

“When I first started writing, I said whatever first came to my head and just let it come out of my mouth. As long as it rhymed and had rhythm, I wasn’t very picky,” he said. “I think the longer I do this the more I am a little picky about it. I think that has a blessing and a curse to it.”

He continued: “I think there’s a real beauty to coming from the gut and shooting from the hip,” Butler said. “And I also think there’s a real beauty to crafting something and learning your craft, and trying to say as much as you can in the least amount of words. I like to think I’m heading in a direction that has good poetry, but still has spirit. At least that’s what I’m aiming for.”

He doesn’t exactly bristle at the term, but he does find it puzzling when his trio gets called a jam band.

“We got tagged with that almost 10 years ago. I just didn’t identify with it,” Butler said. “I was seeing a lot of bands that were in that jam category … that were just noodling away, and there wasn’t much song there and there wasn’t much anything there.”

By the same token, “there were other great bands that were also called jam bands. Why don’t you call them ‘music bands’ or ‘rhythm bands?’ (All) bands jam in one way or another. That’s how we make music. It’s a bit (of a) throwaway (term) for me.”

As a guitar player, he does enjoy improvising — a staple of jam acts — but Butler’s focus is chiefly on the song and the experience, he said. He also understands the impulse to label.

“People like to be able to fit their bands certain places,” he said. “I think the only way you understand the John Butler Trio is you have to either listen to us a lot, or come to the show.”

— Reporter: 541-383-0349, djasper@bendbulletin.com