Butch Walker's Awesomely Diverse Rock Résumé

In fact, Walker's reputation as the l a music scenes great collaborator has sometimes eclipsed his brilliant, eclectic solo career. I hope hearing him today will turn you onto or reignite your love for his remarkable body of work. As a ten year old heavy metal fan and rural Georgia, Butch Walker was already a multi instrumentalist. His career went on to span hard rock, grunge, and now he's putting out soulful, lyrics focused rock with great pop hooks throughout

it all. His music has always been honest and original and catching. When I was in Los Angeles, not too long ago, I arranged to meet Butch at a music venue in Hollywood so he could play some of his great songs in front of a live audience and tell me about his path from the Bible Belt to the heart of l A's music scene. On Hey, can y'all hear me? No, no, I'm gonna play some of my early stuff. Then of course I want to play some of my new stuff to hope you know mine. Welcome to.

This is a recording of my podcast Here's the Thing, which is produced by w n y C Studios in New York. I want to thank yeah, thank you, And I want to thank um kpc C here in Los Angeles. And I want to thank Catalina. I'm told the Catalina barn grill there is an actual Catalina. So please join me and welcoming Butch Walker. Thank you. Maybe I just scared off. Maybe you to. It's a beautiful miss Soner standing from my part of view. Can you feel in now wheels coming down? I just want you to wear

about me. Everyone wasn't a while. I just need a sign of light to give me by you can't fair a smile forever from my mouth and wants was mine? Is it all over? Fun of the beginning the same name. There's a man reading icky have and the dull wd me. We're not falling in we flying sorry in between? Can you say now? I feel it's slow down. I just want you to way by me. Everyone's in a while. I just need a sign a light to give me by. You can't fake a smile forever from my mouth? And

once was like, is it over? Funnily begin descend it. I'm holding steady, I'm restless, you're ready. I just want you to by being everyone's in a while. I didn't need a side line to get me. Boy, you can't fake a snile forever from my mouth? Water this was mine? Is it over? Finally? Begin descended, I'm holding steady. I'm restless. You're ready. I'm holding steady. I'm restless, you're ready, I'm holding steady. M wow, wow brow. Well. The first thing I want to say is you told me you were

going to play the guitar. What's with the piano? I know how many instruments do you play? None? I just they call it a jack of all trades. I guess where did you start out on? Uh? Started out on drums and Uh, I was very terrible at that, according to my older sisters. Started in the bedroom. I was eight years old and my parents made the grave mistake of taking me to see this rock band called Kiss. I was very obsessed as a young metal head, and uh, I hear strands of Kiss in your music. Yeah, that

one for sure. But my dad was reluctant to go to the show because he was this mountain man with a Georgia Yeah, North Georgia mountains, and he loved um. The accident will come out, don't worry. After a couple of SIPs um. He was begrudgingly, you know, at this Kiss show because he liked country music and he wasn't sign up for this and all these guys he was nineteen seventy seven, I was eight years old, and he's wearing this new brown blazer that his mother had got him.

I just remember everybody there dressed up like the members of Kiss. In the audience, you know, you had like guys that were all like five years old, dressed up as Jane and Paul and all these guys with the boots and the whole thing. Yes, there was Paul and Jeans sitting behind us, and they kept passing like joints over my mom and dad to other people. Because it was the seventies, it was a looser time. You know.

Here I am eight years old, smelling pot for the first time, seeing it passed by a guy dressed in Gene Simmons makeup and you're eight years old. Yeah, And my my dad was like a make a Wish Foundation thing,

did you were dying kiss concert? It would have been my dying wish for sure, and uh And I looked over and in a strobe, I could see my dad choking out Jean Simmons like this behind me before the concert even started, and I was like, this is the best fucking so And that started really eight years I was a and that kind of started me on my road to this. Yeah. I kind of started trying to play drums the next day. That was as you do as a kid. You're you're attracted to drums their primal

and I realized I didn't like being behind everybody. I wanted to be out front. And so whenever I was playing with this little band that um was in, we practiced in my bedroom up in the attic. Uh, and they were all like my sister's boyfriends. It was older dudes that were already able to drive, and we were playing like orio Speedwagon covers and trying to play get through a rush song, which failed miserably after two bars.

They would leave the gear there and I would see that guitar over in the corner next to my Charlie McCarthy ventriloqu was dull, and we're like because I was still so young, you know, And so I would go over and pick up his guitar. And then I started learning, like on one string how to like pick out songs

and play along to the radio. And next thing, you know, I think my mom uh just was overhearing it and thinking like, oh, because she's she's the musical on in my family, sings and plays piano and she's very good. You learned to play yourself for myself, by myself and with myself, uh around that time a lot, and uh that changes eventually, it does. But um, well, why would

be a famous musician if not? Whatever? So so UM I ended up getting lessons because my mom was like, I think he's got talent to do this, and so um I ended up taking lessons from a guy locally in Cartersville, this little town I was from and uh he was great. Uh he taught me, you know, taught me Van Halen songs and all the the essentials you know, and and I was, you know, learning very fast. So um, just I got obsessed with it and I kind of never looked back from then. I stayed stayed true to

guitar pretty much the rest of my time. Now do you think that for people? I mean, people ask me all the time, say, if you take acting lessons, can you make it make you a good actor? I say that, you know, in my opinion, it can make you a better actor than when you walk in the door. But it can't make you a good actor. You have to have some inspiration, to have some gift that people have. It's uh, that's different. Do you feel the same way about guitar playing. Do you feel that you had just

a passion for it? I think so. I think I think I knew I could do it just because I was. I had a good ear for picking out I could pick out stuff on the radio so quickly, and I could I didn't. It was like learning to run before you could walk, though I didn't know how. I didn't have any knowledge of it, or chords or anything. Just kind of had the ear and the muscle memory to

be able to pick it out and play it. And so you know, the next thing, you know, it would be like my parents having their fondue parties and ship and they would be coming upstairs and I'd be upstairs just playing along to records and the like. You know.

My mom would be like, play that pretender song, you know, and so I'd be like, you know, for for company, And so I would end up playing little concerts in my room for all for all of their party uh guests, where people's smoking pot and your father choking people out of the party. It was pretty civilized. Yeah. He Later in life I came to find he was. He was a tear. When you're in Cartersville to her how old cars will till I graduated high school, which your whole childhood. Yeah,

And what was the music scene like locally? None? Um, so there was no Cartersville was kind of sequestion because it was between Athens in Atlanta. I was too young for most of that time at home to do anything or to go anywhere and play anywhere. You know. I did get into a band in Rome, Georgia, which was about twenty minutes north of Cartersville, and that's where I could find musicians because in Carter's it was kind of

a little bit of a foot loose vibe. There was like nobody, nobody playing unless it was the Lord's music. And and so you know, I I worked at the local music store where I would I would teach guitar less and when I was a teenager, and you know, dudes would come in and I started to grow my hair out and they'd be like, I bet you play that Sitan music. And then I would be like, oh, well, what's the picture of Jesus looked like above your mantle? How short is his hair? I wanted out. The guys

that I was playing with it from Rome. They were all my age basically, and um we started playing this one club in Rome that was basically a u it was it was a former pizza hut, and uh we would go in there and this was during the height of like like mid eighties eighties metal and we would build homemade bombs on stage and fire and pyro and blow the drop ceiling out of the place like this, and I mean, I can't believe it's still standing. No, no, uh we I had a key to the place. That's

how loose this place was. I was sixteen and I had a key to this bar. We had a mattress under the drum right is there, and we would go in there. If we had been partying or driving around and too much, we would go in there and raid the bar. I can't believe I'm telling everybody this, and then and then we would and then we would all pull out the mattresses and just pass out in a club and I'd wake up basically pretty much. And this

was called Ronnie's Rock Cafe. And and Atlanta there was a place I used to go play, uh called Danny's. It was a metal bar on forty Highway forty one in Smyrna, and I would go there and I would play six nights a week, and we'd do three cover band sets a night because you weren't you weren't allowed to play original music back then at any of the bars, even in Atlanta, which was a pretty you know, big city. If you were doing the hard rock scene at the time,

you had to play covers. And that was my reason for wanting to take the band and all of us moved to Los Angeles, which is what we did it was, and I moved here with the guys and and we lived and if I can recall, we lived. We we kind of lived around in our van. We lived in a motel for a little bit. And then we found an apartment five blocks from here, Hollywood and Whitley and and yeah, man, dreams do come true. And uh so

we were you know, we were. We were sitting there, six of us in a one bedroom on air conditioned apartment. You know, smelled so good, and uh but we loved it. We were having the time of our life. It was. That was our college. None of us went to college or barely finished high school. Um, so we came out here at the height of the Guns and Roses, Poison, Motley, Crewe Rat, all of that like that, all those bands. Um that was huge for us. So we came out here and ended up in the belly of the Beast

and we started right away. We pounded the pavement and found out what we needed to do. This was pre cell phones and pre internet, pre anything. So it was like we had no idea what to expect. Um had a girlfriend at the time who was already out here

working at the Tropicana. It's so cliche. Um, but she was from Georgia and so she moved out and got a dancing job, and she would send me flyers of all the bands that were flyering on the Sunset Strip, and that's that's how I learned what they looked like, how they dressed, the whole image of everything. So we came out here and um, we immediately hit the printer shop and we printed up flyers for our first show that we were ever able to get booked to play.

We played the Whiskey our first show, and we only had five originals, so we had to play him twice. We're gonna play this song again, I'm gonna play it slower, yeah, And we ended up getting written up in this magazine at the time that was a local rag called the Rock City News, and they they loved us, say they were like tightest on the Sunset Strip, they said, And we were like, we only have five songs, but we got good and we we definitely learned because we were

fueled by all these other It was very competitive. It was saturated. It was thousands of dudes that looked just alike getting off the bus, all on the Sunset Strip, just like yeah, just like the guns and Roses videos, Hey out of the mouth, and um, basically we're just down there on the strip promoting and grassroots marketing ourselves and trying to convince people to buy tickets to our show after they just got a flyer and dropped it

on the ground from the band in front of us. Now, when you're in it, when you're a young guy and you're in a band, did you enjoy being in a band and did you enjoy the camaraderie or was there a party all along you thought I'd like to No, No, I enjoyed it. And at the time, I should preface that I was just the guitar player then uh in the band that came out here, So I wasn't the lead singer. Um I sang and I was able to

do all harmonies and even help with uh. At least it was a guy named Jesse, and then I came out here with him and Jason and my drummer's slug And so basically I loved being a guitar player. I love being in a band. I loved that camaraderie. Uh. The front I'm not the front man why yet, But that's what I want to get to. Why well, I don't know. At the time, it was very much a an image of the front man was you know, no instrument,

just a mic stand. You know, the teased out blonde hair was all just part of a it was all part of a blueprint to us. We didn't know that it could be different. Yes, absolutely, and he was a great like hard rock singer and so that was kind of important. Back in Jesse, Could I have my check please? No? Uh? So, yeah, they're back. They're back and joking I know you. Uh, they're all three still in Georgia actually, and they're still on that mattress in Rome under the drum stand. That

mattress won't die. Mattress is a mess. It's horrible. But but but but but so the name of the band again when you were with them was it was a ban called South Gang and we were and that lasts for how long? Not long? Four or five years? Uh, let's see. We moved out in eight eight and by by I think ninety two, we were we were cooked and what happened everything? So we how much time do you have? I want to hear already hear about your

story then I'll tell you. Um so, well, besides the fact that we were kind of growing apart, and I'm gonna spare the bloody details because I respect all of the guys very much, but you know, we just like anything. And it goes back to your question about did I enjoy being in a band in that camaraderie. It comes to an end sometimes, that does, and people start growing up are especially when you start playing together when you're teenagers.

I mean it's like getting married when you're a teenager and then by the time you're thirty, your your different people and you hope that you grew together not apart. But long story long, we were touring and touring and touring. The scene that we were in was definitely starting to transition, uh to like grunge was very was on the was on the horizon. Um. We could see that that was gonna be an interesting change in in music, and I

was all for it. I was kind of like, well, I'm still a sponge, I'm still soaking all this up. I still want to learn every kind of music. I loved everycondom music growing up. My sister's record collection was everything from you know, Parliament to the BGS to you name it, and so I liked I liked everything. I like to disco, I liked everything, and so um, you know, I just didn't feel like sticking to one kind of music was was gonna satisfy my soul. And so you know,

we started kind of growing apart that way. And then we went on a tour in China and we were there for six weeks and it went everything you could possibly think of it could go wrong, went wrong. We were the first American rock band ever tour China should have been the last, because we were there. It was I don't even have enough time to tell you all the stories of how incredibly like like heartbreaking and emotional

and crazy it was. You know, well, okay, I'll edit it down to the end of the China run when we were all basically in different train cars going to cities which were thirty hours apart, and we had a lot of time to contemplate, um, we were over here.

Our label got basically just wanted to kind of get rid of us because this our first record deal was a major label deal, which you know, I'm happy to get into that side of it if you want, But it's like that was that was like you know, getting a lot of things handed to us, you know, a big advance to do a big budget record with a big budget producer, big video. Yes, right, and but um, no one else believed in us, so our management kind

of wanted to just get rid of us. So this whole thing was kind of a little bit of a get him over and get them out of our hair situation. And so we were over there and realizing that what was not really the case, which was like, we're not going to really make any money from this, We're not going to really uh make it break any ground from it.

Um and UM, me and the bass player, Jace, would sit in one train car and we were plotting our breaking up the band, and he kept saying, you should be the singer, you should be the singer, and I was like, I'm not a singer. I have dark hair, you know, And and so eventually we just, you know, we started thinking of a new band name. We started thinking while we were on this train right over there.

And as fate would have it, um, we were in one of the cities playing which by the way, I should mention that we were playing all hockey arenas and a band that couldn't get arrested in the States, and we're playing hockey arenas and and some places were playing on the fucking ice, like sliding all over the they didn't have The production was awful. It was the weirdest ship. They weren't allowed on the floor, they had to be in the stands. The closest person was a hundred feet away.

They weren't allowed to stand up. There was like, you know, military guards around the whole place every time. They weren't allowed to yell. They could only just clap after every song and sit. So enjoy your freedom, everyone in America,

because at the time they did not have that. So the last show we played, which was not supposed to be the last show, it was the third of the last show, and we went to this town called ji Lynn, and we played more of a scale down like UM Gymnasium almost, and so there was no way for the people to be anywhere but right in front of us. So they made them all sit across leget on the floor, no chairs, and when that show was happening, Uh, it's

closest we were able to get to people. So we were very excited because we've been there for six weeks and couldn't even have any like energy with a crowd whatsoever, just felt like we were monkeys on display. And so in this one we were just like we were jumping off the stage and making people get up and that

was a no no. Um. So we get back, you know, we're up on stage and then all of a sudden, these people started getting up and then they start running up on stage and then a little bit of that like um thing where the mania kicked in and they're like pulling our We had a very long hair and they're pulling it and trying to pull us off the stage, and like guys and girls like trying to you know, kiss you on the mouth, and and and and and they were throwing like money and and uh candy, and

it was really it was. It was like a weird Fellini movie, but like but if you would imagine like hard Day's Night, but not harder Day's night. And so we um, we basically um inside it a riot and so they tear gas the place and we were whisked off the stage. Keep in mind, we're just young fucking rednecks with leather jackets and long hair, and we think this is awesome. We think this is the best thing

we've ever experienced. We're just like high fiving, getting in a van going off like we're yeah, we finally got some action, we got some interaction. We're doing this. This is great. We're connecting with the people. And then like we get on a train, we fall asleep, and we wake up and we are in Beijing at the airport. No translators, no managers, no one to be found, and no cell phones, no internet, no nothing. So like we're like sitting there. We don't know where our gear is,

we don't know where anything is. We see plane tickets at our feet, and basically they're just that's in and implying that get the funk out of here and go home. And we couldn't, you know, we didn't know how to we we couldn't speak the language, We had no translator at this point they had all left. Yes, very isolating and for kids in their early twenties, it was frightening. We were very scared. We've never been out of the

country before any of it. So, you know, we're calling back home on pay phones, waking our dad's up, you know, trying to figure out like how to get our gear. Our gear was thirty hours back. Um and the way that they transported the gear to these things was literally by open truck like like it's like watching an episode of mash, you know, and it would just be like open trucks with our road cases and stuff of all of our gear that came over from America, and we

rented a bunch of gear for it. So like we were like, we're not going back home. We're gonna get sued by the gear companies as well for not having any of our gear and our prize guitars and everything if we don't get home. So um, this is a great story about our crew. Um Uh Robert Ragman Long and Scary Larry Cromer. They offered to go back by car to the last town thirty hours away, find the gear and come home with it. And they rode home

on the road cases in the cargo plane. On top of that fifteen hours to make sure our gear got back to the States, and Larry moved out from Rome, Georgia with me to l A. I taught him how to string a guitar. UM. Those guys not surprisingly went on to be um two of the biggest most successful road crew guys you'll ever meet. They both were they both guess who they worked for. Kiss. It all comes around. It certainly does. When you decided this group, when you

when you come back, it's over. We got back and we started a new band immediately and just were fueled by um just doing things. D I Y you were the frontman at this point. I was then, and I started I started being the frontman for this new band. What did you feel that that require heard from you that you didn't have to display before? Was there a thing you felt you had to I actually didn't know

how to be a front man. I'd never done it, really so, and I certainly knew that I was a guitar player first and foremost, so I was not gonna what they call freehand and like to put the guitar because I don't know what to do with a mic stand while I'm playing, So it's like I need a

guitar on. It became the crutch, right, But I got really I got comfortable with it really quick because we played like two hundred shows a year, and we started just playing two hundred shows a year every year, and you know, for for what would become the better part of twenty years. I think I got pretty good at it. I guess if I can be not humble being a front man, uh musician and producer, butch Walker. Another l a music act I love is the band Perta, which

is perched on the edge of stardom. It's front man, Matt Azolka, has the voice, presence and look of a once in a generation rock star, but they're not there yet. How many jobs you're working, I'd say two and a half and what are they if you want to sign? I do work for Starbucks and that one is probably the one I'm ready to get rid of the most. I love them, They're a great company, but four thirty in the morning, five days a week and no fucking heart. Yeah,

usual days like four to one. Last year, I said that this interview would end up being our most downloaded, and I stand by that prediction. You can beat the crowds by texting p e r t A. That's p e r t A to seven zero one zero one. Now we'll send you a link to my full interview with Matt and his bandmate Colin Kenrick, plus a link to their Instagram so you can listen and feast your eyes. I'm Alec Baldwin and this is Here's the thing which Walker landed a major record deal with his very first band,

the self described hair band South Gang. He's on guitar here. They're single Boys Night Out. Yea impressive, but there was one skill Walker says, the band was missing when we did the South Gang stuff. We needed help with our songwriting because we had not really developed that part of the brain yet. And um, I said, can we get this guy, Desmond Child to be our executive producer and co writer. And that's the one thing the label did that I was liked about as they got him, and um,

he's he's a legend. Described him for people who don't know him well. Desmond was responsible for everything from the huge Kiss hits to all of the big Bong Jovi hits Alice Cooper. Uh. He he was like the hottest ship on the street at that point as a songwriter, Like he couldn't be beat for that, for that kind of no, no, no, no, he was. I think he was out of New York. But you know, Desmond's gay, and so when I started going over to work with him, me and the singer started going over to his house

and working with him. We were just these dumb rednecks from Cartersville, Georgia and I'd never even met anyone gay yet, and I was just part of the tunnel vision and the blinders that came from being in a small town where you just thought that that was weird, which is a bummer. And you know, I didn't know how to I was stand offish about it. And I remember one time we were working on a song keep in Mind.

I was like twenty uh, and I said, um, something about a lyric and I said, oh, man, that's gay, and Desmond goes, what do you mean gay? And my heart fell into my feet because I was like, oh fuck, I just insulted my idol. And when I came up with the next line and it had love and that, he goes, what do you know about love? You're not even a person yet, And he was right, and and

that's exactly I think. When he said that, it made me think a lot about you know, I needed to open my mind up to a lot of things, and you know, coming out here did that and going through those experiences did that. Um we made a record together and then of course that nothing happened from it and we we fell out and never talked again, and um, god,

twenty years later, this was not that long ago. Um. I was in the airport with my wife and child and we were in the airport at the American Airlines lounge or whatever, and I saw this guy and I said, I man in the weirdest deja vu. I was like, that looks like the guy that used to answer the door when we would go to Desmond's house to work. And then I look over over his shoulder with two little beautiful blond haired boys, Desmond, and I was like,

that's Curtis and that's Desmond. They were together then, there together now. And I walked over and I was like Desmond, and I was like, I know you're not gonna remember me. It was a long time ago. And he just got up and hugged me, and he goes, I've been following your career. I'm so proud of you, and you're a person now and I'm a person now. Well, what's when you're songwriting with someone like him? What does he teach you? He taught me everything that was boot camp, like learning

how to write songs with him. He was tough, you know. He taught me inner rhyme and melody and don't be afraid to be literal, don't be afraid to like tell a story and reach for people's heart strings instead of being too precious and two, UM inside with it as far as like the lyric goes. And I mean, that's why he wrote some of the biggest songs ever. And I think that that's a beautiful That was a beautiful

first crash course to go through and songwriting. And I took it with me all the way to Now, Um, what's one of the earliest songs you wrote that you said to yourself, you know, you sit back and go

that's pretty good. That works way later in life, I had gone through a band, uh that had a marginal hit at radio later, an alternative band called the Marvelous Three, and that was like, um, that was like late nineties, UM, and I wrote this song about selling out, and sure enough it got played on the radio and got us a record deal and we sold out. And it's a good song, and I was, I was, you know, proud of it, but I knew that there was so much more to learn and and I wanted I wanted to

tap into more emotional songs. I guess because you know, that was a very SNAr arkey, cynical kind of a song. For a while I couldn't write anything about love because Desmond had scarred me. Uh and so um. I did this record called a solo record in the early two thousand's called Letters, and I think I was most proud of that. I remember you met my manager backstage, Jonathan.

He's been my manager for twenty years and he's pretty much the reason I'm even alive, because I would have jumped off the ledge a long time ago if not for him. And that's the first time I remember him going, this is really good, because he doesn't say that that often. And um, and you know there was some songs on there where I remember that moment clicking. Um. There was a song on there called Joan that I had written that I think was one of my more I'm I'm.

I was really proud of it when I wrote it. Will you play it for us? I'll try m m m m m h. John moved away to Carlelorado said she'd found God and a boyfriend as well, one that won't hit her or make a feel shadow. There's a lot to learn about Joe. Before I moved in, John had a fling with the Landlore, so she got to stay here for free. I'm not out of genius. I figured out there's a lot to learn from John. After allest time you're waiting around, stop at the place where

they slowly misplaced your life, go get it right. I when to close to catch drustful work. Spotted little box I had not seen before, all kinds of letters never got and to a guy in Colorado since nineteen nine and four, I long was wrong. I sat in open and no certain order. Letter or two She talked about blisters and bruises of anger, that she bought a hand gonne to learn how to shoot. And the last letter said that she had to get out. But I could make out the rest of a note from the bloodstains

all over the page of the letters. And a lot to learn. There's a lot I learned about John. After all, lest you were when the right to stop at the place where they slowly mass place your After all, lest time you winther to stop at the place where they slolely mass place your no go can you right? Ah? You got me? You got me? Um you got me? Um? No?

I just I just you know, is it? I just think that you um you know you play or you're this wonderful guitar player and you're wonderful, this wonderful singer musician, and then other people want your opinion about what they're supposed to do. That's a huge leap. They try us to you to help them decide where am I going to go? I want your advice worse okay, but how does that begin? He was the first person that comes

to you and says, help me. Well, um, I was making our own bands records because we couldn't afford studio time. It was very expensive back in the day to get into a really good studio, and back in the day there was no computers to make records on. You had to make them on these big expensive tape machines and boards and big studios, and it was, you know, two thousand dollars a day in some of these places, and

like that. Nobody had that kind of money when you're making a demo to get shopped for a record deal or whatever. And demos usually sounded terrible if they weren't recording in big studios. Very hard to make recording sound great, whereas now on computers. You know, everybody makes the records on computers and they sound like a record the minute they just opened up the fucking computer and hit play, and it's like even the demo sounds like it should

be on the radio. But I was making records in my parents Raj and I set up a little makeshift studio and I would record all these um punk and metal bands in Atlanta hundred bucks a day, two hundred bucks a day, whatever I could get. You know, they weren't really demos. They were people would make their independent records and they would press them on CDs at the time, and they would sell them at their shows and whatever.

UM and I did some bands that started to get noticed a little bit back after after I moved back from l A to Atlanta. We moved back there and we lived there for a better part of sixteen years. And that was pretty much, uh where I started really figuring it out and getting honing the craft, so they say, and getting really good at recording with very little gear

in a very little space. And the band that I mentioned that had the the marginal hit song at alternative Radio, the Marvelous Three, I recorded that whole record in a living room with like two microphones, and I did the whole thing, uh just beginning to end. I had learned how to record on this new fangled software called pro tools on a very archaic Mac computer and I had to learn it all by scratch. Uh. And so that song ended up getting picked up and started getting played.

And then all of a sudden, I had um record companies calling that with their artists going hey, who who produced that song? And I'd be like, wow, I did, who recorded it? I did, who who sang it, who played it? Who wrote it? You know? And it was like I did. So I started getting asked to work on other people's records flatly. Um see. One of the

first things was there was a band called SR. Seventy one that I did a song for that uh that became a bigger hit, and they kind of wanted a song like that song that I wrote that was for my band, and so we did one and it got bigger than my own band song. And I was like, hmmm, I might like this job. And then um, this girl Everril Levine called, and then Katie Perry and then and then Pink and then um, you know, and then from

there it just went kind of nuts. I had like Fallout Boy and Weezer and Panic at the Disco and uh, now Green Day some job. Yeah, it's a lot of fun. It's a fun job and it comes with some some ship sometimes and sometimes you come home and you're like, God, I'm so bummed. I don't want to do this. And and I'm not gonna name names. It's not necessarily because of an artist. It's just you can just have a bad day. And you can have a bad day with the artist, and you can have a bad day with

your gear. You can have a bad day not being able to like feel like you're giving any direction or having anything to contribute. And you know, back to answer your question a little bit about like how what goes into it is, you know, there's a lot of you, You're you're wanting to these people are wanting, they're leaning on you to offer up some sort of gold ferry dust that doesn't exist to be to like, you know,

make this magic happen. And sometimes that's not there. But sometimes I found that a lot of it was just bullshitting my way into this business and just saying I got this, I know what to do and um, and so a lot of it was just common like commandeering the ship and being like okay, um, let's let's try this song in a different key. Let's try it with a different groove. Let's try it with this. Let's um,

you know, let's let's uh whatever. I mean. There's guys that have methods that they will torment the artist and to too and you know, mental manipulation to get something out of them. That's not me. I don't do that, and I'm and then there's other people that just want to do it fifty million times because they're not hearing it the way that they're hearing it in their head. Um,

and uh, that's not me either. Um. I tend to go with the This sounds cliche, but I go with gut, Like, if it's like making the hair on my arms stand up, maybe that's gonna make millions of people's hair stand up as well on their arm. And some people will just scrap it because they want perfection or they want or they want it to be technically precise. And I don't care about that. My favorite records growing up and had

all that stuff. You know, you could hear, you know, on led Zeppelin records, you could hear the John Bonham when he's playing. You can hear him in the microphones going like that sometimes and you're like, what the funk is that? And and it's that's that's the stuff that makes like a little stone teenager in their bedroom with headphones zone go mental. They love it. So let's talk about your concept album. What was the genesis of that? Um? Well,

so I started the record um a few years ago. Uh, and I just I started realizing that when I was writing this new batch of songs maybe for a new record, that I couldn't really I couldn't really write at anything that was the typical love story break up you know. You know, my girlfriend left me. I'm sad, you know, and that's There's a lot of songs there, you know, to pick from in the world. And I just kind

of got burned out on that. And all I could think about was one of the problems that seemed to be growing and America and then and rearing its head. It actually had always been there, but I think just has gotten a lot more exposure in the last few years. And that's hate. You know. I just was like, well, nobody wants to hear this kind of fucking record from me, But um, I couldn't stop writing all these songs about it. And it was just really hurting my heart and bearing

on my conscience too. Of growing up in it and thinking about how how I got out of it, and how a lot of people I know haven't and how it's affected relationships, uh, you know, with with even relatives and friends and um and and so I started writing this record, and my in Jonathan, my manager, was like, it sounds like you're kind of making a rock opera, like there's an actual storyline. And I didn't think about it at the time, and I was like, you're right,

it is. And so I started hunkering down and writing this story, you know, loosely based on my my childhood, in my life and my dad and a lot of characters are in the story. And I've had it done for two years. I sat on it and I didn't think I wanted to put it out. And you know, it's not like I thought, oh, the problem is gonna go away. You know, problem is not going to go away.

And I'm not like trying to change the world. And nobody knows who the funk I am anyway, So it's not like if I put a record out there are millions of people are going to go like, oh you know or or fuck you you know when they hear it. But um, but I had to say I'm going to do this. I'm gonna put it out because it weighed

too heavy on my heart not to. But it's called American Love Story, and it's basically, you know about, um, this white, middle aged bigot who grew up with a pretty bad father and never really was taught love and only kind of rehearsed what he heard. The problem with this record is that a lot of the songs are sung through his perspective, and that makes a little tough to not preface it when you're playing some of those songs live, because people are gonna be like, what the

fund did he just say? You know so? Um? But I was really intrigued and inspired by an old record by Randy Newman called Good Old Boys that that was a very, I thought, a very controversial record when it came out, Um, talking about the problem of like racism and hate in America. You gonna play a couple of songs for us? Yeah, I can do m M. I remember in my younger years walk into a city pool Guillen called a fagin from this boy on new in school. His dad and never for him, grew up outside of

town with a lack of education. Year the options went around. Sometimes I'd see that boy in class, the bruises on his eyes read and pretty swollen. Teem's tangled up in pride, repeede and memorize reatory about it be in God's way. I fight. Don't follow the good book, then there'll be some hill to pay. I don't blame me, but how you turn out I have it's hard to breathe. You were born into what you came, and now I was

born this way. I can try to show some passion before you take that shot out here in the open, whether or like it or not. Driving on from a party with friends on Saturday night, I came up on the wreckage and Nicole was party night. The boy only fagging like bleeding, almost dead. He wrapped that truck from drinking and the wind she made his head well. I pulled him from the driver's seat, said help was on his way. For my head up upon his chest and said it'll be okay. As he focused on my likeness,

I can see it in his eyes. Everything eats ought to hey will find to save his life in the iron knew about this, I told him with a smile. Yeah, your God must work in stranger ways than your heart. Will allow well. He fought his hand behind the tears, eyes blood shotting down, his rebel flag tattooed hand holding mind to him, he said, please don't blame me for how it turned out. I learned a little. I was born into what I became, and you were born this way,

I can try to show confession. It might be all a guy out here in the open, whether A like it night M there was, it's something that you Uh, it's done. Are you still recorded it? It's done, It's coming. I did it, Thank you, thank you. Um. I'm excited for people to hear it. It's not all fucking bummers.

It's actually it's a very upbeat sounding record, and the kind of the way the way I made it was I wanted it to reflect the timeline musically to what I was listening to on the radio during my upbringing. So it kind of uh, when people hear it, it it will if they're around my age, then they might get a kick out of it because it kind of goes through the styles of songs. It's very uh, late seventies, early eighties vibes on a lot of it, and it's pretty fun production. I do a lot of I can't

wait to hear it. Do you have a son? Who's how old? James? He's twelve? Is he? Is he a musical? He is? He can sing? He does theater. He's done like eight plays already. He's killing in theater and very much an artie, quirky weirdo. And I love it. I think we should. I think we should. Uh take a request? Who here has a burning desire? I can't hear anything they're saying. Let's see uh okay, m California girls. I haven't move in the mouth, just a certain wing, see

it is? It always seems so a right? Oh in the shower at the end of the day, I'm left with the tab and not a word to say because I see your face and the turn out. My line. SI keeping other night by this fire and dring some wine because it's the closest thing that you want to find. New York ladies that driven crazy, can't keep up on from the south and lazy. This town stays open too late. Four these are bars. Maybe it's because it's got too

many faces, cram like fishes in compact places. Is this wild? All of them seemed desperate and alone, sipping back up the cigarettes, but only for the night, because as the

closest thing that you are gonna find. Hollywood girls took all my penis back in eight I felt for a minute I wake up in one or why I never left here because then Georgia girls all getting hammered and get a beard in their face and they just start getting all funked up and talking about politics and racing till I say stop and shove the cotton further down my ears. That's what I do, and my hands are full of that stick is set from your back. Y'all chose a pie. Ah, it's just the closest to you are.

You really are so talented, it's unbelievable, how great you are, how talented you up? Let's go it up. What's Walker? And thank you all for coming. Butch Walker's groundbreaking rock oppera American love Story, drops May eighth. My thanks to Zach McNeice for mixing the live music in today's episode. I'm Alec Baldwin and this is Here's the thing.