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Interview with Butch Walker
by Corijona on 2007-05-02 |
Butch: Hi, I’m Butch Walker. I’m here with Corijona spelled C-O-R-I-J-O-N-A.
Corijona: You are the first person to ever remember how to correctly spell my name!
Butch: Yay! I did good.
Corijona: So since we now know who you are and that you’re a great speller, how's the tour going so far?
Butch: It's good. We're only one show in, so I'm sore. I'm sore because I'm out of shape and I haven't toured in six months. I have to get my sea legs back or tour legs, whatever they want to call them.
Corijona: How long does it usually take you to get those tour legs back?
Butch: Hopefully after tonight two shows and that's it.
Corijona: Marvelous 3 was a huge part of your career, and a lot of people still recognize you from being affiliated with that. Do you feel any kind of extra scrutiny from people because of that?
Butch: What kind of scrutiny?
Corijona: I guess the kind of scrutiny that comes along with having had a huge hit with Freak Of The Week and being played on MTV and having that kind of 15 minutes of fame.
Butch: Oddly enough I don’t think so. My fans love the songs that came from that band and all the stuff I did with it and I do still play one or two songs from that but I haven’t played Freak Of The Week live in years. No one's out in the crowd screaming play freak of the week. No one cares and that makes me feel good, because if people were just coming out to see me play an oldies set I’d be bummed. I put out new records every year and its more important for people to be into the whole package, I think I'm just blessed that my fans are a lot more music loving than that. They’re not just casual radio listeners that only like the hit song and that’s it, they don’t care about that, they like when I play stuff that I haven't even released on records. They’re music lovers, not music listeners so I don't think I get any problems from that at all. Some people might only remember me from that but that’s because they haven’t listened to me since.
Corijona: That being said is your fan base now comprised of mainly new or old fans?
Butch: There’s actually a lot of new, its weird because it’s such an eclectic age group now. I mean I toured with Avril Lavigne for God sakes a year or so ago. So I was used to having very young people coming to the shows and still seeing people from my first band when I was 18 and touring, which was a long time ago by the way. Just seeing that in the audience is really cool. I don’t think I'd be happy playing to one person because then I'd have to cater the set and cater the way I talk and the way I reference things to only a certain group of people if I did that. So this kind of allows me to just loosen up and be myself and hopefully everyone will get it.
Corijona: So how do you feel you’ve progressed as an artist from your first solo effort to now having The Lets Go Out Tonites?
Butch: I guess the first record I did I was just trying really hard. I was just coming off being in Marvelous 3 and I was trying so hard to live up to the band I was in for years and to live up to a sound and a style that I thought I had to do. I was to scared to shed all of that and I wanted people to like me for who I was and to not expect to hear the same thing again, but I kind of I feel like if anything on my first solo record I did kind of give them a lot of the same sounds that they were accustomed to where as maybe that’s not what I necessarily wanted to do anymore. I was scared of failing. I was scared of loosing my fans and scared of walking away from something cold turkey and honestly it was great because once I did that I had to start over anyway. So I started over and I started touring again and that spawned the second record I did which was Letters. My fan base just grew and grew and grew the more I distanced myself from my previous band and just started to do my own thing. You know that record was a much more mellow introspective record it was less cynical and less sarcastic and I guess I was really happy that I was able to prove that I could take that and create a whole new fan base out of it. That was the best part I felt like I had succeeded at that point, even though I wasn’t getting played all over MTV or anything like that which really wasn't what I cared about anymore and I still really don't care about that anymore. We had a taste of that in Marvelous 3 and I hated it. I hated the attention to that level. I hated the demand. So…
(Jaime previous guitarist of the band American Hi-Fi now guitarist for Butch walks in a few antics ensue and we move on to a new question)
Corijona: So is there still a fear of loosing your fan base when you go into the studio to make a new record? Or is that something you don’t even think about anymore?
Butch: I'm way over that. I don't really care. I mean at this point I'm really comfortable because every time I go into a town again there’s usually more people than last time and if I haven't lost them by now then I don't think I will lose them. Each record has been completely different, soaking up different influences, reflecting different sounds and different lyrical point of views and all that. If anything you're either in on me or you're not. You're either into the thing I do regardless of what band I have or what sound it is so I'm really happy about that.
Corijona: Which is more difficult for you writing your own music or producing another's?
Butch: Well obviously writing your own music, you're your own worst critic and it’s very difficult to be happy with everything you do. But when you produce for other people and co-write for other people you tend to let your guard down a little more because you’re going for what the labels want. The labels are wanting me to write quote hit songs and I don't really try to do those kind of songs for my own albums There’s a certain sound and production style and formula that comes with the structure of a song that you have to cater to with a hit, that plus there has to be a great melody, hook and lyric and all of those things add up, but I think I probably let my guard down and try a little bit more for that on other peoples records when they want that because a lot of the time that’s why they're asking me to help them anyway it's not just because they want to hang out with me, but it's cool because when I make my own records I can be a little more guarded and more personal and I don't have to worry about relating to 8 million people but it's fun to help other people have big pop songs that relate to the masses I like it.
Corijona: So it seems you get a lot of flack for some of the artists you’ve worked with, how do you feel about people judging your music by the people you’ve worked with? And do you think this whole scene elitism is making people way to close minded?
Butch: Absolutely producing is a day job for me. I don’t hold it against someone for working at Wal-Mart if they happen to go out and play music at night but during the day they have to wear a funny little Wal-Mart vest or whatever. I don’t hold it against someone for working at a church during the day. That’s ridiculous. I love my job. My job rocks. I get paid really well to help people write and produce stuff that I would normally not do for myself and if they don’t get that then they are close minded and they are idiots because if they think that that should be reflected on my music and that it should sway their judgment on my music because of who I work with for my fucking day job, then they’re nuts and they’re not thinking. If they were given the opportunity that I’ve been given to work on the records that pay as good as they do and are way better than working at a fucking donut shop or whatever then they would do it too, trust me. It’s the people that sit around and don't know what its like until its put in their hands You tell me if you were put in my position and somebody offered you this amount of money to produce a record for whoever I don’t give a damn if it’s Lindsay Lohan. When I got offered to do that I was like shit yeah I’m going to do it because I’m going to get paid a hell of a lot of money and it’s going to be funny, you know it’s going to be a train wreck, that’s way more exciting than going to work at Wal-Mart. So if anyone thinks that that’s a way to judge my artist career, which is completely separate, and my ethics and my morals on music then they are not a true music lover in my mind.
Corijona: Do you feel image is becoming more of a focus than actual music lately?
Butch:It’s definitely hurting artists but that’s because most bands these days have more t-shirts than songs at their shows and they have more money invested in their haircut than they have time invested on their albums. That makes me sound jaded but I’m not. The emphasis is just not on quality as much as it is aesthetic. Whatever, scene this scene that it’s so retarded. People are going to be laughing about that when they’re five years older. They’re not going to be able to believe themselves and how stupid they were.
Corijona: So who’s been your favorite to work with in the studio?
Butch: That’s a good question. I don't know. I really enjoyed working with Jason the singer of The Von Bondies he’s a hell of a guy. Ben Lee was great. He’s one of the most beautiful amazing souls I’ve ever met. Pink actually was one of the coolest and most bad ass singers in the studio I’ve ever worked with. She just sat there with a glass of wine in one hand and a cigarette in the other and just sang everything in one take, no fixing no note changing no nothing. She’s such a cool person so I stand up for her one hundred percent. Jarrod from,The Honorary Title, who we’re on tour with, I just worked with him for their single on their upcoming record I love him he’s great he’s a friend of mine. I don't know, I’m really fortunate most people I've worked with have been because I liked them and not necessarily about the music or anything else If I don't like them, I don't do it. Some stuff I do out of curiosity and that’s it.
Corijona: So how do you feel about Auto-Tune?
Butch: Can't live with it can't live without it. I don't pull it out if I don't have to. That's the thing. It depends on what kind of record you’re making. If you're making a pop record for radio and things like that unfortunately there are things that they can't handle which is out of tune vocals and things being loose and sloppy, whereas a lot of my favorite music is loose and sloppy and flat and sharp and all of that. So I take it on a case-by-case basis. I don't use that stuff when I’m working with artists like The Von Bondies or Hot Hot Heat but when I’m working with an artist that may sing an out of tune note here or there and it's crucial to the song being impactful to radio or whatever then I'll give in but I never use it on myself. I don't have to I'm a good singer.
Corijona: If you could score your own film what kind of film would it be?
Butch: I don't know. That's a really good question, and I don't want to give a bad answer. Hmmm, I don't think it would be some kind of dungeons and dragons movie it'd probably be something really boring like a documentary. A lot of my favorite albums are soundtracks.
Corijona: I could see you doing something like the Little Miss Sunshine soundtrack.
Butch: I would love that. Wes Anderson films too like Life Aquatic or something, that was great. Mark Mothersbaugh from Devo did the score to that and I loved it. You just set a light bulb off in my head. That’s next!
Corijona: Favorite line you've ever written?
Butch: Oh Man. This is all about me right now isn’t it? This is hard because now I have every song that I’ve ever written trying to play through my head. Hmm, let me think about the last record for a second. One line I guess I like is in the song called Dominoes I wrote which is about two grandparents where the Grandfather had a severe case of Alzheimer’s and the grandmother, she died and they had been together since they were kids, basically since they were like teenagers. They were really old when she passed away and they had basically never spent a day apart. So he had Alzheimer's and he couldn’t remember where things were or where to put things or anything really but he was strong as an ox and he worked really hard around the house where she was really frail and little and could hardly do anything but she had a mind like an elephant. So when she passed away and he was all by himself a lot of the grandkids would kind of hang by and make sure that he was ok and a lot of the times he couldn’t actually remember her passing so he would always ask “Where’s Grace?” “Where is she today?” and we’d tell him that she had passed away. So I wrote the song Dominoes about it for the record and one of my favorite lines is in the last verse, it says “I see her beside me as the grandkids they remind me she’s in the cemetery we played in as kids they all think im crazy but the things she tells me lately are the only things I cannot forget”. I think that lines pretty cool because he forgets everything but for some reason he keeps hearing her voice and it reminds him of her.
Corijona: Is there a certain scenario that heightens the listening of your record?
Butch:I think the last album is definitely a car album. It’s a driving record; you know a going out kind of record. My last album was more of a sad guy sitting in a corner with his hair product dripping with his tears going into his beer with no one talking to him and the new record is that same guy a year later in the same bar walking around spilling his drink on everybody and lighting all of the girls cigarettes you know getting on top of th bar dancing on it until 4 in the morning closing the bar down until the sun comes up that’s about the best analogy I can give for it.
Corijona: So really quickly lets play a game of this or that. First up…Amazing Bridge Ok Chorus or Amazing Chorus Ok Bridge?
Butch: Amazing Bridge Ok Chorus
Corijona: 80’s hair metal or 70’s disco?
Butch: 70’s disco hands down.
Corijona: Morning Or Night?
Butch: Morning.
Corijona: Huge Arena or Small Club?
Butch: Small Arena.
Corijona: Acoustic Or Electric?
Butch: Piano.
Corijona: U.S. Tour or U.K. Tour?
Butch: U.K. I love America but I haven’t gone to the U.K. enough.
Corijona: Skinny Tie Or Bow Tie?
Butch: It’s a tie.
Corijona: Alright any final words of wisdom?
Butch: Stay in school, go to church, say no to drugs. Move to L.A., move back, and then move back again to appreciate it. That’s what I did.
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