Butch Walker Bio / Biography / History & More
Butch Walker Bio written by Butch Walker.
When I was growing up, it was all about some f*cking "shout at the devil." When I wanted to go see AC/DC with my friends, my mother (who I love dearly) said "you can't go see AC/DC in concert! The devil dances on stage with them every night!" I said, "AWESOME!" I was hooked on hard rock ever since. I loved heavy metal and new wave (weird combo, huh?) you're probably thinking "who would hang out with this guy?" I was constantly having to run from one end of the high school parking lot to the other. The metal heads would call me a fag for listening to The Cure, and the sensitive goth chicks would think I was a redneck for liking The Crue. I would play clubs 6 nights a week in a metal cover band, and get up 2 hours later to go to high school , with eyeliner still running down my face. My hair was black and orange and it was down to my tits. My teachers thought I worshipped the devil. Then again, I might have at that time... I tried everything and survived to tell more.
I graduated high school, took my clubbing cash, moved to LA and took my band with me. We were signed to a major label record deal 10 months later, making a record with a hot producer, and a video with the guy who did all those stupid Aerosmith videos, we were unstoppable, until we were, um... stoppable. We were touring all over the country with all the cock rocker bands when we got the memo from the label that our style of music was being eaten by Eddie Vedder. So, we were not going to be treated to any more dinners on the label's corporate card, fair enough, let's get a haircut and move on.
I ended up ditching the whole concept and went DIY that's "do it yourself" for all of you freshmen, yo. I was getting into a lot of indie records and hated what a lot of the rock "market" had become. I started hanging out at the local record store and arguing with the clerks about which Pavement record was better. I started getting into stuff like Sloan, Weezer, Jellyfish, Beck and Radiohead. I liked it all. I made the transition successfully. I can see the cock rock rehab program slogan now; "This program Will Take You From 'Firehouse' To FireHOSE in 90 Days," or "Down With Winger... Up With Weezer!"
All through the 90's, my new band played 250 shows a year all over the country, in countless vans, and KOA's, and played wherever we could get a gig. We sold our own merch, records and tapes, and made enough money to come back to Atlanta every once in awhile to pay rent. We did very well (sort of like a "not-as-credible", "budget" Fugazi).
Well, just as we started to be inundated with one-syllable, on-word band names that took themselves way too seriously, I put THE MARVELOUS 3 (R.I.P.) together, and within a year of playing a few sold out shows around the southeast (and a lot of empty ones too,) 99X in Atlanta stated playing a song called "Freak of the Week" on their station. (The song was ironically about coming to terms with selling out... funny.) It blew up. Label dorks who were saying 6 months earlier, "you know, I just don't 'get' that Marvelous 3 thing," were calling me up and offering "fill in the blank" checks when it reached the billboard charts... funny how that works, any ways, the song hits the top 5, everything is going great: video in rotation on MTV we're doing Conan, Letterman, Leno, I'm modeling for a fucking Calvin Klein ad yada yada yada... all sorts of shit. Then the label I decided to sign with, says, "Cool. We recouped a little and we look like we made this song happen... next band!" I told them to "fuck off" and cleaned house. I broke up the band, cut all my ties, had one hell of a nervous breakdown, and went UG in the 2K for a while (that's "underground" dog.)
I was doing fine, living off of my pension from the big hit song, and I also had good cash coming in from another top 5 song that I helped write, that was a song called "Right Now" (by a band called SR71) I decided to take a much-deserved break from touring and exercise my producing skills for a new Atlanta discovery called INJECTED (Island/Defjam). Then I had some more time, so I produced a record for a punk/pop band called Bowling for Soup (Mojo/Jive). I also co-wrote the first single "Girl All the Bad Guys Want" Which got nominated for a Grammy and was a number 1 hit in the UK and a top 40 hit in the good ol US of A.
After that my ego was too big to sit in a studio, so I made my own record. I recorded about 45 songs, which I mostly hated, but managed to find a few that I liked. I signed a big fat record deal with Arista Records, the record (which I wrote, performed, recorded and produced) is called LEFT OF SELF CENTERED... I love that fucking title.
let's cut to now.. i just finished work on my new solo record, a live acoustic cd from the last US tour, and a DVD is in the works from it as well. lots of cool shit.
GOD!!! all this talking about me! i feel like such a self-absorbed prick! oh yeah.. it's a bio... i guess that's okay...
I like song writing. I like recording songs. I like performing them. I like doing it. I will always do it. So if you like my shit, I will keep putting it out... that last part actually sounds sort of gross.
see ya later,
butch walker
