INTERVIEW: Butch Walker [Part 1]

by John Davidson
14 November 2006

Who is BUTCH WALKER and why should you care? He used to be best known as the singer/guitar player for the late MARVELOUS 3, who yielded the radio semi-hit “Freak of the Week” back in 1999 but lately, he’s better known (and much better compensated) as a record producer; he had a #1 hit with AVRIL LAVIGNE’s Under My Skin and is an accomplished pop songwriter. Not bad for a guy whose heart is in punk music, a guy whose past would have never suggested a career selling the likes of Vavigne or PINK. In this interview, Walker has some interesting thoughts on the industry and his new role.

How did you get involved in producing?

WALKER: I think just because I knew what I was doing; I had a producer back when I was in a cock-rock band, when I was 17 years old, out in L.A. I asked him how everything worked, and instead of helping me, he was really insecure and kind of a jackass. He is a very popular producer now, actually. He told me that I was just a band guy, that I was just supposed to f**k girls, do drugs, and don’t ask questions. “This is why I get paid the big bucks,” is what he actually said to me. So, just to spite him, I learned how to do it all myself. Over time, I had other people interested in making records with me, based on my own records. I started getting phone calls from artists; I kind of get the impression that the ONLY people who bought my last band’s record, the Marvelous 3, were people who were just starting bands or people who were making records. That’s pretty much when I started getting phone calls, because they liked the production that I did on those records. And my track record sort of speaks for itself.

A lot of people don’t actually understand what a producer does, and that role is different depending on the person and the relationship with a band. Do you have consistent role, or are you an open book when you work?

WALKER: I get called on a case-by-case basis. A lot of people just want me to produce, some people want me to come in and help them write songs, and a lot times they want both. When I do the indie rock stuff, like when I did THE DONNAS’ last record and when I did the new HOT HOT HEAT record, they’re more coming from a different place, one that isn’t searching for a contemporary pop hit. They just want their record to sound good, and I get in there and I become like a fourth or fifth member of the band. That ends up begin a good marriage between me and the band, because I can respect it because I’m in one myself. They respect me because they know that I can understand what it takes to make these weird things called “artists” tick. I really enjoy that process, even if it doesn’t involve me getting publishing compensation for the songs. Like, honestly, I don’t really give a shit about the money because I have money now and my day job pays well. It justifies me being an artist all the time. But then again, I’m doing a new Avril Lavigne record, and that’s one of those records that’s based on big songs, so I have to respect that, too.

Because there is pressure to succeed on numbers when you are working with an artist like her, does it change your approach or is it still just making music for you, albeit with a slightly different tactic?

Yeah, it’s completely different. And I love it, don’t get me wrong. I love a pop song just as much as I love a really interesting, esoteric, band. I’m just as big a fan as I am of SIGUR ROS as much as I am Avril Lavigne, and I don’t understand why you can’t have BOTH in your life. The whole thing is retarded, the way kids think, and I chalk it up to being immature because you know what, when I was 18, I wasn’t the f**king sharpest tool in the shed but I thought I knew everything. And I hated everything on the radio, but you know what? My band sucked as bad as everything that was on the radio anyway. Once I got over that, once I realized that it was just as challenging to write a big pop, hit song as it was to write a song that has layers and depth and structure and no theme or formula.

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