I have not been paying much attention to music lately. A few nights ago I was flipping through the channels before I went to bet and Letterman said the band Butch Walker and the Black Widows would be on next. I had never hard of them so i persevered through the 12 inane sales pitches until the show came back on.
I was expecting something a little “country” based on the Butch Walker part. The group played a song called Synthesizers. They looked . . . kind of 80s . . . kind of today . . . but they looked real. They looked like were NOT pretending, they looked like they were having fun and actually cared about what they were doing. There seemed to be passion in their effort. This is not easy to accomplish when you have to go from 0 to 100 in front of a live audience on a TV stage.
Oh yeah, the music – I really liked it. To be honest it was the whole package i liked, the music, the words but more importantly this guy Butch had something. Yes, it was talent, it was commitment it was the ability to relate. Most music stars today are caricatures. Their persona like their music is manufactured – entertaining, yes, but superficial.
Well, I needed to find out more. When the some was over I went to the trusty interwebs. Turns out this was not his first rodeo. He is a singer/songwriter, he’s been at it one way or anther since he was 18. He is 42 now. If you are a music biz insider you probably think of him as a producer. He has produced a bunch of artists/albums including Avril Lavigne, Weezer, Bowling for Soup, Gavin Degraw, Katie Perry, Pink, Panic at the Disco and a lot more.
Of course, he has a website/blog www.butchwaler.com. it’s worth your time to browse through it. I am pretty sure he is the one that actually posts to it, not his publicist. Once again you see the talent and the “realness”, he says things we would say (or think) if we were in his place. He is as likely to post pictures of his kids as of his famous pals. Harper Collins liked his blog and style so much they asked him to write a book which he did – Drinking with Strangers: Music Lessons from a Teenage Bullet Belt. I will read this book.
This guy isn’t the next Springsteen or anything. His music won’t appeal to everyone but here is someone writing songs with real words
, and has passion for his work. He doesn’t take himself too seriously, is talented, refreshing and genuinely interesting.