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Butch Walker is stepping out

July 20, 2006 12:50 am

By EMILY GILMORE

After showing listeners his vulnerable side on his last album, 2004's "Letters," Butch Walker has snapped out of his funk, and he's ready to party.

The name of his new backing band, The Let's Go Out Tonites, says it all.

"We're dressing up and going out," the erstwhile Marvelous 3 frontman said in a phone interview last week from Atlanta. "That's what the whole premise of the band's sound and style is."

The group just embarked on a tour--during which audiences will have a shot at singing karaoke--for its new album, "The Rise and Fall of Butch Walker and The Let's Go Out Tonites." They'll stop at the 9:30 Club in Washington on Monday.

"The band is big, the sound is big, so we're really excited for everybody to get a chance to check it out," Walker said. The show "is going to be quite the experience."

That may be an understatement.

Like a Dionysus for the present day, Walker is rivaled only by the likes of Bono and Bruce Springsteen in his ability to hold whole audiences in his sway from the moment he steps onstage.

Walker, 36, has toured with rock band American Hi-Fi backing him, and he has written and produced music for Avril Lavigne, Pink, Bowling for Soup and others, but he hasn't had a band of his own since M3 disbanded in 2001.

The lineup of TLGOT has been stable for the last year and a half, and the members, some of whom Walker met online, have all contributed to the overall sound, Walker said.

He assembled the band in the spirit of Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers and Elvis Costello and The Attractions, and now he doesn't have to defend himself to people who don't get what he's about and think he needs a band to be a rock musician.

Walker knows what it's like to go to a show and want to hear the band's old stuff, so he and TLGOT do play a couple of M3 songs that he feels they execute well, Walker said.

But they're all so excited about the new album that, naturally, they want to focus on it.

The glam-tastic new effort (yes, the album's title is a tribute to David Bowie) is more diverse than anything Walker has done with M3 or on his own.

In between the T. Rex bombast of "Hot Girl in a Good Mood" and the country twang of "Rich People Die Unhappy," Walker channels John Lennon on "This Is the Sweetest Little Song" and even offers up some Ben Folds piano on "Dominoes."

He has never tried to carry the same sound from one album to the next, following in the footsteps of his idols--Prince, Bowie, Bob Dylan--who aren't concerned with consistency, either.

"They're not interested in sticking to some tried-and-true formula and sound, and I think that's great and the real fans know this, and they're excited," Walker said.

"That's a real artist, and at the risk of sounding pretentious, I want to be that."

But musicians are inevitably pigeonholed, and there are always people who try to establish their cred by spouting opinions that a musician's new stuff doesn't hold up to what came before it--that's happened to Walker plenty of times.

He does acknowledge that it's possible of course, to legitimately not like an album, but "nine times out of 10, people get it eventually," he said.

The new music is "not to be digested quickly," he said. "It's steak, if you will. Not a smoothie."

Walker may not sell millions of records, and he may not fill arenas like some of his proteges, but he's past the point of caring about popularity.

"I hate the whole ass-kiss thing," he said. "I did it once, and I hated it. It would just be so unartistic and un-music-related, and nothing about it had any credibility."

He values his anonymity, and now after about 20 years of making music, producing hits for other people has given Walker the financial freedom to do whatever he wants.

Walker has always been a touring dynamo, and he plans to play in Europe and North America through this year. Also on the horizon is a gig producing the first album for the band that results from the TV show "Rock Star: Super-nova."

Regardless of what happens next, it's almost guaranteed that Walker will continue to make his presence known for some time.

He admires acts like Petty, Costello and Cheap Trick, who are still touring, still putting out albums, and he sees himself following in that tradition.

"I definitely do," he said. "I mean, why wouldn't I?"

To reach EMILY GILMORE:540/374-5426
Email: egilmore@freelancestar.com Read her blog at fredericksburg.com/blogs/view?blogger_id=3