BUTCH WALKER: MASTER LYRICIST, MASTER SONGWRITER, MASTER PRODUCER

I’m not much of a lyrics guy. Never have been. There’s the obvious fact that most metal screamers are nearly incomprehensible, but it goes beyond that. I was brought up in a musical family and started playing instruments at a very early age, so when I listen to music I’m listening to what’s being played, how the instruments interact with other, the arrangement and composition, the tones, the production, etc. I view the role of the vocalist in modern metal as that of another instrument; I listen to how the voice adds to the overall song, the melody (if he’s singing), and how it matches up with everything else. I very rarely pay attention to lyrics and even when I try I have a hard time staying focused before I’m distracted by something else going on in the “background”; it’s just the way my brain’s wired. Ask me what 99% of the bands I write about on a daily basis are singing about and I will have absolutely no idea.

But every now and then an album or song comes along whose lyrics I really connect with. I’ve always really enjoyed Butch Walker’s lyrics; dude’s a bonafide master, of course not just at lyric-writing but at everything musical. He knows how to craft a song, get a [musical] point across and write a turnaround from part to part better than anyone. Maybe the reason I connect with Walker’s lyrics is that they’re so damned straight-forward, simple and easily comprehensible by my non-lyrical mind. This line from “She Likes Hair Bands” on Walker’s latest I Liked It Better When You Had No Heart drew me in right away for obvious reasons:

She Likes Hair Bands
On satellite radio
But I was in one
So it’s a little too close to home

But the rest of the lyrics to the song have a lot more substance than the above jokey intro might imply. I just downloaded the album from Amazon for only $7.99 and you should too!

Listen to “She Likes Hair Bands” on Butch Walker’s MySpace, and then, after the jump… have a gander at Walker’s hair band past.