Speaker 1: I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing.
Speaker 1: Butch Walker is one of the great contemporary talents of rock.
Speaker 1: He's written songs and produced tracks for the likes of
Speaker 1: Panic at the Disco, Pink, and Wheezer, so he has
Speaker 1: fans all over the industry. Even Taylor Swift fell in
Speaker 1: love with one of his tailor's Swift covers. That's what
Speaker 1: led to their joint appearance at the Grammys. Butch on
Speaker 1: his Banjolim girl, She's upset, She's gone up about something that.
Speaker 1: In fact, Walker's reputation as the l a music scenes
Speaker 1: great collaborator has sometimes eclipsed his brilliant, eclectic solo career.
Speaker 1: I hope hearing him today will turn you onto or
Speaker 1: reignite your love for his remarkable body of work. As
Speaker 1: a ten year old heavy metal fan and rural Georgia,
Speaker 1: Butch Walker was already a multi instrumentalist. His career went
Speaker 1: on to span hard rock, grunge, and now he's putting
Speaker 1: out soulful, lyrics focused rock with great pop hooks throughout
Speaker 1: it all. His music has always been honest and original
Speaker 1: and catching. When I was in Los Angeles, not too
Speaker 1: long ago, I arranged to meet Butch at a music
Speaker 1: venue in Hollywood so he could play some of his
Speaker 1: great songs in front of a live audience and tell
Speaker 1: me about his path from the Bible Belt to the
Speaker 1: heart of l A's music scene. On Hey, can y'all
Speaker 1: hear me? No, no, I'm gonna play some of my
Speaker 1: early stuff. Then of course I want to play some
Speaker 1: of my new stuff to hope you know mine. Welcome to.
Speaker 1: This is a recording of my podcast Here's the Thing,
Speaker 1: which is produced by w n y C Studios in
Speaker 1: New York. I want to thank yeah, thank you, And
Speaker 1: I want to thank um kpc C here in Los Angeles.
Speaker 1: And I want to thank Catalina. I'm told the Catalina
Speaker 1: barn grill there is an actual Catalina. So please join
Speaker 1: me and welcoming Butch Walker. Thank you. Maybe I just
Speaker 1: scared off. Maybe you to. It's a beautiful miss Soner
Speaker 1: standing from my part of view. Can you feel in
Speaker 1: now wheels coming down? I just want you to wear
Speaker 1: about me. Everyone wasn't a while. I just need a
Speaker 1: sign of light to give me by you can't fair
Speaker 1: a smile forever from my mouth and wants was mine?
Speaker 1: Is it all over? Fun of the beginning the same name.
Speaker 1: There's a man reading icky have and the dull wd me.
Speaker 1: We're not falling in we flying sorry in between? Can
Speaker 1: you say now? I feel it's slow down. I just
Speaker 1: want you to way by me. Everyone's in a while.
Speaker 1: I just need a sign a light to give me by.
Speaker 1: You can't fake a smile forever from my mouth? And
Speaker 1: once was like, is it over? Funnily begin descend it.
Speaker 1: I'm holding steady, I'm restless, you're ready. I just want
Speaker 1: you to by being everyone's in a while. I didn't
Speaker 1: need a side line to get me. Boy, you can't
Speaker 1: fake a snile forever from my mouth? Water this was mine?
Speaker 1: Is it over? Finally? Begin descended, I'm holding steady. I'm restless.
Speaker 1: You're ready. I'm holding steady. I'm restless, you're ready, I'm
Speaker 1: holding steady. M wow, wow brow. Well. The first thing
Speaker 1: I want to say is you told me you were
Speaker 1: going to play the guitar. What's with the piano? I
Speaker 1: know how many instruments do you play? None? I just
Speaker 1: they call it a jack of all trades. I guess
Speaker 1: where did you start out on? Uh? Started out on
Speaker 1: drums and Uh, I was very terrible at that, according
Speaker 1: to my older sisters. Started in the bedroom. I was
Speaker 1: eight years old and my parents made the grave mistake
Speaker 1: of taking me to see this rock band called Kiss.
Speaker 1: I was very obsessed as a young metal head, and uh,
Speaker 1: I hear strands of Kiss in your music. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: one for sure. But my dad was reluctant to go
Speaker 1: to the show because he was this mountain man with
Speaker 1: a Georgia Yeah, North Georgia mountains, and he loved um.
Speaker 1: The accident will come out, don't worry. After a couple
Speaker 1: of SIPs um. He was begrudgingly, you know, at this
Speaker 1: Kiss show because he liked country music and he wasn't
Speaker 1: sign up for this and all these guys he was
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy seven, I was eight years old, and he's
Speaker 1: wearing this new brown blazer that his mother had got him.
Speaker 1: I just remember everybody there dressed up like the members
Speaker 1: of Kiss. In the audience, you know, you had like
Speaker 1: guys that were all like five years old, dressed up
Speaker 1: as Jane and Paul and all these guys with the
Speaker 1: boots and the whole thing. Yes, there was Paul and
Speaker 1: Jeans sitting behind us, and they kept passing like joints
Speaker 1: over my mom and dad to other people. Because it
Speaker 1: was the seventies, it was a looser time. You know.
Speaker 1: Here I am eight years old, smelling pot for the
Speaker 1: first time, seeing it passed by a guy dressed in
Speaker 1: Gene Simmons makeup and you're eight years old. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: my my dad was like a make a Wish Foundation thing,
Speaker 1: did you were dying kiss concert? It would have been
Speaker 1: my dying wish for sure, and uh And I looked
Speaker 1: over and in a strobe, I could see my dad
Speaker 1: choking out Jean Simmons like this behind me before the
Speaker 1: concert even started, and I was like, this is the
Speaker 1: best fucking so And that started really eight years I
Speaker 1: was a and that kind of started me on my
Speaker 1: road to this. Yeah. I kind of started trying to
Speaker 1: play drums the next day. That was as you do
Speaker 1: as a kid. You're you're attracted to drums their primal
Speaker 1: and I realized I didn't like being behind everybody. I
Speaker 1: wanted to be out front. And so whenever I was
Speaker 1: playing with this little band that um was in, we
Speaker 1: practiced in my bedroom up in the attic. Uh, and
Speaker 1: they were all like my sister's boyfriends. It was older
Speaker 1: dudes that were already able to drive, and we were
Speaker 1: playing like orio Speedwagon covers and trying to play get
Speaker 1: through a rush song, which failed miserably after two bars.
Speaker 1: They would leave the gear there and I would see
Speaker 1: that guitar over in the corner next to my Charlie
Speaker 1: McCarthy ventriloqu was dull, and we're like because I was
Speaker 1: still so young, you know, And so I would go
Speaker 1: over and pick up his guitar. And then I started learning,
Speaker 1: like on one string how to like pick out songs
Speaker 1: and play along to the radio. And next thing, you know,
Speaker 1: I think my mom uh just was overhearing it and
Speaker 1: thinking like, oh, because she's she's the musical on in
Speaker 1: my family, sings and plays piano and she's very good.
Speaker 1: You learned to play yourself for myself, by myself and
Speaker 1: with myself, uh around that time a lot, and uh
Speaker 1: that changes eventually, it does. But um, well, why would
Speaker 1: be a famous musician if not? Whatever? So so UM
Speaker 1: I ended up getting lessons because my mom was like,
Speaker 1: I think he's got talent to do this, and so
Speaker 1: um I ended up taking lessons from a guy locally
Speaker 1: in Cartersville, this little town I was from and uh
Speaker 1: he was great. Uh he taught me, you know, taught
Speaker 1: me Van Halen songs and all the the essentials you know,
Speaker 1: and and I was, you know, learning very fast. So um,
Speaker 1: just I got obsessed with it and I kind of
Speaker 1: never looked back from then. I stayed stayed true to
Speaker 1: guitar pretty much the rest of my time. Now do
Speaker 1: you think that for people? I mean, people ask me
Speaker 1: all the time, say, if you take acting lessons, can
Speaker 1: you make it make you a good actor? I say that,
Speaker 1: you know, in my opinion, it can make you a
Speaker 1: better actor than when you walk in the door. But
Speaker 1: it can't make you a good actor. You have to
Speaker 1: have some inspiration, to have some gift that people have.
Speaker 1: It's uh, that's different. Do you feel the same way
Speaker 1: about guitar playing. Do you feel that you had just
Speaker 1: a passion for it? I think so. I think I
Speaker 1: think I knew I could do it just because I was.
Speaker 1: I had a good ear for picking out I could
Speaker 1: pick out stuff on the radio so quickly, and I
Speaker 1: could I didn't. It was like learning to run before
Speaker 1: you could walk, though I didn't know how. I didn't
Speaker 1: have any knowledge of it, or chords or anything. Just
Speaker 1: kind of had the ear and the muscle memory to
Speaker 1: be able to pick it out and play it. And
Speaker 1: so you know, the next thing, you know, it would
Speaker 1: be like my parents having their fondue parties and ship
Speaker 1: and they would be coming upstairs and I'd be upstairs
Speaker 1: just playing along to records and the like. You know.
Speaker 1: My mom would be like, play that pretender song, you know,
Speaker 1: and so I'd be like, you know, for for company,
Speaker 1: And so I would end up playing little concerts in
Speaker 1: my room for all for all of their party uh guests,
Speaker 1: where people's smoking pot and your father choking people out
Speaker 1: of the party. It was pretty civilized. Yeah. He Later
Speaker 1: in life I came to find he was. He was
Speaker 1: a tear. When you're in Cartersville to her how old
Speaker 1: cars will till I graduated high school, which your whole childhood. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And what was the music scene like locally? None? Um,
Speaker 1: so there was no Cartersville was kind of sequestion because
Speaker 1: it was between Athens in Atlanta. I was too young
Speaker 1: for most of that time at home to do anything
Speaker 1: or to go anywhere and play anywhere. You know. I
Speaker 1: did get into a band in Rome, Georgia, which was
Speaker 1: about twenty minutes north of Cartersville, and that's where I
Speaker 1: could find musicians because in Carter's it was kind of
Speaker 1: a little bit of a foot loose vibe. There was
Speaker 1: like nobody, nobody playing unless it was the Lord's music.
Speaker 1: And and so you know, I I worked at the
Speaker 1: local music store where I would I would teach guitar
Speaker 1: less and when I was a teenager, and you know,
Speaker 1: dudes would come in and I started to grow my
Speaker 1: hair out and they'd be like, I bet you play
Speaker 1: that Sitan music. And then I would be like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: what's the picture of Jesus looked like above your mantle?
Speaker 1: How short is his hair? I wanted out. The guys
Speaker 1: that I was playing with it from Rome. They were
Speaker 1: all my age basically, and um we started playing this
Speaker 1: one club in Rome that was basically a u it
Speaker 1: was it was a former pizza hut, and uh we
Speaker 1: would go in there and this was during the height
Speaker 1: of like like mid eighties eighties metal and we would
Speaker 1: build homemade bombs on stage and fire and pyro and
Speaker 1: blow the drop ceiling out of the place like this,
Speaker 1: and I mean, I can't believe it's still standing. No, no,
Speaker 1: uh we I had a key to the place. That's
Speaker 1: how loose this place was. I was sixteen and I
Speaker 1: had a key to this bar. We had a mattress
Speaker 1: under the drum right is there, and we would go
Speaker 1: in there. If we had been partying or driving around
Speaker 1: and too much, we would go in there and raid
Speaker 1: the bar. I can't believe I'm telling everybody this, and
Speaker 1: then and then we would and then we would all
Speaker 1: pull out the mattresses and just pass out in a
Speaker 1: club and I'd wake up basically pretty much. And this
Speaker 1: was called Ronnie's Rock Cafe. And and Atlanta there was
Speaker 1: a place I used to go play, uh called Danny's.
Speaker 1: It was a metal bar on forty Highway forty one
Speaker 1: in Smyrna, and I would go there and I would
Speaker 1: play six nights a week, and we'd do three cover
Speaker 1: band sets a night because you weren't you weren't allowed
Speaker 1: to play original music back then at any of the bars,
Speaker 1: even in Atlanta, which was a pretty you know, big city.
Speaker 1: If you were doing the hard rock scene at the time,
Speaker 1: you had to play covers. And that was my reason
Speaker 1: for wanting to take the band and all of us
Speaker 1: moved to Los Angeles, which is what we did it was,
Speaker 1: and I moved here with the guys and and we
Speaker 1: lived and if I can recall, we lived. We we
Speaker 1: kind of lived around in our van. We lived in
Speaker 1: a motel for a little bit. And then we found
Speaker 1: an apartment five blocks from here, Hollywood and Whitley and
Speaker 1: and yeah, man, dreams do come true. And uh so
Speaker 1: we were you know, we were. We were sitting there,
Speaker 1: six of us in a one bedroom on air conditioned apartment.
Speaker 1: You know, smelled so good, and uh but we loved it.
Speaker 1: We were having the time of our life. It was.
Speaker 1: That was our college. None of us went to college
Speaker 1: or barely finished high school. Um, so we came out
Speaker 1: here at the height of the Guns and Roses, Poison, Motley,
Speaker 1: Crewe Rat, all of that like that, all those bands.
Speaker 1: Um that was huge for us. So we came out
Speaker 1: here and ended up in the belly of the Beast
Speaker 1: and we started right away. We pounded the pavement and
Speaker 1: found out what we needed to do. This was pre
Speaker 1: cell phones and pre internet, pre anything. So it was
Speaker 1: like we had no idea what to expect. Um had
Speaker 1: a girlfriend at the time who was already out here
Speaker 1: working at the Tropicana. It's so cliche. Um, but she
Speaker 1: was from Georgia and so she moved out and got
Speaker 1: a dancing job, and she would send me flyers of
Speaker 1: all the bands that were flyering on the Sunset Strip,
Speaker 1: and that's that's how I learned what they looked like,
Speaker 1: how they dressed, the whole image of everything. So we
Speaker 1: came out here and um, we immediately hit the printer
Speaker 1: shop and we printed up flyers for our first show
Speaker 1: that we were ever able to get booked to play.
Speaker 1: We played the Whiskey our first show, and we only
Speaker 1: had five originals, so we had to play him twice.
Speaker 1: We're gonna play this song again, I'm gonna play it slower, yeah,
Speaker 1: And we ended up getting written up in this magazine
Speaker 1: at the time that was a local rag called the
Speaker 1: Rock City News, and they they loved us, say they
Speaker 1: were like tightest on the Sunset Strip, they said, And
Speaker 1: we were like, we only have five songs, but we
Speaker 1: got good and we we definitely learned because we were
Speaker 1: fueled by all these other It was very competitive. It
Speaker 1: was saturated. It was thousands of dudes that looked just
Speaker 1: alike getting off the bus, all on the Sunset Strip,
Speaker 1: just like yeah, just like the guns and Roses videos,
Speaker 1: Hey out of the mouth, and um, basically we're just
Speaker 1: down there on the strip promoting and grassroots marketing ourselves
Speaker 1: and trying to convince people to buy tickets to our
Speaker 1: show after they just got a flyer and dropped it
Speaker 1: on the ground from the band in front of us. Now,
Speaker 1: when you're in it, when you're a young guy and
Speaker 1: you're in a band, did you enjoy being in a
Speaker 1: band and did you enjoy the camaraderie or was there
Speaker 1: a party all along you thought I'd like to No, No,
Speaker 1: I enjoyed it. And at the time, I should preface
Speaker 1: that I was just the guitar player then uh in
Speaker 1: the band that came out here, So I wasn't the
Speaker 1: lead singer. Um I sang and I was able to
Speaker 1: do all harmonies and even help with uh. At least
Speaker 1: it was a guy named Jesse, and then I came
Speaker 1: out here with him and Jason and my drummer's slug
Speaker 1: And so basically I loved being a guitar player. I
Speaker 1: love being in a band. I loved that camaraderie. Uh.
Speaker 1: The front I'm not the front man why yet, But
Speaker 1: that's what I want to get to. Why well, I
Speaker 1: don't know. At the time, it was very much a
Speaker 1: an image of the front man was you know, no instrument,
Speaker 1: just a mic stand. You know, the teased out blonde
Speaker 1: hair was all just part of a it was all
Speaker 1: part of a blueprint to us. We didn't know that
Speaker 1: it could be different. Yes, absolutely, and he was a
Speaker 1: great like hard rock singer and so that was kind
Speaker 1: of important. Back in Jesse, Could I have my check please? No? Uh? So, yeah,
Speaker 1: they're back. They're back and joking I know you. Uh,
Speaker 1: they're all three still in Georgia actually, and they're still
Speaker 1: on that mattress in Rome under the drum stand. That
Speaker 1: mattress won't die. Mattress is a mess. It's horrible. But
Speaker 1: but but but but so the name of the band
Speaker 1: again when you were with them was it was a
Speaker 1: ban called South Gang and we were and that lasts
Speaker 1: for how long? Not long? Four or five years? Uh,
Speaker 1: let's see. We moved out in eight eight and by
Speaker 1: by I think ninety two, we were we were cooked
Speaker 1: and what happened everything? So we how much time do
Speaker 1: you have? I want to hear already hear about your
Speaker 1: story then I'll tell you. Um so, well, besides the
Speaker 1: fact that we were kind of growing apart, and I'm
Speaker 1: gonna spare the bloody details because I respect all of
Speaker 1: the guys very much, but you know, we just like anything.
Speaker 1: And it goes back to your question about did I
Speaker 1: enjoy being in a band in that camaraderie. It comes
Speaker 1: to an end sometimes, that does, and people start growing
Speaker 1: up are especially when you start playing together when you're teenagers.
Speaker 1: I mean it's like getting married when you're a teenager
Speaker 1: and then by the time you're thirty, your your different
Speaker 1: people and you hope that you grew together not apart.
Speaker 1: But long story long, we were touring and touring and touring.
Speaker 1: The scene that we were in was definitely starting to transition,
Speaker 1: uh to like grunge was very was on the was
Speaker 1: on the horizon. Um. We could see that that was
Speaker 1: gonna be an interesting change in in music, and I
Speaker 1: was all for it. I was kind of like, well,
Speaker 1: I'm still a sponge, I'm still soaking all this up.
Speaker 1: I still want to learn every kind of music. I
Speaker 1: loved everycondom music growing up. My sister's record collection was
Speaker 1: everything from you know, Parliament to the BGS to you
Speaker 1: name it, and so I liked I liked everything. I
Speaker 1: like to disco, I liked everything, and so um, you know,
Speaker 1: I just didn't feel like sticking to one kind of
Speaker 1: music was was gonna satisfy my soul. And so you know,
Speaker 1: we started kind of growing apart that way. And then
Speaker 1: we went on a tour in China and we were
Speaker 1: there for six weeks and it went everything you could
Speaker 1: possibly think of it could go wrong, went wrong. We
Speaker 1: were the first American rock band ever tour China should
Speaker 1: have been the last, because we were there. It was
Speaker 1: I don't even have enough time to tell you all
Speaker 1: the stories of how incredibly like like heartbreaking and emotional
Speaker 1: and crazy it was. You know, well, okay, I'll edit
Speaker 1: it down to the end of the China run when
Speaker 1: we were all basically in different train cars going to
Speaker 1: cities which were thirty hours apart, and we had a
Speaker 1: lot of time to contemplate, um, we were over here.
Speaker 1: Our label got basically just wanted to kind of get
Speaker 1: rid of us because this our first record deal was
Speaker 1: a major label deal, which you know, I'm happy to
Speaker 1: get into that side of it if you want, But
Speaker 1: it's like that was that was like you know, getting
Speaker 1: a lot of things handed to us, you know, a
Speaker 1: big advance to do a big budget record with a
Speaker 1: big budget producer, big video. Yes, right, and but um,
Speaker 1: no one else believed in us, so our management kind
Speaker 1: of wanted to just get rid of us. So this
Speaker 1: whole thing was kind of a little bit of a
Speaker 1: get him over and get them out of our hair situation.
Speaker 1: And so we were over there and realizing that what
Speaker 1: was not really the case, which was like, we're not
Speaker 1: going to really make any money from this, We're not
Speaker 1: going to really uh make it break any ground from it.
Speaker 1: Um and UM, me and the bass player, Jace, would
Speaker 1: sit in one train car and we were plotting our
Speaker 1: breaking up the band, and he kept saying, you should
Speaker 1: be the singer, you should be the singer, and I
Speaker 1: was like, I'm not a singer. I have dark hair,
Speaker 1: you know, And and so eventually we just, you know,
Speaker 1: we started thinking of a new band name. We started
Speaker 1: thinking while we were on this train right over there.
Speaker 1: And as fate would have it, um, we were in
Speaker 1: one of the cities playing which by the way, I
Speaker 1: should mention that we were playing all hockey arenas and
Speaker 1: a band that couldn't get arrested in the States, and
Speaker 1: we're playing hockey arenas and and some places were playing
Speaker 1: on the fucking ice, like sliding all over the they
Speaker 1: didn't have The production was awful. It was the weirdest ship.
Speaker 1: They weren't allowed on the floor, they had to be
Speaker 1: in the stands. The closest person was a hundred feet away.
Speaker 1: They weren't allowed to stand up. There was like, you know,
Speaker 1: military guards around the whole place every time. They weren't
Speaker 1: allowed to yell. They could only just clap after every
Speaker 1: song and sit. So enjoy your freedom, everyone in America,
Speaker 1: because at the time they did not have that. So
Speaker 1: the last show we played, which was not supposed to
Speaker 1: be the last show, it was the third of the
Speaker 1: last show, and we went to this town called ji Lynn,
Speaker 1: and we played more of a scale down like UM
Speaker 1: Gymnasium almost, and so there was no way for the
Speaker 1: people to be anywhere but right in front of us.
Speaker 1: So they made them all sit across leget on the floor,
Speaker 1: no chairs, and when that show was happening, Uh, it's
Speaker 1: closest we were able to get to people. So we
Speaker 1: were very excited because we've been there for six weeks
Speaker 1: and couldn't even have any like energy with a crowd whatsoever,
Speaker 1: just felt like we were monkeys on display. And so
Speaker 1: in this one we were just like we were jumping
Speaker 1: off the stage and making people get up and that
Speaker 1: was a no no. Um. So we get back, you know,
Speaker 1: we're up on stage and then all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: these people started getting up and then they start running
Speaker 1: up on stage and then a little bit of that
Speaker 1: like um thing where the mania kicked in and they're
Speaker 1: like pulling our We had a very long hair and
Speaker 1: they're pulling it and trying to pull us off the stage,
Speaker 1: and like guys and girls like trying to you know,
Speaker 1: kiss you on the mouth, and and and and and
Speaker 1: they were throwing like money and and uh candy, and
Speaker 1: it was really it was. It was like a weird
Speaker 1: Fellini movie, but like but if you would imagine like
Speaker 1: hard Day's Night, but not harder Day's night. And so
Speaker 1: we um, we basically um inside it a riot and
Speaker 1: so they tear gas the place and we were whisked
Speaker 1: off the stage. Keep in mind, we're just young fucking
Speaker 1: rednecks with leather jackets and long hair, and we think
Speaker 1: this is awesome. We think this is the best thing
Speaker 1: we've ever experienced. We're just like high fiving, getting in
Speaker 1: a van going off like we're yeah, we finally got
Speaker 1: some action, we got some interaction. We're doing this. This
Speaker 1: is great. We're connecting with the people. And then like
Speaker 1: we get on a train, we fall asleep, and we
Speaker 1: wake up and we are in Beijing at the airport.
Speaker 1: No translators, no managers, no one to be found, and
Speaker 1: no cell phones, no internet, no nothing. So like we're
Speaker 1: like sitting there. We don't know where our gear is,
Speaker 1: we don't know where anything is. We see plane tickets
Speaker 1: at our feet, and basically they're just that's in and
Speaker 1: implying that get the funk out of here and go home.
Speaker 1: And we couldn't, you know, we didn't know how to
Speaker 1: we we couldn't speak the language, We had no translator
Speaker 1: at this point they had all left. Yes, very isolating
Speaker 1: and for kids in their early twenties, it was frightening.
Speaker 1: We were very scared. We've never been out of the
Speaker 1: country before any of it. So, you know, we're calling
Speaker 1: back home on pay phones, waking our dad's up, you know,
Speaker 1: trying to figure out like how to get our gear.
Speaker 1: Our gear was thirty hours back. Um and the way
Speaker 1: that they transported the gear to these things was literally
Speaker 1: by open truck like like it's like watching an episode
Speaker 1: of mash, you know, and it would just be like
Speaker 1: open trucks with our road cases and stuff of all
Speaker 1: of our gear that came over from America, and we
Speaker 1: rented a bunch of gear for it. So like we
Speaker 1: were like, we're not going back home. We're gonna get
Speaker 1: sued by the gear companies as well for not having
Speaker 1: any of our gear and our prize guitars and everything
Speaker 1: if we don't get home. So um, this is a
Speaker 1: great story about our crew. Um Uh Robert Ragman Long
Speaker 1: and Scary Larry Cromer. They offered to go back by
Speaker 1: car to the last town thirty hours away, find the
Speaker 1: gear and come home with it. And they rode home
Speaker 1: on the road cases in the cargo plane. On top
Speaker 1: of that fifteen hours to make sure our gear got
Speaker 1: back to the States, and Larry moved out from Rome,
Speaker 1: Georgia with me to l A. I taught him how
Speaker 1: to string a guitar. UM. Those guys not surprisingly went
Speaker 1: on to be um two of the biggest most successful
Speaker 1: road crew guys you'll ever meet. They both were they
Speaker 1: both guess who they worked for. Kiss. It all comes around.
Speaker 1: It certainly does. When you decided this group, when you
Speaker 1: when you come back, it's over. We got back and
Speaker 1: we started a new band immediately and just were fueled
Speaker 1: by um just doing things. D I Y you were
Speaker 1: the frontman at this point. I was then, and I
Speaker 1: started I started being the frontman for this new band.
Speaker 1: What did you feel that that require heard from you
Speaker 1: that you didn't have to display before? Was there a
Speaker 1: thing you felt you had to I actually didn't know
Speaker 1: how to be a front man. I'd never done it,
Speaker 1: really so, and I certainly knew that I was a
Speaker 1: guitar player first and foremost, so I was not gonna
Speaker 1: what they call freehand and like to put the guitar
Speaker 1: because I don't know what to do with a mic
Speaker 1: stand while I'm playing, So it's like I need a
Speaker 1: guitar on. It became the crutch, right, But I got
Speaker 1: really I got comfortable with it really quick because we
Speaker 1: played like two hundred shows a year, and we started
Speaker 1: just playing two hundred shows a year every year, and
Speaker 1: you know, for for what would become the better part
Speaker 1: of twenty years. I think I got pretty good at it.
Speaker 1: I guess if I can be not humble being a
Speaker 1: front man, uh musician and producer, butch Walker. Another l
Speaker 1: a music act I love is the band Perta, which
Speaker 1: is perched on the edge of stardom. It's front man,
Speaker 1: Matt Azolka, has the voice, presence and look of a
Speaker 1: once in a generation rock star, but they're not there yet.
Speaker 1: How many jobs you're working, I'd say two and a
Speaker 1: half and what are they if you want to sign?
Speaker 1: I do work for Starbucks and that one is probably
Speaker 1: the one I'm ready to get rid of the most.
Speaker 1: I love them, They're a great company, but four thirty
Speaker 1: in the morning, five days a week and no fucking heart. Yeah,
Speaker 1: usual days like four to one. Last year, I said
Speaker 1: that this interview would end up being our most downloaded,
Speaker 1: and I stand by that prediction. You can beat the
Speaker 1: crowds by texting p e r t A. That's p
Speaker 1: e r t A to seven zero one zero one.
Speaker 1: Now we'll send you a link to my full interview
Speaker 1: with Matt and his bandmate Colin Kenrick, plus a link
Speaker 1: to their Instagram so you can listen and feast your eyes.
Speaker 1: I'm Alec Baldwin and this is Here's the thing which
Speaker 1: Walker landed a major record deal with his very first band,
Speaker 1: the self described hair band South Gang. He's on guitar here.
Speaker 1: They're single Boys Night Out. Yea impressive, but there was
Speaker 1: one skill Walker says, the band was missing when we
Speaker 1: did the South Gang stuff. We needed help with our
Speaker 1: songwriting because we had not really developed that part of
Speaker 1: the brain yet. And um, I said, can we get
Speaker 1: this guy, Desmond Child to be our executive producer and
Speaker 1: co writer. And that's the one thing the label did
Speaker 1: that I was liked about as they got him, and um,
Speaker 1: he's he's a legend. Described him for people who don't
Speaker 1: know him well. Desmond was responsible for everything from the
Speaker 1: huge Kiss hits to all of the big Bong Jovi
Speaker 1: hits Alice Cooper. Uh. He he was like the hottest
Speaker 1: ship on the street at that point as a songwriter,
Speaker 1: Like he couldn't be beat for that, for that kind
Speaker 1: of no, no, no, no, he was. I think he
Speaker 1: was out of New York. But you know, Desmond's gay,
Speaker 1: and so when I started going over to work with him,
Speaker 1: me and the singer started going over to his house
Speaker 1: and working with him. We were just these dumb rednecks
Speaker 1: from Cartersville, Georgia and I'd never even met anyone gay yet,
Speaker 1: and I was just part of the tunnel vision and
Speaker 1: the blinders that came from being in a small town
Speaker 1: where you just thought that that was weird, which is
Speaker 1: a bummer. And you know, I didn't know how to
Speaker 1: I was stand offish about it. And I remember one
Speaker 1: time we were working on a song keep in Mind.
Speaker 1: I was like twenty uh, and I said, um, something
Speaker 1: about a lyric and I said, oh, man, that's gay,
Speaker 1: and Desmond goes, what do you mean gay? And my
Speaker 1: heart fell into my feet because I was like, oh fuck,
Speaker 1: I just insulted my idol. And when I came up
Speaker 1: with the next line and it had love and that,
Speaker 1: he goes, what do you know about love? You're not
Speaker 1: even a person yet, And he was right, and and
Speaker 1: that's exactly I think. When he said that, it made
Speaker 1: me think a lot about you know, I needed to
Speaker 1: open my mind up to a lot of things, and
Speaker 1: you know, coming out here did that and going through
Speaker 1: those experiences did that. Um we made a record together
Speaker 1: and then of course that nothing happened from it and
Speaker 1: we we fell out and never talked again, and um, god,
Speaker 1: twenty years later, this was not that long ago. Um.
Speaker 1: I was in the airport with my wife and child
Speaker 1: and we were in the airport at the American Airlines
Speaker 1: lounge or whatever, and I saw this guy and I said,
Speaker 1: I man in the weirdest deja vu. I was like,
Speaker 1: that looks like the guy that used to answer the
Speaker 1: door when we would go to Desmond's house to work.
Speaker 1: And then I look over over his shoulder with two
Speaker 1: little beautiful blond haired boys, Desmond, and I was like,
Speaker 1: that's Curtis and that's Desmond. They were together then, there
Speaker 1: together now. And I walked over and I was like Desmond,
Speaker 1: and I was like, I know you're not gonna remember me.
Speaker 1: It was a long time ago. And he just got
Speaker 1: up and hugged me, and he goes, I've been following
Speaker 1: your career. I'm so proud of you, and you're a
Speaker 1: person now and I'm a person now. Well, what's when
Speaker 1: you're songwriting with someone like him? What does he teach you?
Speaker 1: He taught me everything that was boot camp, like learning
Speaker 1: how to write songs with him. He was tough, you know.
Speaker 1: He taught me inner rhyme and melody and don't be
Speaker 1: afraid to be literal, don't be afraid to like tell
Speaker 1: a story and reach for people's heart strings instead of
Speaker 1: being too precious and two, UM inside with it as
Speaker 1: far as like the lyric goes. And I mean, that's
Speaker 1: why he wrote some of the biggest songs ever. And
Speaker 1: I think that that's a beautiful That was a beautiful
Speaker 1: first crash course to go through and songwriting. And I
Speaker 1: took it with me all the way to Now, Um,
Speaker 1: what's one of the earliest songs you wrote that you
Speaker 1: said to yourself, you know, you sit back and go
Speaker 1: that's pretty good. That works way later in life, I
Speaker 1: had gone through a band, uh that had a marginal
Speaker 1: hit at radio later, an alternative band called the Marvelous Three,
Speaker 1: and that was like, um, that was like late nineties, UM,
Speaker 1: and I wrote this song about selling out, and sure
Speaker 1: enough it got played on the radio and got us
Speaker 1: a record deal and we sold out. And it's a
Speaker 1: good song, and I was, I was, you know, proud
Speaker 1: of it, but I knew that there was so much
Speaker 1: more to learn and and I wanted I wanted to
Speaker 1: tap into more emotional songs. I guess because you know,
Speaker 1: that was a very SNAr arkey, cynical kind of a song.
Speaker 1: For a while I couldn't write anything about love because
Speaker 1: Desmond had scarred me. Uh and so um. I did
Speaker 1: this record called a solo record in the early two
Speaker 1: thousand's called Letters, and I think I was most proud
Speaker 1: of that. I remember you met my manager backstage, Jonathan.
Speaker 1: He's been my manager for twenty years and he's pretty
Speaker 1: much the reason I'm even alive, because I would have
Speaker 1: jumped off the ledge a long time ago if not
Speaker 1: for him. And that's the first time I remember him going,
Speaker 1: this is really good, because he doesn't say that that often.
Speaker 1: And um, and you know there was some songs on
Speaker 1: there where I remember that moment clicking. Um. There was
Speaker 1: a song on there called Joan that I had written
Speaker 1: that I think was one of my more I'm I'm.
Speaker 1: I was really proud of it when I wrote it.
Speaker 1: Will you play it for us? I'll try m m
Speaker 1: m m m h. John moved away to Carlelorado said
Speaker 1: she'd found God and a boyfriend as well, one that
Speaker 1: won't hit her or make a feel shadow. There's a
Speaker 1: lot to learn about Joe. Before I moved in, John
Speaker 1: had a fling with the Landlore, so she got to
Speaker 1: stay here for free. I'm not out of genius. I
Speaker 1: figured out there's a lot to learn from John. After
Speaker 1: allest time you're waiting around, stop at the place where
Speaker 1: they slowly misplaced your life, go get it right. I
Speaker 1: when to close to catch drustful work. Spotted little box
Speaker 1: I had not seen before, all kinds of letters never
Speaker 1: got and to a guy in Colorado since nineteen nine
Speaker 1: and four, I long was wrong. I sat in open
Speaker 1: and no certain order. Letter or two She talked about
Speaker 1: blisters and bruises of anger, that she bought a hand
Speaker 1: gonne to learn how to shoot. And the last letter
Speaker 1: said that she had to get out. But I could
Speaker 1: make out the rest of a note from the bloodstains
Speaker 1: all over the page of the letters. And a lot
Speaker 1: to learn. There's a lot I learned about John. After all,
Speaker 1: lest you were when the right to stop at the
Speaker 1: place where they slowly mass place your After all, lest
Speaker 1: time you winther to stop at the place where they
Speaker 1: slolely mass place your no go can you right? Ah?
Speaker 1: You got me? You got me? Um you got me? Um? No?
Speaker 1: I just I just you know, is it? I just
Speaker 1: think that you um you know you play or you're
Speaker 1: this wonderful guitar player and you're wonderful, this wonderful singer musician,
Speaker 1: and then other people want your opinion about what they're
Speaker 1: supposed to do. That's a huge leap. They try us
Speaker 1: to you to help them decide where am I going
Speaker 1: to go? I want your advice worse okay, but how
Speaker 1: does that begin? He was the first person that comes
Speaker 1: to you and says, help me. Well, um, I was
Speaker 1: making our own bands records because we couldn't afford studio time.
Speaker 1: It was very expensive back in the day to get
Speaker 1: into a really good studio, and back in the day
Speaker 1: there was no computers to make records on. You had
Speaker 1: to make them on these big expensive tape machines and
Speaker 1: boards and big studios, and it was, you know, two
Speaker 1: thousand dollars a day in some of these places, and
Speaker 1: like that. Nobody had that kind of money when you're
Speaker 1: making a demo to get shopped for a record deal
Speaker 1: or whatever. And demos usually sounded terrible if they weren't
Speaker 1: recording in big studios. Very hard to make recording sound great,
Speaker 1: whereas now on computers. You know, everybody makes the records
Speaker 1: on computers and they sound like a record the minute
Speaker 1: they just opened up the fucking computer and hit play,
Speaker 1: and it's like even the demo sounds like it should
Speaker 1: be on the radio. But I was making records in
Speaker 1: my parents Raj and I set up a little makeshift
Speaker 1: studio and I would record all these um punk and
Speaker 1: metal bands in Atlanta hundred bucks a day, two hundred
Speaker 1: bucks a day, whatever I could get. You know, they
Speaker 1: weren't really demos. They were people would make their independent
Speaker 1: records and they would press them on CDs at the time,
Speaker 1: and they would sell them at their shows and whatever.
Speaker 1: UM and I did some bands that started to get
Speaker 1: noticed a little bit back after after I moved back
Speaker 1: from l A to Atlanta. We moved back there and
Speaker 1: we lived there for a better part of sixteen years.
Speaker 1: And that was pretty much, uh where I started really
Speaker 1: figuring it out and getting honing the craft, so they say,
Speaker 1: and getting really good at recording with very little gear
Speaker 1: in a very little space. And the band that I
Speaker 1: mentioned that had the the marginal hit song at alternative Radio,
Speaker 1: the Marvelous Three, I recorded that whole record in a
Speaker 1: living room with like two microphones, and I did the
Speaker 1: whole thing, uh just beginning to end. I had learned
Speaker 1: how to record on this new fangled software called pro
Speaker 1: tools on a very archaic Mac computer and I had
Speaker 1: to learn it all by scratch. Uh. And so that
Speaker 1: song ended up getting picked up and started getting played.
Speaker 1: And then all of a sudden, I had um record
Speaker 1: companies calling that with their artists going hey, who who
Speaker 1: produced that song? And I'd be like, wow, I did,
Speaker 1: who recorded it? I did, who who sang it, who
Speaker 1: played it? Who wrote it? You know? And it was
Speaker 1: like I did. So I started getting asked to work
Speaker 1: on other people's records flatly. Um see. One of the
Speaker 1: first things was there was a band called SR. Seventy
Speaker 1: one that I did a song for that uh that
Speaker 1: became a bigger hit, and they kind of wanted a
Speaker 1: song like that song that I wrote that was for
Speaker 1: my band, and so we did one and it got
Speaker 1: bigger than my own band song. And I was like, hmmm,
Speaker 1: I might like this job. And then um, this girl
Speaker 1: Everril Levine called, and then Katie Perry and then and
Speaker 1: then Pink and then um, you know, and then from
Speaker 1: there it just went kind of nuts. I had like
Speaker 1: Fallout Boy and Weezer and Panic at the Disco and uh,
Speaker 1: now Green Day some job. Yeah, it's a lot of fun.
Speaker 1: It's a fun job and it comes with some some
Speaker 1: ship sometimes and sometimes you come home and you're like, God,
Speaker 1: I'm so bummed. I don't want to do this. And
Speaker 1: and I'm not gonna name names. It's not necessarily because
Speaker 1: of an artist. It's just you can just have a
Speaker 1: bad day. And you can have a bad day with
Speaker 1: the artist, and you can have a bad day with
Speaker 1: your gear. You can have a bad day not being
Speaker 1: able to like feel like you're giving any direction or
Speaker 1: having anything to contribute. And you know, back to answer
Speaker 1: your question a little bit about like how what goes
Speaker 1: into it is, you know, there's a lot of you,
Speaker 1: You're you're wanting to these people are wanting, they're leaning
Speaker 1: on you to offer up some sort of gold ferry
Speaker 1: dust that doesn't exist to be to like, you know,
Speaker 1: make this magic happen. And sometimes that's not there. But
Speaker 1: sometimes I found that a lot of it was just
Speaker 1: bullshitting my way into this business and just saying I
Speaker 1: got this, I know what to do and um, and
Speaker 1: so a lot of it was just common like commandeering
Speaker 1: the ship and being like okay, um, let's let's try
Speaker 1: this song in a different key. Let's try it with
Speaker 1: a different groove. Let's try it with this. Let's um,
Speaker 1: you know, let's let's uh whatever. I mean. There's guys
Speaker 1: that have methods that they will torment the artist and
Speaker 1: to too and you know, mental manipulation to get something
Speaker 1: out of them. That's not me. I don't do that,
Speaker 1: and I'm and then there's other people that just want
Speaker 1: to do it fifty million times because they're not hearing
Speaker 1: it the way that they're hearing it in their head. Um,
Speaker 1: and uh, that's not me either. Um. I tend to
Speaker 1: go with the This sounds cliche, but I go with gut, Like,
Speaker 1: if it's like making the hair on my arms stand up,
Speaker 1: maybe that's gonna make millions of people's hair stand up
Speaker 1: as well on their arm. And some people will just
Speaker 1: scrap it because they want perfection or they want or
Speaker 1: they want it to be technically precise. And I don't
Speaker 1: care about that. My favorite records growing up and had
Speaker 1: all that stuff. You know, you could hear, you know,
Speaker 1: on led Zeppelin records, you could hear the John Bonham
Speaker 1: when he's playing. You can hear him in the microphones
Speaker 1: going like that sometimes and you're like, what the funk
Speaker 1: is that? And and it's that's that's the stuff that
Speaker 1: makes like a little stone teenager in their bedroom with
Speaker 1: headphones zone go mental. They love it. So let's talk
Speaker 1: about your concept album. What was the genesis of that? Um? Well,
Speaker 1: so I started the record um a few years ago. Uh,
Speaker 1: and I just I started realizing that when I was
Speaker 1: writing this new batch of songs maybe for a new record,
Speaker 1: that I couldn't really I couldn't really write at anything
Speaker 1: that was the typical love story break up you know.
Speaker 1: You know, my girlfriend left me. I'm sad, you know,
Speaker 1: and that's There's a lot of songs there, you know,
Speaker 1: to pick from in the world. And I just kind
Speaker 1: of got burned out on that. And all I could
Speaker 1: think about was one of the problems that seemed to
Speaker 1: be growing and America and then and rearing its head.
Speaker 1: It actually had always been there, but I think just
Speaker 1: has gotten a lot more exposure in the last few years.
Speaker 1: And that's hate. You know. I just was like, well,
Speaker 1: nobody wants to hear this kind of fucking record from me,
Speaker 1: But um, I couldn't stop writing all these songs about it.
Speaker 1: And it was just really hurting my heart and bearing
Speaker 1: on my conscience too. Of growing up in it and
Speaker 1: thinking about how how I got out of it, and
Speaker 1: how a lot of people I know haven't and how
Speaker 1: it's affected relationships, uh, you know, with with even relatives
Speaker 1: and friends and um and and so I started writing
Speaker 1: this record, and my in Jonathan, my manager, was like,
Speaker 1: it sounds like you're kind of making a rock opera,
Speaker 1: like there's an actual storyline. And I didn't think about
Speaker 1: it at the time, and I was like, you're right,
Speaker 1: it is. And so I started hunkering down and writing
Speaker 1: this story, you know, loosely based on my my childhood,
Speaker 1: in my life and my dad and a lot of
Speaker 1: characters are in the story. And I've had it done
Speaker 1: for two years. I sat on it and I didn't
Speaker 1: think I wanted to put it out. And you know,
Speaker 1: it's not like I thought, oh, the problem is gonna
Speaker 1: go away. You know, problem is not going to go away.
Speaker 1: And I'm not like trying to change the world. And
Speaker 1: nobody knows who the funk I am anyway, So it's
Speaker 1: not like if I put a record out there are
Speaker 1: millions of people are going to go like, oh you
Speaker 1: know or or fuck you you know when they hear it.
Speaker 1: But um, but I had to say I'm going to
Speaker 1: do this. I'm gonna put it out because it weighed
Speaker 1: too heavy on my heart not to. But it's called
Speaker 1: American Love Story, and it's basically, you know about, um,
Speaker 1: this white, middle aged bigot who grew up with a
Speaker 1: pretty bad father and never really was taught love and
Speaker 1: only kind of rehearsed what he heard. The problem with
Speaker 1: this record is that a lot of the songs are
Speaker 1: sung through his perspective, and that makes a little tough
Speaker 1: to not preface it when you're playing some of those
Speaker 1: songs live, because people are gonna be like, what the
Speaker 1: fund did he just say? You know so? Um? But
Speaker 1: I was really intrigued and inspired by an old record
Speaker 1: by Randy Newman called Good Old Boys that that was
Speaker 1: a very, I thought, a very controversial record when it
Speaker 1: came out, Um, talking about the problem of like racism
Speaker 1: and hate in America. You gonna play a couple of
Speaker 1: songs for us? Yeah, I can do m M. I
Speaker 1: remember in my younger years walk into a city pool
Speaker 1: Guillen called a fagin from this boy on new in school.
Speaker 1: His dad and never for him, grew up outside of
Speaker 1: town with a lack of education. Year the options went around.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I'd see that boy in class, the bruises on
Speaker 1: his eyes read and pretty swollen. Teem's tangled up in pride,
Speaker 1: repeede and memorize reatory about it be in God's way.
Speaker 1: I fight. Don't follow the good book, then there'll be
Speaker 1: some hill to pay. I don't blame me, but how
Speaker 1: you turn out I have it's hard to breathe. You
Speaker 1: were born into what you came, and now I was
Speaker 1: born this way. I can try to show some passion
Speaker 1: before you take that shot out here in the open,
Speaker 1: whether or like it or not. Driving on from a
Speaker 1: party with friends on Saturday night, I came up on
Speaker 1: the wreckage and Nicole was party night. The boy only
Speaker 1: fagging like bleeding, almost dead. He wrapped that truck from
Speaker 1: drinking and the wind she made his head well. I
Speaker 1: pulled him from the driver's seat, said help was on
Speaker 1: his way. For my head up upon his chest and
Speaker 1: said it'll be okay. As he focused on my likeness,
Speaker 1: I can see it in his eyes. Everything eats ought
Speaker 1: to hey will find to save his life in the
Speaker 1: iron knew about this, I told him with a smile. Yeah,
Speaker 1: your God must work in stranger ways than your heart.
Speaker 1: Will allow well. He fought his hand behind the tears,
Speaker 1: eyes blood shotting down, his rebel flag tattooed hand holding
Speaker 1: mind to him, he said, please don't blame me for
Speaker 1: how it turned out. I learned a little. I was
Speaker 1: born into what I became, and you were born this way,
Speaker 1: I can try to show confession. It might be all
Speaker 1: a guy out here in the open, whether A like
Speaker 1: it night M there was, it's something that you Uh,
Speaker 1: it's done. Are you still recorded it? It's done, It's coming.
Speaker 1: I did it, Thank you, thank you. Um. I'm excited
Speaker 1: for people to hear it. It's not all fucking bummers.
Speaker 1: It's actually it's a very upbeat sounding record, and the
Speaker 1: kind of the way the way I made it was
Speaker 1: I wanted it to reflect the timeline musically to what
Speaker 1: I was listening to on the radio during my upbringing.
Speaker 1: So it kind of uh, when people hear it, it it
Speaker 1: will if they're around my age, then they might get
Speaker 1: a kick out of it because it kind of goes
Speaker 1: through the styles of songs. It's very uh, late seventies,
Speaker 1: early eighties vibes on a lot of it, and it's
Speaker 1: pretty fun production. I do a lot of I can't
Speaker 1: wait to hear it. Do you have a son? Who's
Speaker 1: how old? James? He's twelve? Is he? Is he a musical?
Speaker 1: He is? He can sing? He does theater. He's done
Speaker 1: like eight plays already. He's killing in theater and very
Speaker 1: much an artie, quirky weirdo. And I love it. I
Speaker 1: think we should. I think we should. Uh take a request?
Speaker 1: Who here has a burning desire? I can't hear anything
Speaker 1: they're saying. Let's see uh okay, m California girls. I
Speaker 1: haven't move in the mouth, just a certain wing, see
Speaker 1: it is? It always seems so a right? Oh in
Speaker 1: the shower at the end of the day, I'm left
Speaker 1: with the tab and not a word to say because
Speaker 1: I see your face and the turn out. My line.
Speaker 1: SI keeping other night by this fire and dring some
Speaker 1: wine because it's the closest thing that you want to find.
Speaker 1: New York ladies that driven crazy, can't keep up on
Speaker 1: from the south and lazy. This town stays open too late.
Speaker 1: Four these are bars. Maybe it's because it's got too
Speaker 1: many faces, cram like fishes in compact places. Is this wild?
Speaker 1: All of them seemed desperate and alone, sipping back up
Speaker 1: the cigarettes, but only for the night, because as the
Speaker 1: closest thing that you are gonna find. Hollywood girls took
Speaker 1: all my penis back in eight I felt for a
Speaker 1: minute I wake up in one or why I never
Speaker 1: left here because then Georgia girls all getting hammered and
Speaker 1: get a beard in their face and they just start
Speaker 1: getting all funked up and talking about politics and racing
Speaker 1: till I say stop and shove the cotton further down
Speaker 1: my ears. That's what I do, and my hands are
Speaker 1: full of that stick is set from your back. Y'all
Speaker 1: chose a pie. Ah, it's just the closest to you are.
Speaker 1: You really are so talented, it's unbelievable, how great you are,
Speaker 1: how talented you up? Let's go it up. What's Walker?
Speaker 1: And thank you all for coming. Butch Walker's groundbreaking rock
Speaker 1: oppera American love Story, drops May eighth. My thanks to
Speaker 1: Zach McNeice for mixing the live music in today's episode.
Speaker 1: I'm Alec Baldwin and this is Here's the thing.