Hot Star of the Week

March 3, 1999
Pollstar

Marvelous 3's frontman, Butch Walker,  may not compare to Jim Carrey, but he has one of the most expressive faces around when he's onstage: widening his eyes and mouth as he sings, emphasizing certain words to the point where you'd think his skin would just loosen and slide off the bone. In and of itself, it is entertainment and serves to give the lyrics from the Atlanta power-pop trio's Hey! Album a tongue-in-cheek interpretation.

"First of all, it's not something that's planned. I didn't sit down one day and say, ‘OK, I'm going to make funny faces,'" said Walker. He paused, then added, "I hope I don't come across as a clown. I hope people enjoy the music."
 
He agrees that M3's all-out energy is over the top, but makes no apologies. "Some people have a hard time digesting that, but not many. For a lot of people, it seems to be priority number one to be entertained these days, instead of having the band be too cool for school with their backs turned to the audience and acting like they're in a soundcheck.
 
"There's all these elements to be able to entertain people," said the singer/guitarist, who has obviously given the topic much thought. "It's easy to get caught up in like a Marilyn Manson standpoint, who's a great entertainer and a great visual. I think there's a reason why that's there; it's because he's not Elvis Costello at songwriting. With all due respect to the guy, I don't think he cares about putting the song first. He cares about entertaining first. I think I want to meet somewhere in the middle."
 
Walker said that the highest compliment one could pay him as an artist is when people approach him after a gig, particularly affected by a lyric. "At a show, that's usually the last thing people think about, when you're up there, when you're doing the whole entertainment thing, when you're rockin' out and sweating and being a visual spectacle," he laughed.
 
"The last thing people seem to listen to is the lyrics, especially through a PA in a crowded room, with people yelling and screaming. So if someone comes up to you and says they really love your lyrics, then it must have been something beyond ‘I' and ‘you' and ‘me' and ‘love.'
 
"I'm old enough now to write songs that I want people to relate to and respect from a songwriting standpoint. But when you come see it live, I don't want you to feel that you're so bored with it that you can't wait to hear the single and then go home to play Nintendo."
 
The single in question is "Freak Of The Week." The song was originally recorded for the independent version of Hey! Album in late ‘98. When influential Atlanta radio station 99X started spinning it, some of the major labels that had been sniffing around the band all year came forward with offers. M3 signed with Elektra within a month and a half, quickly tweaking the indie album with producer Jim Ebert (Meredith Brooks) and rereleasing it so as not to lose momentum.

"We were always fans of the band," said Leslie Fram, program director at 99X and "Goddess Of The Airwaves," according to the thank-yous in the liner notes of the Elektra album. "I thought they were the best live band in Atlanta. Anywhere they played, people would go crazy. It's mesmerizing watching Butch Walker perform. He's just a great talent. But when I heard the album, my radio ears flared up. There were about four or five songs that were hits."
 
It's not surprising M3 is such a tight live act. All three members of the band – Walker, bassist Jayce Fincher and drummer Slug – played for years in The Floyds. When that group disbanded in 1997, they immediately formed Marvelous 3 "as a desperate attempt to not go crazy" and self-produced the album Math And Other Problems on Walker's 16-track home studio. It was released on Deep South Records and distributed by Red Eye.
 
Once that album ran its course and a palatable offer from a major hadn't materialized since the start of the so-called feeding frenzy at a SXSW ‘98 showcase, the guys wanted a follow-up to sell at shows. They had been laying down new material all year and put Hey! Album together in a week. Now, with Elektra on board, Walker is pleased to have a genuine shot at making his lifelong passion a, quote-unquote, success and quite willing to slug it out on the road for as long as it takes.

"No matter what you do in this business – and if anybody tells you any different, then they're full of shit – you want to succeed, especially if you've been doing it for 10 or 12 years. It goes beyond being a hobby. It becomes your life and your full-on destiny," he said. "I know that sounds corny, but there's really no other way to put it. With all the elements throughout the years (in other bands), nothing had quite lined up the way it finally has. It just took up until recently for the pieces of the puzzle to finally be put together correctly."