Marvelous 3 takes a power-pop walk on the light side

January, 1999
Jeff Niesel
SignOnSanDiego

Marvelous 3 singer Butch Walker had a fairly normal childhood. He grew up in the suburbs of Atlanta, got reasonably good grades in school and had a positive relationship with his parents, whom he says are now his band's "biggest fans."

You'd think that his background would make for boring music, but the band's major label debut, "Hey! Album," bristles with power-pop energy that's a throwback to feel-good bands like Cheap Trick, Queen and the Cars.

"I know it's not very rock 'n' roll, but I love my parents," said Walker, who brings Marvelous 3 to the Casbah on Tuesday. "I led the 'Roseanne' middle-class lifestyle growing up. People think that rock guys are supposed to be these really screwed up individuals, but I think the other half of the population can relate to the upbringing we had, which isn't Beaver Cleaver, by any means.

"We had fighting and family problems. We've been through everything, but we're not trying to put on a facade by saying that we had to sleep on park benches because our parents kicked us out."

But the Marvelous 3 didn't have an easy time securing a contract with a major label. After forming in 1995, the group, which includes bassist Jayce Fincher and drummer Slug, moved to Los Angeles to try to get a record deal. It didn't succeed, but, Walker said, the band, which played 250 club dates last year, learned a valuable lesson.

"We were fresh and green and young and mean," he recalled. "That was our going-to-school process of learning how to deal and compete. L.A. was very competitive. It was a really good way to get strong. Bands in small towns just don't know how tough it is. There's 5,000 bands on street corners passing out flyers that say they're better than you. It was like boot camp for dumb musicians."

'Math' not a problem

The group returned to Atlanta and in 1997 self-released its first album, "Math and Other Problems." The album was so well-received in its hometown that it received four "Atlanta Local Music Awards" and paved the way for the self-released follow-up, "Hey! Album," in 1998.

When a local station added the single "Freak of the Week," a song Walker said is "about being driven crazy by worrying so much about how your fans perceive you," to its heavy rotation, major labels came calling.

After signing with Elektra Records, Walker got the chance to re-record "Hey! Album" in a better studio -- not that he tried to give it a crisper sound.

"I thought it sounded too clean to begin with," said Walker, who co-produced the album with Jim Ebert (Meredith Brooks, Jason Falkner). "I wanted to dirty it up a little more, but have it still be a big rock record.

"I got bored with making lo-fi records, which is all I had been doing. I thought it would be alternative, cool and hip if I put out a big rock spectacle record. I didn't want to recut the whole thing because it had so many magic demo moments -- stuff you can't recreate.

"I used my digital rig and lifted a lot of the parts from the original that were those magic moments and threw in some new moments. Sure enough, it worked beautifully."

With lyrics that make references to the Brady Bunch ("You're So Yesterday"), Kiss songs ("Lemonade") and watching TV until morning ("Vampires in Love"), Marvelous 3 avoids life's dark side. You'd be hard-pressed to find a sinister sentiment on the album and Walker said he thinks people have had enough of the self-absorbed rock star.

"I think rock bands have been too serious for the last 10 years," he said. "Rock 'n' roll just got to the point where it was all about being backed into a corner and lashing out at the world. It became so insincere that it became a joke. I was fed up with it and ready to move on to something different.

"My attitude was, 'Here's a record with power-pop songs about love, so take that.' It seems to be a breath of fresh air for young fans raised on Eddie Vedder.

"After our 15 minutes are up, I'd like to see on our gravestone that we had a good time doing what we did and bringing back something that was lost."