Marvelous 3 Singer Sounds Off

April 5, 1999
Gary Graff
Wall of Sound

For the members of Marvelous 3, one good thing about touring as the opening act for Collective Soul is they won't get homesick.

That's because the trio — singer-guitarist Butch Walker, bassist Jayce Fincher, and drummer Slug — hail, like their tour mates, from metropolitan Atlanta and were, in fact, playing clubs and releasing independent recordings while Collective Soul was making its run up the national charts. And with "Freak of the Week," the first single from its major label debut, Hey! Album, firing up playlists alongside Collective Soul's new hits "Run" and "Heavy," they certainly seem like copacetic road partners.

"We've toured together before this, and we respect each other for our efforts and our attributes, Walker, 29, says. "I don't think we sound — or want to sound — remotely similar, but they happen to share the same philosophy as us, and they're put together out of childhood friends, like we are, which I think is cool."

Part of that childhood for Walker and his bandmates, he says, was being influenced by the tastes of their older sisters — each has two, with no brothers. They'd sneak listens while the girls were at cheerleading practice, getting caught "plenty of times" but also exposing themselves to a wide array of sounds that, in turn, led the trio to consider music their career path from an early age.

"When we grew up, the influences were always something different," Walker says. "Nowadays, you can't put Korn or Semisonic or 'N Sync in a room together; they'd all kill each other. But back in the day, it didn't matter. Superstars were superstars; they were constantly woven together, from Queen to Mötley Crüe to Duran Duran to Elvis Costello and Joe Jackson and Prince, the Cars, all of 'em.

"The only thing we knew was what was on the radio or MTV, coming in and watching Martha Quinn after school every day. If it was good music, it was good music. There was no one sound or one thing that had to be the way of the world."