Butch Walker Says He's Done Making Solo Albums: 'You Worry About Repeating Yourself'

After the release of 10 Studio albums that run the gamut from rock-opera records to cocky power-pop compilations, Butch Walker puts a period in his recording career as a solo artist. Ironically, the singer-songwriter made this decision as he prepared to mark the 20th anniversary of his breakthrough solo album, Letters.

“I don't want to be the cliché of an old artist putting out new stuff that nobody cares about,” says Walker Rolling Stone. “And when you write so many records doing one thing, you start to worry about recycling and repetition. I'd rather celebrate a record that has an anniversary — and I have a lot of them. By the time I get through this cycle, I'll be 900 years old.”

Walker will start the cycle tonight with the first of four revisiting concerts Letterstwo at Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Los Angeles and two later this week in Nashville at club 3rd & Lindsley. All four shows are sold out.

Although not his official solo debut, in 2004 Letters found Walker hitting the singer-songwriter bullseye in a way that 2002 To the left of the egocentric — his first LP as “Butch Walker” after his band The Marvelous 3 broke up — he didn't. After playing the imposing rock star in the late '80s in Los Angeles hair-metal group SouthGang and, in the '90s, in Marvelous 3, Walker let himself be vulnerable and wrote a batch of songs inspired by a crypt of old letters, both. addressed to him and by him, which he found in his parents' house.

“When Marvelous 3 fell apart, it was a very depressing time for everyone. I ended up making a record that I was basically worried about losing the fan base we had built up,” he says about To the left of the egocentric and his alt-rock sound. “It wasn't authentic to me. But I had this box of letters that my mom had kept in the attic, like letters from an old girlfriend and letters to my parents, so I wrote stories based on that.”

Los Angeles is a running theme Lettersspecifically Walker's desire to escape LA back to his native Georgia. “Gotta get outta Los Angeles/gotta get Los Angeles outta me,” he sings on the cynical but optimistic “Uncomfortably Numb,” the book on “So at Last,” a dreamy ballad about the youthful optimism it takes to break out in California in search of fame.

Other pieces are less about Walker and more about those whose stories influenced him. On “Mixtape,” he credits a failed relationship for giving him “the best mixtape I've got.” The song ended up in teenage drama One Tree Hilland Katy Perry recorded a version when Walker produced it One of the Boys album. “It never came out,” says Walker, “but I still have it.”

In “Joan,” the fictional life story of a survivor of domestic violence, Walker wrote his first piano ballad and what he calls his “first real song.” It still appears in his set list to this day. “In the past, I covered everything with a lot of sarcasm and wit and humor and malice,” he says, “but 'Joan' encouraged me to do that and not worry so much about exposing myself lyrically.”

On Monday and Tuesday in Los Angeles and Thursday and Friday in Nashville, Walker will perform “Mixtape,” “Joan” and the rest Letters guitar and piano solos. Some guests may stop by, including, in Nashville, Ashley Monroe, who sang on Walker's 2016 album Stay Gold and harmonized with him on a cover of Aerosmith's just-released power ballad 'Angel'. He says he never envisions a time when he's not playing music live — he and the resurrected Marvelous 3 have booked shows this fall, and he joined Blackberry Smoke on stage in Atlanta this weekend to pay tribute to Brit Turner, the band's drummer and longtime friend of Walker's who died in March.

It will also continue to produce artists. Just supervised his new Amythyst Kiah Still + Bright album and is currently working on a new Courtney Love project. “He's in top form lyrically and sounds amazing. It's very age-appropriate,” she says.

So if Walker is serious about ending his solo career, he would do so in 2022 Butch Walker as… Glennhis excellent piano player LP in the vein of Elton John and Billy Joel, his latest album?

“Glenn it was the swan song,” he confirms. “And I thought about it when I did it. I just really needed to work it out for a year or two and see if my theory holds up.”