Butch Walker at SXSW

I came down to Austin without a set schedule. I figured I would just go wherever, hang out with different people and be exposed to different music as a result. There was just one thing that I absolutely had to do: meet Butch Walker.

Butch Walker is a singer-songwriter, the front man of Butch Walker and The Black Widows, a producer for artists such as Fall Out Boy and Pink, former founding member of The Marvelous 3, and was even in a hair band in the eighties. I discovered his music when I was fifteen and it’s been my favorite ever since. I’d seen him play many times but had never met him.

Earlier in the day he had tweeted that he was playing an RSVP-only show and that the first twenty people to show up and say his name got in with a plus one. Unfortunately I did not make that group of twenty people. However, when I arrived, I could see him just a few feet away from me on the other side of the gate.

I had a copy of his memoir, Drinking With Strangers, in my purse for an opportunity just like this one. I held it up and said his name. He turned, smiled, and walked right over to me. “Will you sign my book?” I grinned. He said yes and we talked for a bit about music that we liked and people that we knew. Then we hugged and I told him I would see him play later in the week.

Before coming down here I had wondered what I would say to the man who wrote the soundtrack of my life. Apparently the answer is, “will you sign my book”.

By Kendall Stewart