MARCH 2020 TOTAL GUITAR55
INTERVIEW
THE INSIDER
GreenDayproducerButchWalker
spillsthebeansonthemakingof
FatherOfAll...“SomeofBillieJoe’s
guitarsareworthmore
thanmyhouse!”
Howdidyougetinvolved
withGreenDay?
Mymanagermanagesthem,but
itwasn’teasytogetthegig,
obviously.BillieJoeis very
particular,andhasproducedhis
ownrecordsforthelast 10 years
andhe’sverygoodatgettingthat
sound.Heknowswhathewants.
ButI thinkhewasreadyto
ventureoutofhiscomfortzone.
Meaningwhat?
Hewasbringingin songsandideas
thatwerea littleleft-of-centrefor
them.It didn’tsoundliketypical
GreenDay,andI lovethat.I’m
ahugeGreenDayfanandalways
willbe,butI alsoloveanyband
that’sbeenaroundfortwentyor
thirtyyearsandwantstokeep
pushingtheenvelopeanddoing
somethingdifferent.Whenwe
spokeonthephonewerealised
thatourchildhoodrecord
collectionswereidentical
- metal,punk,powerpop...
Whatwasthefirststep?
Hesentmesomeideasandsaid
‘Whydon’tyoumessaroundwith
theseatyourstudio?’SoI’dplay
stuffonthem.Nottypical
behaviourforhowyou’dstart
makinga recordwitha band,but
Ithinkhewantedtoseewhatwas
in mymind.Aftera fewsongs,
Icalledmymanagerandsaid‘Am
ImakingthenewGreenDay
record?!’Sowejustkeptgoing
andgotTréandMikein,andit
becamea collaborativeeffort.
Didyouhavetoapproachthe
songsin a particularwayto
makeyourstylesf
together?
I waslike,‘Here’s
thething...You
wantmetodo
athingthat
youdon’tdo,
soIdon’t
necessarilywant
youtosendme
finishedsongswith
bass,drumsand
guitars.Otherwiseit’s
alreadygoingtoinherently
soundlikeGreenDay,thenwhat
amIgoingtodo?’SoI suggested
thatwe re-cut some of the drums,
some of the bass and the other
instruments using my gear and my
techniques, and marry them with
theirs. We ended up with
something that’s different from
anything they’ve put out so far.How different?
Well, some of the early Green Day
fans hate my guts! They’re like,
‘Fuck you, you ruined my band!’ But
it was Billie who had the vision- don’t shoot the messenger! At
the same time, yes, I helped them
to do what they wanted, which
was venture out of their comfort
zone and explore their other roots.
We took some of their punk rock
influences like The Clash, then
some of their power pop
influences. ELO, Sweet, you name
it... We’d emulate a lot of that going
in; ‘Lets get the bass sound from
this Clash tune...’Andtheguitars?
Onethingwiththeguitarsthat
Ithink Billie was excited about
was that we’d pepper some
interesting counter-guitar parts
that he wouldn’t normally do –
usually with me doing it – and he
wouldn’t want to re-do it. He’d just
be like ‘That sounds great, let’s
keep it.’ So there were no rules
about who had to play what or
anything like that, so that was fun.Did you experiment with
different instrumentation?
Yeah, they were wanting to explore
some of that. Sometimes we
would do some marimbas or
timpani or glockenspiel that were
on records like Pet Sounds. That
was fun to implement, as well as
some of the bigger rock guitar
sound stuff that Green Day do.Whatwerethemain
componentsofthe
guitarsound?
Billie Joe brought in about four
guitars that were worth more than
my house, then all the others were
my guitars, which are beaters! He
had a 50s Nocaster, a ’59 [Les
Paul] Burst, a ’60 [Les Paul]
Goldtop and his ’58 Les Paul Jr, of
course. It was great, we’d plug
those in and be done. And for
amps we used his Divided by 13 37
head and an old heavily-modded
high-gain Park amp. Then for the
cleaner, chimier shit we used my
’65 Fender Princeton, and then my
Goodsell Black Dog, which is like an
AC30-type amp.Did Billie Joe try out any new
guitars on this record?
One day he played my Explorer, an
’09, and he was like, ‘I gotta get
one of these!’ And the next day, he
turned up with the most amazing
Explorer you’ve ever seen!
[Laughs] He had a Rickenbacker
too, a reissue 360 which was
great. And like I said earlier, that
was the attitude: no rules!Walker lonely road
Butch began bonding with
Billie Joe by discussing their
extensive and eclectic
childhood record collections Photos:Gabriel Olsen/Getty