Sing Us a Song: Butch Walker Is a Piano Man Named ‘Glenn’ on New Concept Album
Butch Walker does nothing halfway: On his last album, a concept record about a politically divided America, he sang from the POV of both earnest lefties and far-right loons. For the follow-up, Butch Walker As…Glenn, the guitar shredder, songwriter, and Green Day producer transforms into a Seventies barroom piano player whose name gives the record its title.
Ahead of its Aug. 26 release date, Walker announced the project with “Holy Water Hangover,” a piano ballad about losing sight of one’s identity. “Ain’t it funny when the mirror looks back at you/and it don’t know who you are,” Walker/Glenn sings. “Holy Water Hangover” arrives with a music video filmed at Bob Baker’s Marionette Theater in Los Angeles that’s replete with prisms, a burlesque dancer, and Walker in outrageously rouged cheeks.
“Between reaching for all of my rock n roll piano balladeer muses of my youth while driving or motorcycling, and feeling a common thread of snarky humor with sad reality, I started a journey for this new crop of songs,” Walker wrote of the album on social media. “I said to myself, ‘Okay… you haven’t really written a record that feels like a soundtrack to all the rock balladeer bar singers out there.. and you know you wanna…’”
Along with “Holy Water Hangover,” Glenn includes a sequel of sorts to “Bethamphetamine (Pretty Pretty),” a song off Walker’s 2006 glam album The Rise and Fall of Butch Walker and the Let’s-Go-Out-Tonites, titled “Tell Me I’m Pretty (Bethamphetamine Part 2),” and the collaboration with Elizabeth Cook “Don’t Let It Weigh Heavy on Your Heart.” (Walker produced Cook’s superb 2020 album Aftermath.)
Walker will return to the road in support of Glenn in October with an 11-city tour. Aaron Lee Tasjan, who plays on Glenn, will open and play with Walker’s band.
Butch Walker As… Glenn Tracklist
1. “The Band Takes the Stage”
2. “Leather Weather (Mr. and Ms. Understanding)”
3. “Roll Away (Like a Stone)”
4. “Avalanche”
5. “State-Line Fireworks” ft. Sue Clayton
6. “Slow Leak”
7. “Bar Fight”
8. “Tell Me I’m Pretty (Bethamphetamine Part 2)”
9. “Holy Water Hangover”
10. “Don’t Let It Weigh Heavy on Your Heart” ft. Elizabeth Cook
11. “The Negotiator”
12. “The Band Plays an Encore”
13. “Lean Into Me”
Tour Dates:
Oct. 17 – Minneapolis, MN @ Varsity Theater
Oct. 18 – Chicago, IL @ House of Blues
Oct. 19 – Detroit, MI @ St. Andrews Hall
Oct. 21 – Asbury Park, NJ @ House of Independents
Oct. 23 – New York, NY @ Bowery Ballroom
Oct. 25 – Philadelphia, PA @ Brooklyn Bowl
Oct. 27 – Townson, MD @ The Recher
Oct. 28 – Raleigh, NC @ Lincoln Theater
Oct. 29 – Atlanta, GA @ Variety Playhouse
Nov. 1 – Nashville, TN @ Brooklyn Bowl
Nov. 8 – Los Angeles, CA @ Terragram Ballroom
