I Liked You Better When. . .

Some awesome pre-orders have started for the new Butch Walker & The Black Widows LP, 'I Liked You Better When You Had No Heart' here.  I love the way that bands are really starting to think of the fans with the packages they do for their albums now, some might be a bit pricey, but for a true fan they're well worth it.

I'm definitely not going for the $25,000 dollar package, but I wouldn't be surprised if someone did.  I seem to remember that happening when Josh Freese did something similar.  But one of the vinyl packages sure is tempting!  Shame that the postage is so pricey to the UK, but I don't think I can resist. . .

In fact I couldn't, I've just pre-ordered it, got to wait til the end of February to hear the full thing now.  I'm still warming to the tracks that came with the purchase, which you can hear here if you'd like.

Butch also did a pretty cool cover of Taylor Swift's 'You Belong With Me' last year at one of his live shows that got such a great reaction he decided to do a studio version of it.  Here's what happened:

Ships In A Bottle

Butch Walker, the singer-songwriter, producer and former member of the Marvelous3 lost everything in the Malibu wildfires in November 2007. "I lost everything I've ever owned. Every master of every song I've ever recorded, every piece of recording equipment, guitars, drums and things I've collected over the years, cars, motorcycles, every family memorial, heirloom, picture, and document we ever had.... Gone." he was quoted as saying at the time.

I can't imagine what it would be like to lose everything like that, my heart went out to him when I read the news. It's now been almost a year and Butch has picked himself up and got back to doing what he does best - music. His new album 'Sycamore Meadows' comes out in November and the single 'The Weight Of Her' has been released digitally on iTunes, but only for those lucky folks in America as it's not yet in the UK store.

But he has made a video for 'Ships In A Bottle' that gives us UKers a taste of the album. It was filmed in the remains of his house in Malibu before it was torn down. The song itself was written two weeks before the fire that savaged his house and features the lyrics "Just wanna walk away from the ashes, and take the fact that I've been burned", which really pull at the heart strings.

Butch Walker has also released a live album and DVD this year as well as a record from his other band, 1969. He also recently started his own blog.