Rebecca Butler (a local Austin musician) played at our employee BBQ a few weeks ago and we had the opportunity to ask her a few questions to get insight into the path of an aspiring musician. Check out the interview below as well as more about Rebecca Butler on Facebook.
Ray Goforth: Can you talk about your style of music and how it’s evolved?
Rebecca Butler: I grew up doing impressions of Cher and Aretha Franklin, so naturally when I started writing music it had a large “soul” influence. Through high school, while I was still developing my own style, my music had a blues feel to it. But since I’ve been in college, I really feel like I’ve discovered the style that’s really true to me and my music. It has somewhat of a pop/rock feel. I like to sing about what I feel and what I observe others feeling. While my music has a very sweet and girlie vibe to it, my lyrics are very bold. I tell it like it is, which is what I love about my music. It’s surprising.
RG: What is your goal as an up-and-coming artist?
RB: Well, I want to go all the way. I’ve wanted to be a professional musician since I could speak and every day I see that becoming more and more of a reality. I love to perform – it’s one of the most exciting things for me. The most important part is to have fun and love what you do. I hope to go on tour pretty soon with the band so that we can broaden our audience. We recently won first place and crowd favorite at a battle of the bands, and we hope to compete in many more because it’s really great exposure and a great way to network with other musicians. Hopefully in the not-too-distant future you’ll be able to see us in a festival or opening up for some awesome band.
RG: How did your band form?
RB: I’ve been writing songs and performing since middle school, but I didn’t meet any of the Richards until college. The guitarist, Sam Ogden, and I were playing acoustically together for a while back in 2009. And then in 2010 Sam, Jack Pearl (the bassist), and one other guy formed another band called The Boo Whos. We played together for a while and had a pretty good following – but I think we all were just more inspired by other projects. Although I had so much fun in The Boo Whos, playing the part of a rock star, the sound of it wasn’t true to what I wanted to create. A few months after we broke up, I asked both Sam and Jack to accompany on my solo music. We then got Jordan Cook as the drummer and Pierce Saxon for the keyboard and ukulele. All of the guys knew each other from high school. They really brought a whole new sound to the music which I love – I never wanted it to be acoustic. I always heard it much more upbeat and the guys really helped to create that.
RG: Tell us about your new album.
RB: Our new album consists of 7 songs (plus a bonus track). Four of the songs are new ones and the others are ones that I had previously recorded acoustically. I absolutely love this album. I think it really brought the music to a whole new level. We worked with Russ Pickman at Spitshine Studios and he really did an amazing job mixing and mastering the album. And it was really fun to record. “Us We You Me” is our single and so far we’ve received a lot of positive responses about the song and the album in general. I really have a good feeling about this album and I hope it gets the exposure that I would like it to.
BAND BIO (it’s a little unconventional):
Hi, I’m Rebecca! I just recently turned 21, woo! Although I’m not a big drinker, I go to college in Austin, Texas and am majoring in Creative Writing (for the songwriting side of things). I learned to play guitar early in high school, and just recently got a white Fender Telecaster for Christmas! But I might still love my restored acoustic Washburn just a bit more (but that’s a secret). Singing and songwriting have always been my real passions. I have been doing both since I can remember. At five years old, I used to do Aretha Franklin and Cher impressions all the time. You couldn’t stop me (and believe me, they tried). I could actually do better impressions at five than I can do even now. I would make up dances to my favorite songs and the music on some TV commercials (specifically, the L’Oreal Kids commercial was my favorite). Whenever the song or commercial would come on I’d yell to my parents and siblings to come watch my dance! They put up with a lot, but I loved it.
– Submitted by Ray Goforth, Interactive