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Butch Walker, 'Coming Home'

"I really wanted to stay away from anything too literal in favor of something bigger, more fantastical and ethereal." And with that concept, director Olivier Agostini completely drew me into a sweet story while turning me on to Butch Walker's new video for the song "Coming Home."

Butch Walker was a guitarist in a glam metal band (SouthGang), a singer and guitarist with Marvelous 3, and later-turned-producer for Avril Lavigne, Fall Out Boy, and Pink. Go figure. He's also been making his own songs, and his latest is "Coming Home" from the EP Peachtree Battle.

The video for "Coming Home" works in part because it and the music have two different story lines. "I was really worried about someone wanting to make a literal interpretation of the lyric," Butch Walker tells us via email. "So I was relieved to receive this story line for it. Still, it conveys the tone of the words and has a beautiful older couple in it that I fell in love with on set."

The making of the video had another twist for Butch Walker. "The elderly man, played by Jack English," he says, "reminded so much of my father (who passed away two days prior to the shooting of the video), that it really freaked me out to be there." And while Butch didn't have to be on hand for the video shoot, he told director Agostini, "My dad would have wanted me here."

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

In 1988, a determined Bob Boilen started showing up on NPR's doorstep every day, looking for a way to contribute his skills in music and broadcasting to the network. His persistence paid off, and within a few weeks he was hired, on a temporary basis, to work for All Things Considered. Less than a year later, Boilen was directing the show and continued to do so for the next 18 years.