An Interview with Jake Walker
'Punk Isn’t Dead… but Maybe It’s Disabled.'
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I don’t remember exactly when or how I first started talking to Jake Walker. At some point a few years ago, he and I began trading messages online and have stayed in touch ever since. He’s a music fan who has been incredibly supportive of my work, so whenever I make something new, I usually make sure to drop an early copy of whatever it is in the mail to him in Atlanta. But last month, the tables turned and he was the one who had a new project to share with me.
After years of work, Walker’s band Faulty Wires was ready to release their debut EP, Punk Isn’t Dead… but Maybe It’s Disabled, out this month. Four original tracks plus a cover of the Menzingers’ “In Remission,” a song whose lyrics about needing a wheelchair take on a new meaning when coming out of Walker’s mouth. At 18 months old, Walker was diagnosed with spinal muscular atrophy, a disability that requires a wheelchair and caretaker assistance.
“To oversimplify it, basically I have some nerves in my back that just don’t work right,” he explains. “So as my brain tries to get my muscles to do what I want them to do, my back kind of betrays me.”
I talked to Walker about his first foray into making music, being inspired by Bad Brains, and the importance of staying overwhelmingly positive. Oh, and to answer the obvious question, yes, Walker is acutely aware of the irony of his name. “It’s not lost on me, the irony of my last name,” he laughs. “I’ve kind of carried that as a badge of honor my entire life.”
I feel like you and I catch a lot of the same tours, but there are probably so many aspects of seeing live music that you deal with on a regular basis that I don’t even consider. What are some of the challenges of being a music fan with your disability?
Jake Walker: I think the most obvious thing is that I need assistance in pretty much everything I do. Through Medicare, I have funding so that I have people to help me do things. So if I want to go to a show, I have to buy a ticket for me and them. So immediately right there you get off to a rough start.
Double the cost.
Yeah, but I’ve been to inaccessible venues, I’ve been to places where there is no view for someone at my angle. And the reality is, I just got good at forcing myself where I want to go. Not literally, but if I know an ADA section is there and it’s full, I’ll try to work with them to let me in anyway. Things like that, knowing where the holes are so that I can still get the most out of it. And I will say that Atlanta’s venues, at least over the last five years or so, have been really good about ADA sections and things like that. For example, I saw Militarie Gun about a month ago and usually at the Masquerade, it’s really hard to get to a spot where I can see the stage. But they have a brand new ADA section right by the stage, and it was great. Great view, great venue. I happen to be the kind of person that it’s easy for me to make friends. So when I’m at these places, people around me want me to have fun too. That’s something that I’ve always noticed when I go to shows is that there’s always someone looking out for me, making sure that I’m having as much fun as everybody else.
Is there anybody that you ever saw on stage playing music that made it seem attainable to you?
I’m gonna say yes and no. Not directly, but there’s this old video on YouTube of Bad Brains. Apparently the lead singer had a neck injury of some kind, and the doctors told him, “You’re going too crazy on stage.”
Yeah, he was doing literal backflips.
Right. But they had a show that night, and he wanted to do the show. So what they did was, they tied him to a chair with duct tape. He did the whole show tied to the chair and it was just as exciting and as hyped as any show. In a way, I’m that guy tied to the chair, you know? I heard that story and I was like, “Maybe there is a place for someone like me.” So it’s hard to say a specific band that I’ve seen live, but that story has always been one that I’ve held onto.
I don’t know if you watched that documentary about him, but he has so many mental health problems now. It’s almost like when football players get CTE or something, all the problems stemming from those glory days.
Yeah, and I had no idea about that. I know there’s always a price to pay, but for me, the indomitable spirit it takes to have your neck so hurt that a doctor tells you to not do it and you’re like, “Nah, that’s not how I do things.” That’s kind of my whole life.
Is your new EP your first attempt at music?
Yeah, that is our very first attempt. I don’t have any music background other than going to shows. It’s kind of funny how it started. When PUP did Morbid Stuff, they released “Free At Last” as a single. And in advance of that, they released all the chords and the lyrics to the song, but not the song itself. And they challenged people to do their own version of it. So me and my friend Ollie [Davis] decided to do that. We never got it done but that was how it all started.
What was the most challenging part of putting these songs together?
Oh man, it would take me forever to decide on one thing. I had to arrange everything, from album art to people playing on the record to studio time. It’s been an exercise in management more than creativity. Ironically, the good news is that I’m good at that. I have to manage a team of caretakers, just to exist. So managing a band is easy. And by no means am I good at [music]. I think that I’ve done really well with what I have, but there are definitely things that I look back on and say, “Maybe I could have done that in a better way to make it easier.”
Like what?
Like, the whole EP is about 15 minutes long, and to record my vocals, I had to do it line by line. So it took me 15 hours to do 15 minutes. I was folding myself and contorting my body in all different ways just to drag out every last bit of performance that I had. It was painful getting it done, to be honest. Now, knowing that process, if I ever got to do it again, I know how to do it easier and in less damaging ways.
I was going to ask if you were hoping to perform these songs live, but hearing how arduous it was to get the vocals recorded, I’m assuming that would be too difficult?
The dream is to do it one day. I don’t know what that looks like. I don’t know what touring would look like for me, other than to say that I have the will and the appetite to do it and the adaptability to figure it out. But I haven’t really put my mind to that yet because I don’t want to put the cart before the horse. I think that I could do it if I had to. I’m just going to be very regimented on how I take care of myself.
What would that entail?
Sometimes I’m not so good at not having bad habits. In terms of taking care of my physical health, I could eat better, I could drink more water, things like that. So the whole idea is that if I ever had to do it every night, I’d have to have a system. I’d have to sleep eight hours a night or I’d have to drink X-amount of water or this, that, or the other. I’m pretty good at figuring out how to do things. It just takes some time.
I think that if I ever toured, I wouldn’t drink alcohol, I wouldn’t smoke weed. I would do all sorts of things that I know that I can do to get the best version of myself. I’m not gonna get ripped or anything like that, but the hope is that, if there is traction with this project, I’d like to put my mind to figuring out how to do it.
I know you wrote the lyrics, and you obviously sing on it, but what about the music? How did you split that with your bandmate?
It depends on the song. There are certain songs that it was him mostly coming up with the music and me mostly doing the lyrics. Then there are other songs where it really started with me humming a tune and him creating it on the guitar. It went both ways. I can’t really play instruments, but I think that people would be surprised by how directly involved I was with the music side of it.
It looked like you had a pretty good launch for the video last week.
Yeah! I’ve been blown away so far. I wrote these songs six years ago, so I’ve had to live with whether they were good songs or not for six years. Now, having put it out and seeing people respond to it in an incredibly positive way, even beyond my rosiest expectations, it’s kind of hard to believe. I’m used to the cynicism of the internet, you know? It went a little viral on Reddit. I got maybe 200 different people that wrote me about the song and only one was negative. That’s it. I didn’t think the internet could be that positive.
You mentioned the other day that you wanted these songs to be an exploration of joy as an act of resistance. Can you tell me what you mean by that?
I’ll be 30 in May and I’ve seen pretty much every reaction to my existence that there could be. Everything from inspiration to pity to a lack of understanding. And what I’ve found is that a.) a lot of the time, it’s not productive to worry about how they reacted to me, but b.) there’s a moment there where they’re curious about who I am and what I do and how I act. And I think that there are a lot of people that will look at me and be incredibly surprised to find out that I love my life. I think it’s really cool that I get to be who I am. Truthfully, if I could snap my fingers and not be disabled tomorrow, I wouldn’t do it.
You wouldn’t do it?
No, I genuinely wouldn’t do it. I think that I’ve lucked my way into a unique perspective where I’m able to be people’s disabled friend, and if I’m a cool, rad guy, then they’re more likely to think that all disabled people are cool, rad guys. So I live how I talk, you know? I just try to be that guy.
But is that a lot of pressure on you? By that logic, you’re representing all disabled people all the time.
I think that it would be if I wasn’t being me. But it’s easy to be me. I’ve had so much love showered down on me my whole life and it’s gonna be hard for someone to break that. I think that’s my superpower. I like being me, and people like hanging out with the me that I am, if that makes sense.
You cover a Menzingers song on the EP, which sort of takes on a new meaning.
That song means something else to me, yeah. When he says, “If everyone needs a crutch then I need a wheelchair, I need a reason to reason with you,” to me, that’s like, “Hey, here I am. Yeah, I need a wheelchair but work with me and have fun.” That has been my favorite song ever since I heard it. I’ve been to, like, eight Menzingers shows and every time they play that song, I feel like I can stand up. It’s crazy.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
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That last line is everything.
Really great interview!