Born and raised near Boston, Butcher actually was inspired to pick up the guitar as a toddler watching Gene Autry, Roy Rogers, and other singing cowboys on Saturday morning television. By the time he was in high school, he was fully committed to the rock 'n' roll cause. By the early 1980s, Butler had formed his first version of Axis, and was playing to packed clubs in downtown Boston.
"One night Peter Wolf, the lead singer from the J. Geils Band, came down and we were playing," said Butcher in an interview conducted nearly a decade after this recording was made. "He really liked us and what I was all about and he asked us right then and there if were interested in touring with the J. Geils Band on its Freeze Frame tour. We literally went from playing small clubs to stadiums, and we still hadn't been signed yet."
Getting a record deal wouldn't take long; by the time they came off the J. Geils Band Tour, Jon Butcher and Axis had struck a deal with Polydor Records. With the help of MTV, they soon became one of the staple popular acts of the early 1980s. Butcher eventually dropped the name Axis, and changed the band around when he moved over to Capitol Records in the mid 1990s. He currently remains a regular road warrior, touring several months a year.