Spoke this evening with Josh Todd, frontman for Buckcherry, who will perform Feb. 21 at Kellogg Arena. Here is that interview:
I WAS READING ON YOUR GUYS' BIO ONLINE, I DON'T KNOW WHICH OF YOU IT WAS THAT SAID IT, BUT YOU WERE TALKING ABOUT YOUR LONG HIATUS AND COMING BACK AND HAVING ALL OF THIS BIG SUCCESS AND HOW IT WAS LIKE COMING BACK FROM THE DEAD. WHAT WAS THAT LIKE?
"It was a bittersweet success, we just felt like had a lot to prove. It was like had to make the record of
our career. We've been up against a lot of adversity, you know. Nobody wanted to sign us in the States, we had to work for it. We got a small deal in Japan and then we worked our way up in the States, you know, we kind of had to work backwards. But we had the ammunition and thank god it all worked out, one of our records finally got promoted in the right way.
I WAS THINKING ABOUT YOUR BAND. YOU LOOK AT WHAT'S ON ROCK RADIO TODAY AND IT'S EITHER EMO OR JUST REALLY DEPRESSING OR ANGRY ROCK. AND HERE YOU GUYS ARE WITH THIS STREAM OF HITS AND IT'S FUN, CLASSIC ROCK, HOOK-HEAVY SONGS. WHAT DO YOU THINK IT IS ABOUT YOUR GUYS' MUSIC THAT HELPS YOU STAND OUT AND BE SUCCESSFUL?
"Just like you said, there's just been a huge void for just rock and roll, it's not the mainstream, anymore. As far as those bands you're talking about, without getting specific, they're just kind of … That's the problem with mainstream music, it's very homogenized, there's not really great sounds.. Nobody's really extraordinary at their crafts, it's all just kind of cookie-cutter-type sounds, and I don't like it.
"You know, I came from the school where frontmen were frontmen. You know, they learned how to sing and they learned to be out front without having a guitar in their hands. Not like all these bands now that hide behind that and don't sing. And you know I come from the school where guitar players were ripping. And now it's like you see bands live and they're all playing to tracks, you know, you see so many bands now that have all these big vocal harmonies going on and they're not even singing. It just makes it like not a great live experience."
WHY GO WITH THE CLASSIC ROCK SOUND? WHAT WAS THE APPEAL FOR YOU GUYS?
"The appeal is it's timeless; it's fun and it's always gonna be around. It's not something that's gonna be categorized and like that stuff that you hear it and be like, 'Wow, that was back then, and it sounds weird to hear it now.' Like Nirvana, you know, Nirvana was a great band but, I don't know about you, but when I hear It, I think about back then. It's great music, but it just kind of marked a kind of a time period, it's not timeless to me."
IF YOU WERE TO TAKE THE SUM OF ALL YOUR GUYS' SONGS, WHAT WOULD YOU SAY IS THE MESSAGE BE-HIND YOUR GUYS' LYRICS?
"Buckcherry is all about a celebration of life. We just write songs from the heart, we don't censor ourselves or try to write songs for mainstream music. We just do what's real to us and we go out there and take it to the people. Our motto is 'Enjoy yourself, go out there and have a good time.' You know, we've been touring for 10 years, we've done a lot of shows and I've seen a lot of people that are not having a great time at a rock show. And that's hard for me to handle, 'cause when I was a kid that's one place I could always go and just let it all out. That's one place I could go and no matter what kind of problems I was having they went away. That's what rock shows are supposed to be about. That's what we hope people get from our music."
WHAT AFFECT DO YOU HOPE TO HAVE ON YOUR LISTENERS?
"I hope they're inspired to do something they've always wanted to do. I hope they follow their passion."
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