BUCKCHERRY Vocalist On Covering NINE INCH NAILS' 'Head Like A Hole': 'I Like Something Off The Beaten Path'

Andy Hall of Des Moines, Iowa radio station Lazer 103.3 recently conducted an interview with BUCKCHERRY frontman Josh Todd. You can listen to the entire chat via the Soundcloud widget below. A few excerpts follow (transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET).

On the band's new "Warpaint" studio album:

Josh: "We worked really hard on this record and we feel it's one of our best. It's almost reminiscent of the songwriting process right before '15'. We had some lineup changes with the band, it'd been three years since our last record. We wrote a tremendous amount of songs. Stevie [D., guitar] and I wrote 30 songs for a 11-song record. We were very thorough and it paid off."

On whether BUCKCHERRY was having "fun" during the making of "Warpaint":

Josh: "Yeah, we did have fun. We brought Mike Plotnikoff back into the fold. He produced '15' and we always enjoyed working with him. It was a really great environment again — the players are great. We replaced two guys, we got Kevin Roentgen on guitar and Francis Ruiz on the drums. We all get along really well."

On trying new things, especially with the song "The Hunger":

Josh: "It's funny you bring up that song. That song was written a long time ago. Stevie and I did another record for my other band, JOSH TODD AND THE CONFLICT, and we put out a record in 2017. Right before is when we wrote 'The Hunger'. We were just writing songs and said, 'Let's write a country track for a country artist,' and we wrote 'The Hunger' and we gave it to our publisher and it kind of just sat around and nobody picked it up. We would start playing it at soundcheck when we were out on the road with THE CONFLICT and other bandmembers would come up and ask, 'Hey, what record is that off of?' We'd go, 'Oh, it's just a song we've had for a while. It's not on any records.' Then we said, 'Okay, we'd better not play that song anymore. Let's look at it when we start the songwriting for BUCKCHERRY.' And everybody just loves the song. It stood up and we put it on the record."

On the song sequencing of "Warpaint":

Josh: "All the great rock records that I used to listen to back in the day, they all had mid-tempo songs and ballads. I like the dynamics because I'm not always at one speed with my emotions. Songs are basically are little short stories. I like to have the dynamics. I'm always the guy who makes the sequence at the end of the writing and recording. I spent a lot of time on the sequence. I still want to believe — not a whole lot of people — but there's some people who really love what we do. They're going to sit down when they get a new record and listen to it from beginning to end, so I always think about that."

On what made NINE INCH NAILS' "Head Like A Hole" a good choice for a cover song:

Josh: "There's got to be a lot of elements and the cover conversation comes up during every record cycle. I think it does with all kinds of bands, not just us. First of all, I'm not too interested in a rock band covering a rock song. It's not too interesting for me. I like something off the beaten path. It's got to be a singer that sings in my wheelhouse and I got to believe in the lyrics. I actually came in with that song. I was always a fan of the 'Pretty Hate Machine' record and I love what Trent [Reznor] has done with his career and how he's always stuck to his own format and created his own thing. That's all impressive to me. 'Head Like A Hole' is a song where I've always really liked the lyrics and his vocal style was right in my wheelhouse. I said, 'Let's just jam out this song.' We were all set up to record and let's just see if we can make it sound like a BUCKCHERRY song. We just ripped through it. We didn't know our producer, Mike, was recording us at the time and he threw up a rough mix of it and he's, like, 'You guys got to come in and hear this.' He just blasted it out of the speakers and we were listening to it going, 'Man, this sounds like a BUCKCHERRY song. This has got to be on the record. This is amazing!' We played it for our label and our manager and everybody loved it. That's how it happened."

"Warpaint" was released in March via Century Media/RED Music.