BUCKCHERRY Vocalist Says He First Recorded 'Crazy Bitch' Chorus On His Mother's Answering Machine

BUCKCHERRY vocalist Josh Todd recently spoke with Sally Steele of Vegas Rocks! magazine. The full conversation can be seen below. A few excerpts follow (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET).

On his biggest influences:

Josh: "The first rock frontman I dug was Ian MacKaye from MINOR THREAT. He was the first guy that I was like, 'This dude is badass'... Ian Astbury from THE CULT, I really liked him. I really like [AC/DC's] Bon Scott and Brian Johnson, of course. They were big influences. I was really into Prince and Stevie Wonder. I would sneak in my sister's room and listen to all her records. I was into all those Prince-era bands — THE TIME, APOLLONIA 6, Sheila E. I liked all that stuff."

On the group's lineup changes:

Josh: "BUCKCHERRY just hadn't been a united front or a band for quite some time prior to [founding guitarist] Keith's [Nelson] departure. You'd have to talk to him about his reasons, but everything works out for the good, always. I wish everybody who's left this band at some point happiness. I hope they're happy and they're getting on their lives and they feel good about their decisions and stuff. This is the best musical lineup we've ever had... it's been a lot of fun."

On what the group's latest album, "Warpaint", has in common with its third album, 2005's "15":

Josh: "It's very similar to '15', actually. There was lineup changes before '15'. It had been, like, three years since the record prior to that, 'Time Bomb'. This is very much the same situation. We were very thorough for the songwriting. We wrote over 30 songs for an 11-song record, and it's definitely one of our best. We're just having a lot of fun."

On "Crazy Bitch":

Josh: "[We] had no idea it was going to have the impact that it did. It sat around for, like, three years... The idea came to me when I was driving around in L.A. at the time. Paris Hilton put out these sex tapes — or, I don't think she put them out; I don't know how they came out. But basically, she launched her entertainment career with some homemade porn, and I just thought that was funny. Then I started reminiscing about my youth, and I had a lot of crazy girls that I had met when I was younger. I just started singing [the] chorus of 'Crazy Bitch', and I just wanted to record it. I think I called my mom, because I didn't have an iPhone or anything at that time. I called my mom to record it on her [answering] machine so I wouldn't forget it. I just said, 'Don't erase this — I want to remember it. We'll talk about it later.'"

On whether it's "hard" to be a rock band nowadays:

Josh: "It is if you're a new band, for sure. I wouldn't even know where to start if I was a new band. I feel sorry for some of these guys that are coming up, because it's really tough in the rock genre. It shouldn't be, but that's the way it is right now. I'm grateful — we've had longevity in a business that doesn't have a lot of longevity. We've never really been a mainstream rock act since we started. We started in 1999. There was a lot of rap-rock and what I call nerd rock — like, shoegazing rock. Dudes with button-up shirts and the Buddy Holly glasses looking down at their shoes. That's what was going on at the time, and then the 2000s happened, and it was all this active rock stuff, which is not what we do as well. To have longevity all these years in this climate, I'm very proud of [that]."

On how to catch people's attention:

Josh: "It's harder to get eyes on you, because it's information overload for everyone. It's hard to get people to focus on you for a long time because everyone's just flipping through their feed. They can explore the whole world in, like, 5-10 minutes, and you're just a blip on that screen — if you're even on the screen. It's really difficult, [but] I think it comes down to the same things it always came down to – passion and perseverance. If you write great songs and you've got a great show and you're unforgettable, then something's going to happen eventually."

On his favorite tattoo:

Josh: "I just recently started getting tattooed again. I took about four or years off... Probably my back piece, because it's really big and I earned it. It took a lot of time, a lot of hours."

On whether he'd do anything differently if given the opportunity:

Josh: "No, I wouldn't. I think everything happens for a reason. There's a lot of peaks and valleys, and that's how you learn and get better. It's been a great ride."

BUCKCHERRY continues to tour in support of "Warpaint", which was released in March via Century Media/RED Music. The 12-song record was produced by Mike Plotnikoff, whose last previous collaboration with the band was "15".