BUCKCHERRY's JOSH TODD: 'I Had To Work Like An Animal' To Be A Successful Touring Musician

During an appearance on a recent episode of the Paltrocast With Darren Paltrowitz, BUCKCHERRY frontman Josh Todd was asked when he and his bandmates realized that they were "genreless" and category-less" and that they "didn't necessarily have any peers anymore." He responded (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "It happened with the first record. We dropped our first record in 1999. At that point in time, rap rock was really big and what I call like shoegazer rock, where it was like nerd rock, where the dudes were wearing Buddy Holly glasses and they're looking down at their shoes and playing rock. So that's when we came out.

"We've just kind of been in our own little planet," Todd explained. "Since we started, we've been the black sheep of rock music. A lot of people lump us into like the '80s rockers, so we'll get on a lot of those '80 rock-type tours. And that's cool, and we love all those bands, but I was a teenager when that was going on. We didn't drop our first record till '99, and then so on and so forth, but we get lumped with them sometimes, and then we can go play a festival… Like one time we played a festival in Japan where it was DEEP PURPLE, us and then SLIPKNOT was headlining, which was one of the coolest lineups, I thought. And we did a tour with AVENGED SEVENFOLD back in the day and stuff like that. And then we can go and do a show with BON JOVI and KISS. So we can adjust our set accordingly to just vibe with any type of rock genre-type band, whatever it may be, whatever decade. So that's a good thing; I like that. But along the way, sometimes it didn't serve us, because we weren't a part of this mainstream rock stuff."

Josh added: "Rock radio turned into Active Rock, like the CREEDs and all that stuff. And we didn't fit into that. And so that's when we kind of faded out of rock radio, because we didn't sound like any of those bands and we weren't gonna change that because we had a huge fanbase and we quietly just did our thing and released records every two years and built our fanbase and continued to tour like maniacs. And so it's all kind of come full circle, and it's working out great."

Asked if he always wanted to always tour as much as BUCKCHERRY does now when he started the band 30 years ago, Josh said: "I knew I wanted to be a musician. I knew it was the only thing that consistently made me happy. So that's what I wanted my career to be, and in order to do that, I had to work like an animal because it was very hard to make it in this business. So I had to be, in my opinion, in my words, unforgettable, and then that was gonna get me where I had to go. And so that's what I try to do. I try to remain unforgettable. When you see it live, you don't forget it. You become a fan, you become invested, and then continue to work very hard on what we're servicing to the public. Our product — not to get too businesslike and technical, but that's part of it. This is a business, you know. So, yeah, all that being said, I wanted to be in a band and make a whole catalog of music. That was my dream. And that's what I'm doing. I'm living my dream. And I'm a bit of a workaholic — I'll admit that — so I'm always working, I'm always thinking of what I'm creating next, I'm always trying to get better as a vocalist and a songwriter. So you're gonna see that until I can't do it anymore."

BUCKCHERRY will release its eleventh album, "Roar Like Thunder", on June 13.

As with 2023's "Vol. 10" and 2021's "Hellbound", "Roar Like Thunder" was recorded in Nashville at Sienna Studios and helmed by producer and songwriter-for-hire Marti Frederiksen, who has previously collaborated with AEROSMITH, DEF LEPPARD, Jonny Lang and Sheryl Crow, among many others. All 10 tracks were written by Todd, BUCKCHERRY guitarist Stevie Dacanay (a.k.a. Stevie D.) and Frederiksen.

"Roar Like Thunder" will be released in North America by Round Hill Records, in Japan by Sony Japan and in the remainder of the world by Earache Records.

"Vol. 10" came out in June 2023. The 11-song LP featured 10 new BUCKCHERRY originals and, as a bonus track, a cover of the Bryan Adams classic "Summer Of 69".

In November 2023, BUCKCHERRY released a new holiday song called "Tell 'Em It's Christmas".

BUCKCHERRY previously released another holiday song, "Christmas Is Here", back in 2010.

In the summer of 2020, BUCKCHERRY recruited JETBOY's Billy Rowe as its new guitarist. He joined the group as the replacement for Kevin Roentgen, who left BUCKCHERRY in July of that year.

In 2019, BUCKCHERRY enlisted Francis Ruiz as its new drummer. He joined the group as the replacement for Sean Winchester, who exited BUCKCHERRY after laying down the drum tracks on "Warpaint".

The 20th-anniversary deluxe edition of the double-platinum BUCKCHERRY album "15" on physical and digital formats arrived on January 17 via Endurance Music Group. Originally released in 2005, the album featured the four-times-platinum single "Crazy Bitch" and the two-times-platinum single "Sorry". The deluxe edition was issued in North America on a two-vinyl-LP format featuring the album's 11 original songs as well as four bonus tracks recorded in 2005 and three newly recorded acoustic tracks by Todd and Dacanay.