Buckcherry talk Trent Reznor, Warpaint & The Craziest Bitches

RAMzine: Last time I saw you in London was at Stone Free Festival when you were playing with amazing bands such as Megadeth and The Scorpions. What do you remember about that performance?

Josh: It was incredible for us because you don’t have shows like that in the States, I mean proper arena rock shows and most of them happen over here. During our high school times those records were in full force so it was cool to be on stage with those guys, we were just kids and they were making big records.

Stevie: I just remember the enormity of the venue, just walking from the dressing room to the stage took ten minutes and I remember the crowd starting to file in and they were running from the other hand to the stage and it was quite a distance! Anyways that was such a legendary venue, Zeppelin played there and I just remember being overwhelmed with the history that’s happened there.

Josh: Well we made a great record, Warpaint, and that was the biggest highlight. We’ve been writing since November 2017. We wrote thirty songs for an eleven songs record so we were labouring over it for a very long time. It was really magical to put everything together in the studio. We had fun making a record again.

Josh: It’s always the same over here, it’s not a radio driven market like it is in the States so it’s much different. Everybody is more passionate about rock music here which is always fun for us because that’s what you dream about. We spend months in our dirty dark rehearsal room writing the songs and banging them out and finally when we get to the point where we get to play it all live it totally pays off seeing our fans reaction.

Stevie: I really enjoy travelling abroad and seeing the different cultures. We are stuck in the States for so long that a lot of the stuff becomes the norm and becomes kinda boring. The audience reacts to music differently here, they are more passionate, they are more animated, they are more vocal. I really enjoy sharing music here.

Stevie: To me all Europe seems to be more passionate in general. Same as South America, they may be the most passionate. Maybe it’s the soccer mentality in the UK, you know. They jump, they lock arms and sing along. It’s amazing!

Josh: I feel like it’s the best record since ’15’ and it’s very reminiscent of the ’15’ time. We had line-up changes, it’s been three years since we put out a record, Stevie and I went through a lot of changes in our personal lives and that just made for really great song writing. We are very thrilled about the songs we wrote. It’s twenty years in the game for us, this is our eighth record and it’s just a special moment. I can feel it, it feels good!

Stevie: There’s a lot of anticipation and a lot of expectation. I personally try to just live in the moment and enjoy every second of this whole process. The fact that we are still able to do this. Right now because of the way the record business is unfortunately a lot of bands can’t keep going. Less people are buying music or tickets to go to a show. People would rather spend £5 on a cup of coffee twice a day than paying for music and we work really hard for that. Anyways I’m really grateful that we are still here and we get to do this another day.

Josh: It’s the whole body of work, you know. It’s very well rounded. Like all Buckcherry records we have fast tempo songs, mid tempo songs… so I’d say that probably the songs that are more of an outlook of the record would be ‘Warpaint’, ‘Radio Song’, ‘Bent’. It’s hard to choose, no regrets!

Stevie: I think this album represents a wider spectrum of all the phases that we’ve become over the years so to say one song kinda covers it, none of them does if taken singularly ‘cus it’s all Buckcherry.

Josh: Yeah, we are total fans, I think Trent Reznor is amazing, we really feel like he’s a guy that kinda paved his own way and he’s done his own thing and stuck to his guns with a very honest approach. When Pretty Hate Machine came out we all enjoyed that record. In the rehearsal we were all set up to record and I came with the suggestion to jam out this song and see if we could make it our own. That’s the fun part about it, taking something that is not necessarily in your genre and making it interesting. His vocal range is in my wheelhouse and that’s always good plus I really liked the lyrics. We managed to make it our own and the producer at the time was recording us and so he was like “Come in here and listen to this” so we went in and listened. And it was a no brainer. It sounded like a great Buckcherry song so we thought that’s gotta be on our record.

Josh: Thank you, that’s the challenge you know. I appreciate that.

Stevie: And it’s not an easy task especially when we are both such big fans of Trent Reznor. He’s prolific and profound and he’s also very original, you know, there’s no one like him. Even though in my opinion Josh and Trent are very similar singers it’s still hard to replicate something as unique as Nine Inch Nails. We had to concentrate on just the way we’d do anything that is ours so we had a very organic approach.

Josh: Man, he’s a lovely human being. He’s a Canadian guy, born and bred, and just like most Canadians very sweet. Really talented guy. He’s done a lot in the rock genre and he knew what we were going for. We wanted to have a good time and be around good people, that’s why we surrounded ourselves with a positive atmosphere. All that being said, we went there and it was as if we picked up after ’15’, it was very easy and fun. That’s probably why we got a great record out there.

Stevie: Sure, it’s understandable. Mike is a lovely, spiritual and kind person. That was an element that was very welcome at the point in which we went to make that record. We are a different sounding band than what’s on the radio right now so in order to be in that environment we wanted to get a guy on our side that didn’t want us to sacrifice what we are and he’s been part of that landscape for the past fifteen years or twenty even.

Josh: Craziest gig… Wow! We were in Indiana and we were on a private property, some person’s farm, huge land where they put this big musical festival. We were headlining one of the nights.

Stevie: Mind you there’s no police allowed at the property so there’s no security.

Josh: It was basically a bunch of people going around naked, people having sex out in the open, partying, there were people on the motorcycles running around naked. Really bizarre! They weren’t like all young attractive people. When we got on stage there were six naked women in the front row just enjoying themselves and they were totally comfortable being naked and of course we did the whole show. At one point some guy proposed to his girl during ‘Sorry’ which was cool.

(They laugh)

Josh: No he wasn’t naked. Then we were leaving on the bus right and we look over and some guy is getting blown right in front of the bathroom and he had a cowboy hat on and nothing else. He was waving at us, it was all so bizarre.

Stevie and Josh: Yeah!

Stevie and Josh: Wow!

Stevie: I just recently got divorced and I’ve been dating. She messaged me on social media and told me she was sober and she wanted a family life. I’m not into dating, it’s just too weird now. She proceeded to come to a show, she got annihilated and blacked out. She spilled her purse on the stage and made a scene on the way out. This woman was the most fatal attraction that I’ve ever experienced and I’ve known a lot of crazy women. Cut two she said a bunch of lies on her way out, anyways I made her leave and fly out the next morning.

Stevie: Oh yeah. She texted and called every day for the next three months, I still get texts from her every now and then even though I blocked her.

Stevie: I had to get an attorney to make sure I was, you know, safe and then she still texted from other numbers or from her friends’ phones. It was scary.

Josh: Nothing quite like that. I think my mind is mostly wrapped around “Okay, what’s next? What am I creating? What am I doing?” that I don’t understand the kind of impact we have on some people, you know. I just think men and women, not just women, approach me in weird places like around gigs or when I’m out eating or whatever and it can get a little weird but only because I don’t know what their intentions are or what it’s all about. I try to deflate the situation as nicely and as quickly as possible ‘cus it is quite uncomfortable you know.

Josh: I’m used to it but it’s not like you think it is. We live in Los Angeles and no one cares, we walk everywhere and no one recognises us. But when you are on the road it’s a whole different thing and it’s only because you are right down the street from where you are playing.