Jag har gjort väldigt många intervjuer, men har nog aldrig varit med om att de skett på exakt utsatt tid. Klockan slår 8 på kvällen och på sekunden ringer en kvinna från skivbolaget upp och berättar att Josh är redo för intervjun.
Ett mindre minus är att det är nästan omöjligt att höra vad Josh säger. Vi skriver 2013, men fortfarande kan man få uppleva telefonsamtal som om det vore 1983. Det låter som om Josh befinner sig i ett litet ljudisolerat rum långt under mark i New Orleans, dit den pågående turnén med Kid Rock fört honom för dagen. Att inte höra vad den andre personen säger gör alltid en intervju väldigt svår att genomföra.
Josh berättar bland annat om nya albumet "Confessions", en kommande kortfilm och hur dotterns födelse förändrade hans liv.
Hey Josh, how are you?
Josh Todd: Great. How´s it going?
Pretty good. How´s the tour been going?
Josh Todd: Good. We´re in New Orleans and we´ve got a show tonight. It´s a really great package with Kid Rock.
Touring with Kid Rock, do you have a similar audience?
Josh Todd: Yeah, we do have a similar audience. He came out around the same time as we did and we´ve known each other for a while. He´s doing a great job of mixing all these different genres like rap, rock and country. It´s a really good show and he´s got a really big band and they don´t run tracks, they´re a real live band. It´s cool.
About your new album (Confessions), what are your confessions?
Josh Todd? My confessions are so many, but one is that I have a very good time with moderation.
So it´s not as it says in the song "Gluttony", “I drink too much and I fuck too much”?
Josh Todd: Well yeah, I did all of that too much. I´ve had alcohol addiction, drug addiction, sex addiction, sugar and everything.
Ok. What made you write about the seven deadly sins?
Josh Todd: Because it´s timeless and like I said, I´ve struggled with moderation my whole life along with other things. I think everybody have things and I think everybody struggles with addiction at some point in their lives and they have to moderate. It´s difficult because if something feels good, you just wanna keep doing it.
Being in the business that you are, it must be much more difficult doing things in moderation since you come across a lot of this all the time?
Josh Todd: Yeah, but when you´re on the other side of it… I´ve been sober for 18 years and when you see people doing stuff, it´s not attractive, you know. You see things from a different perspective and it´s not very attractive, so it´s not that hard.
How long did you work on the album and then all these bonus tracks, are those tracks that the record company pushes you to come up with so they have bonus stuff for the different releases?
Josh Todd: Well yeah, there´s always the bonus tracks and that´s kind of a given for every band. We always write more than enough songs for a record. We always have songs laying around that didn´t make the cut and they are used as bonus tracks.
Do you ever go back and use old stuff or is it always completely new stuff for a new record?
Josh Todd: No, sometimes we go back and use stuff that weren´t a part of the writing cycle. Like for “15”, “Crazy bitch” had been written a couple of years before that.
All the so called controversy surrounding that song and the video, didn´t that just turn out to be great publicity for the band in a way?
Josh Todd: The controversy wasn´t that big, but yeah… bad press is good press.
Looking back on the first album back in ´99, how would you compare the band today to the band back then? Besides being older and wiser and so on.
Josh Todd: Well, it´s been a different line up but this line up is the one we always wanted. We´ve been together now for eight years and we´ve done over a thousand shows and we still get along really great. It was just a different band for those first two records.
Being on the road and you spend a lot of time together, is it hard staying good friends or does it just come easy? You see each other all the time. Is there a lot of friction?
Josh Todd: Nah, there´s no friction. I mean, you do get tired being around each other and that´s just normal. The key is that when something is bother us, we just talk it out and that´s what we do. We get right to the point when it happens. If you have problems and they itch for too long, they become bigger than they originally were when they started and that´s when you start not getting along. We just address things when they come up and we have a good time.
Cool. The video for “Gluttony”, whose idea was it to do it in a church environment and all that?
Josh Todd: That was us. This band comes from all of that and it´s a contradiction that we thought would be great. We´ve got our own Jesus there and our whole band in there, so it was a fun shoot.
You´ve done a lot of videos. Is it still fun and is there a need for videos these days?
Josh Todd: Yeah, it´s another marketing tool, but it´s not like it used to be of course. There´s not a forum for it, but you can´t control the market anymore because there´s the world wide web. There´s no MTV and you don´t have to wait for a record, you just get on the internet and get it. They have access to their artist from their rooms. It´s just a much different world than it used to be so you just have to roll with that and deal with it accordingly. We always concentrate on making records.
When you sit down to write songs for an album, is there ever the thought of writing a song that could make it onto radio or don´t you think about that at all?
Josh Todd: Well yeah, we wanna write songs that are unforgettable and I think a hit song is unforgettable and that´s why it becomes a hit. Everybody likes it and it resonates with them and they remember it and wanna hear it again. When you hear a Buckcherry record, we always have big hooks and that´s something we´re always into, so if it doesn´t move us it doesn´t go on the record.
How do you look at a song like “Lit up” today?
Josh Todd: I love that song and we wrote it so fast so long ago. I think we wrote that song in like an hour, but it´s a good one and we play it every night and it´s awesome.
That´s gotta be a pretty cool feeling, to write something in an hour and a few months later people are singing along to it on tour?
Josh Todd: Yeah that´s a big pay off. You´re right. You spend all this time creating songs in a dark rehearsal room and then you´re over in Europe or Japan and people know your songs and that´s when it all comes together.
Did the rock and roll lifestyle turn out to be the way you expected it to be?
Josh Todd: No. What people don´t know is that it´s a lot of work. There´s a lot of sacrifice, a lot of travelling and it´s very isolating actually.
You became a father when you were 23. Did that in any way stand in your way of doing what you were doing? Did you sacrifice family in any way?
Josh Todd: I sacrificed a lot. It motivated me, because at that time in my life (when he became a father) I was in a bad place. I had a massive alcohol and drug problem at the time. I had no money, so my first child, my daughter, was a turning point for me in getting my life together. I didn´t want her to see me fucked up, like I experienced when I was a kid so that was a big motivating factor. All it did was make me get better as an artist. I always tell her that, that she was the turning point.
Cool. Last couple of questions. The stuff you recorded or demoed with what would later become Velvet Revolver, did any of that end up on the Velvet Revolver records?
Josh Todd: No, never recorded them for real and they never ended up anywhere.
So that stuff is just sitting in a vault somewhere?
Josh Todd: I don´t even have those. Maybe Keith (Nelson) does? He was part of all that too. I have to talk to him. I don´t even remember what songs they were. They weren´t fully developed. They were just recording ideas and stuff, but there´s some stuff there.
The way it ended, was that something that really pissed you off?
Josh Todd: We worked together for about a month and taking management meetings and it was starting to become more and more of something and then Slash abruptly pulled the plug and that was it. I wasn´t mad, but I felt like it was wasting my time and I didn´t like that. I understand if you don´t wanna go forward with somebody because of whatever reason, that´s fine, but don´t beat around the bush. Say what you´re doing and move on, no big deal. There´s no hard feelings and I´ve talked to him since then and it was a long, long time ago and a short period of time.
You´ve lived an interesting life and you´ve obviously had your ups and downs. Everybody´s writing books these days, has that ever crossed your mind?
Josh Todd: Yeah, I was writing a screen play on my life when we started doing “Confessions” and I condensed it into a short movie and we´re trying to get it funded right now. But yeah, at some point I´d like to write a book. I had an interesting upbringing and there´s a lot of cool stories. A lot of stuff that people don´t know about. I wanna do an honest book.
That movie will be based on your life then?
Josh Todd: It´s loosely based on a period in my life.
And it will be out when?
Josh Todd: We gotta get it funded but we already have a director and a cast and location. We have no idea how much money it will cost, but it´s a lot. I´m actually working on it right now. Hopefully we´re gonna couple it with a great live performance DVD and they´ll get the movie as well. It´ll be great for the band and we´ll put it out later on this year. That´s what we´re working on.
Nice. What´s the plan after the Kid Rock tour? Anything planned for Europe?
Josh Todd: Yes there are. We´re working on that right now. We just did a few shows in the UK last November. We´re coming back and we´re already on Download and we´ll do a tour around that with a particular artist and hopefully it will come through and we can announce it.
Good. I saw you here when you played with Disturbed a few years back.
Josh Todd: Yeah, that was fun.
Well, have a great night in New Orleans!
Josh Todd: Thanks man, appreciate it.
/Niclas
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