BUCKCHERRY's JOSH TODD: 'All Songs Have A Little Bit Of My Personal Situation In Them'

Andy Starz of Heavy Metal Artwork recently conducted an interview with vocalist Josh Todd of Californian rockers BUCKCHERRY. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

Heavy Metal Artwork: "Confessions" is a personal take on the seven deadly sins. I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about the story behind undertaking that task.

Josh Todd: Well y'know, I write all the lyrics for BUCKCHERRY, so every record is personal to a certain degree, but with this one…. Yeah, I kind of went back to my childhood, back to some events that took place that kind of shaped me. Y'know, kind of my foundation to do music and rock'n'roll. Keith [Nelson, guitar] and I have been toying around with the idea of doing a record on the Sins for a long time now. A lot of people have done it, a lot of movies, and a lot of bands…. We just wanted to do our own take on it. The challenge was trying to make the best BUCKCHERRY songs out of each sin.

Heavy Metal Artwork: Were you worried you might alienate people if the album became way too introspective and personal?

Josh Todd: I guess, yeah, but y'know all songs have a little bit of my personal situation in them, but then I try to also not go too deep. That's the challenge of songwriting, trying to write it in a way in which a lot of people can relate to it, not just you.

Heavy Metal Artwork: Tell me a little bit about how the concept for the album cover came into being?

Josh Todd: Well, we met this hip-hop graffiti artist in New York, this guy called Ewok, and we wanted to get someone who completely had nothing to do with rock music. We wanted to give him a shot at the artwork for the record. I gave him my ideas for every scene in the movie for the Sins so if you look at the artwork on the inner part of the record he did a piece for each sin. That was really cool. I just told him that I wanted a cover that you could get tattooed on yourself and he delivered.

Heavy Metal Artwork: You describe yourself as a storyteller and as having a great respect for storytellers.

Josh Todd: Yes, totally. You know some songs are just short stories. You're trying to capture some emotion in a certain type of song. You know I was always a big fan of Jim Morrison, of turning poetry into songs. There's a song on the record called "Pride" that got to be almost like spoken word in the verses which is something I've been wanting to do for a long time. I read a lot of books so I kind of enhance my lyric writing and I'm a huge fan of novels, and how somebody can take five hundred pages and make it interesting. How someone can write something that can change you forever. That, to me, is crazy, y'know? Songs are much easier as they're not that long, but you try to take people on a journey.

Read the entire interview from Heavy Metal Artwork.