Buckcherry Interview

HEY KEITH THANKS FOR TALKING WITH ME. HOW ARE YOU DOING TODAY?
I’m good, how are you doing?

I’M DOING REALLY GOOD. YOU GUYS ARE CURRENTLY ON THE JAGERMEISTER MUSIC TOUR WITH HELLYEAH, ALL THAT REMAINS AND THE DAMNED THINGS. HOW HAVE THE CROWDS BEEN?
The crowds have been awesome and there are four awesome bands out here. We’ve gotten a chance to meet everybody, hang out and it’s been a lot of fun.

IS THIS YOUR FIRST TIME TOURING WITH THESE BANDS?
We’ve played some shows with HellYeah before, but it’s definitely our first time with All That Remains. The Damned Things are brand new; they are very exciting and a lot of fun to watch.

ALL THAT REMAINS IS A LOT HEAVIER THAN BUCKCHERRY.
They’re pretty fucking heavy I’ve got to say. You know, it’s nice having the diversity amongst the bands. I quite like it. We’ve always had different bands out with us. I mean Crazy Town opened up for us at one point. If you’re a fan of music and you can be open to that, it is a very entertaining evening on this tour. I think it’s really giving you a lot of music for your dollar, which is something that we really wanted to try to do.

HELLYEAH LOOKS LIKE A BAND THAT LIKES TO PARTY, IS THERE A PARTY GOING ON EVERY NIGHT AFTER THE SHOW?
It’s the Jagermeister Tour, come on! It’s really bordering on “out of control!”

ARE YOU GUYS DOING MEET AND GREETS EVERY NIGHT?
Yes

DO YOU MISS HOW IT WAS SAY TEN YEARS AGO WHEN YOU WOULD FINISH A SHOW AND HANG OUT AT THE MERCH BOOTH WITH THE FANS?
(Laughs) We actually still get to do that. We were just in Europe for a month playing with Disturbed and Papa Roach. We went out to the merch booth every night and it was fun. It does happen.

IS THERE ANY PLACE YOU HAVEN’T TOURED YET THAT YOU WOULD LIKE TO?
There are a lot of places. South America is somewhere that we have been dying to get to. We have yet to play a show in Hawaii, so I’ve got to get to Hawaii.

HAVE YOU BEEN TO AUSTRALIA?
Yes, we have been to Australia, but it’s been a while. Australia and New Zealand is a lot of fun, but it’s really expensive to get your band over there. It’s been a little cost prohibitive at this juncture, but it’s definitely something that is in our sights.

WHAT IS ON THE AGENDA AFTER THE JAGERMEISTER TOUR?
After the Jagermeister Tour in the states we are going to take it up to Canada. We are taking Papa Roach up there with us and do a bunch of shows. Then we will be back in the states doing some more shows and then take off for Europe in Spring, early Summer for some festival shows over there. I think 2011 will be spent with us on the road promoting All Night Long and getting to places we haven’t been to in a while.

IN AUGUST YOU RELEASED YOUR FIFTH STUDIO ALBUM TITLED ALL NIGHT LONG. YOU GUYS HAVE BEEN DOING THIS FOR OVER A DECADE NOW, DO YOU FEEL YOU GET BETTER WITH EACH ALBUM YOU PUT OUT?
I think so, I think our level of quality control and our ability to please ourselves gets a little bit higher. It gets more difficult because you can get away with certain things when you make your first record that you can’t when you make your fourth and six record. We want to always continue to make great records, become better musicians and songwriters.

YOU HAVE EVOLVED AS A BAND.
I think so; I think it’s only natural to do that. Anybody who expects your band not to change has a pretty unreasonable expectation. I think that we are changing in a way that is very natural. We don’t sit around and think about it, we sit down and try to make the best record that we can at that time given the place that we are in our lives, our circumstances and what’s going on. It’s always coming from a sincere, honest place.

YOU GUYS TOUR QUITE A BIT. IS IT YOUR PURE LOVE OF WHAT YOU DO THAT KEEPS IT FRESH AND EXCITING NIGHT AFTER NIGHT?
Well it’s definitely not the pure love of riding in a tour bus and being in an airport at six a.m. That is the thing that fuels everything that we do. It’s the love of going out and playing the music. That hasn’t gone away. It is actually a love affair that has only gotten stronger. I love being in this band and I love playing this music.

THAT’S GREAT! IT IS GREAT BEING ABLE TO DO WHAT YOU LOVE TO DO.
We are very fortunate.

I LOVE HOW ON YOUR WEBSITE YOU BREAK DOWN EACH SONG AND EXPLAINS WHAT IT IS ABOUT. THE ONE THING I NOTICED IS THAT THE ALBUM CANNOT BE MISTAKEN FOR A CONCEPT ALBUM. EACH SONG IS DIFFERENT LYRICALLY. DOES JOSH WRITE ALL OF THEM OR DO YOU HAVE INPUT AS WELL?
Josh is the lyric writer, that’s his department.

WHAT IS YOUR ROLE IN THE SONGWRITING PROCESS?
My job is to come up with music that inspires Josh to write lyrics. Every once in a while a song will start off with Josh having a lyrical idea and melody. He will come to me and say “I’ve got this idea, make some music for it.” Most of the time I’ll send him over musical ideas and he will do his thing to it. I feel like my objective is to inspire him and point him towards an emotion, whether it be a happy, sad or an aggressive one.

AS FAR AS INSPIRATION GOES, THE ALBUM IS INSPIRED BY BANDS LIKE AEROSMITH, AC/DC AND KISS. ARE THOSE PERSONAL HEROES OF YOURS?
Yes

WHAT IS IT ABOUT THEIR MUSIC THAT INSPIRES YOU?
It’s the music that I grew up listening to. It’s the stuff that I put on Friday night, Saturday and Sunday morning. When you were cutting school, that was the cassette tape in the car. It is the music that made me want to be a musician and be in a rock band.

YOU AND MARTI FREDERIKSEN PRODUCED THE ALBUM TOGETHER. I READ THAT YOU HAVE AN IN HOME STUDIO.
Yes, I’m fortunate enough to have a recording facility at my house. It really made for a different record making process in that the clock wasn’t ticking with studio days flying by at a very expensive rate. We could really take our time, write songs in a different way and re-visit stuff that we probably would have just left behind because time was running out. It was a really fun way to make a record.

DO YOU PRODUCE FOR OTHER BANDS AS WELL OR JUST YOUR OWN?
I have had the opportunity to work on other stuff; unfortunately with the touring schedule that we are on it doesn’t leave me a lot of time. Buckcherry is my baby and my priority in my life right now. It is really where all of my energy is focused. There will come a day when we decide to take a break and I will be able to branch out and do some other things.

A LOT OF BANDS HAVE TO PRODUCE THEIR OWN ALBUMS NOWADAYS JUST BECAUSE THEY DO NOT HAVE THE MONEY TO GO OUTSIDE OF THE BAND.
I like the idea of having somebody from the outside weighing in because that perspective is really valuable. Having Marti involved with our records has been great because he is a real band guy. He is band oriented and he understands the delicate relationship between the members. He is very sensitive to that stuff, so having him around is cool. Having said that, I think that for better or worse, I’m the one guy that knows what this band should sound like. I’m very grateful that my band has entrusted me to kind of see that vision across and get it done. So far so good!

WELL YOU WRITE GOOD ALBUMS.
Well thank you!

YOU’RE WELCOME! IS THERE AN ALBUM THAT YOU HAVENT MADE YET THAT YOU WOULD LIKE TO?
You know, I’d love to work on a concept record that has a theme. We just did an acoustic record that we attached to the special edition of All Night Long. I want to keep making records, as long as people want to hear it, I want to keep doing it.

I WOULD IMAGINE YOU HAVE A LARGE GUITAR COLLECTION.
I do!

DO YOU STILL HAVE YOUR FIRST GUITAR?
I wish I had my first guitar, but I don’t. I don’t know where it’s at either, but I’ve had a lot of loves in my life in the world of guitars. Some of the good ones have gotten away and some of the good ones I’ll never let get away. It’s part of the process I guess.

HOW MANY WOULD YOU SAY YOU HAVE?
I’ve actually kind of thinned out my collection a little bit. I’m down to about 85 guitars. It was up over 100 a while back and I needed some room in my house, so I had to get rid of some stuff that I wasn’t using. I’m pretty good about rolling into a town, buying a guitar, leaving it in a case, shipping it home and then three years later going “What’s in that case?”

IS BUCKCHERRY INVOLVED IN ANY CAMPAIGNS OR CHARITIES CURRENTLY THAT YOU WOULD LIKE TO SHARE?
We got involved with Childhelp.org (www.childhelp.org) on the Black Butterfly record. It is still a charity that is near and dear to us. It helps victims of child abuse and their families. We got involved with some clean up stuff with the spill in the Gulf with the use of our song “Our World.” The proceeds from that download went to help the actual victims of the spill. It didn’t go towards helping the big oil companies clean their part. It went to the people who were out of work and affected by it. It’s hard because there are so many worthwhile charities and as we get older we have families. Those events and things matter more to us and its more on our radar. Unfortunately we have to pick and choose what we can be involved in.

THANKS SO MUCH FOR THE INTERVIEW. IT WAS AWESOME SPEAKING WITH YOU.
It was my pleasure!

BEFORE I LET YOU GO WOULD YOU LIKE TO ADD OR SAY ANYTHING?
We are going to be on the road for all of 2011. If you haven’t seen us, now would be the time!

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Tags:  Buckcherry, Keith Nelson , Keith Nelson - guitars, interviews

Shauna O'Donnell    January 27, 2011