Former Buckcherry frontman Josh Todd is back with a new band and a new album. The formation of the Josh Todd Band is an interesting story which is chronicled below. In addition to Todd, his new band members are guitarists Jesse Logan and Mike Hewitt, bassist Mark John and drummer Kent Ross. You Made Me was produced by Chris Johnson (Evanescence, Masters of Reality). I spoke with Josh Todd right after he returned from playing the Rock Odyssey festival in Japan.
Chad Bowar: How was your trip to Japan?
Josh Todd: It was a blast. We had so much fun. The stages were huge. They had the big video screens on each side of the stage and you could run for about fifty yards on each side. There were like 50,000 people at each show. Aerosmith was unbelievable and so was The Who. It was The Who's first Japanese performance and they were great.
Your album has been out for a few months now. How has the response been?
It's been great. We've been working really hard. We've done over 130 shows so far. We've been touring a lot, converting a lot of old Buckcherry fans and getting a lot of new fans. We've been playing with a lot of different types of bands and having a great time.
How did you find your new band?
I cold-called an ad in a local music magazine here in Los Angeles. I was at a newsstand looking through music magazines and I remembered there was ads in there. I thumbed through the ads and one just jumped out at me. It was a whole band looking for a singer. My goal was to find young players, and the influences they listed were the Deftones and At The Drive In. I thought that was interesting and how cool it would be to mix the two generations and see what happens.
I called and left a message on their voice mail saying I was Josh, a singer. They called me back and set up a rehearsal. I listened through the door when I went down. I was really reluctant to show up anyway, because it was kind of a joke at first. I talked to a really close friend of mine who also produced our record, Chris Johnson. He said, "it's a great idea, you've gotta show up!" So I showed up and listened through the door to make sure they could play. They were good players. I was really surprised and I liked what I was hearing. One of the guys recognized me right away, and the other three were kind of fumbling with their instruments. I just grabbed a mic because I didn't want it to be about anything but the music. They played some of their original music and I just started ad-libbing and it was just electric. It was great chemistry right off the bat and there were smiles from ear to ear in the room. It was cool to be in a band again because I hadn't been in a real band for about seven months prior to that. It was really refreshing and inspiring to be in a situation where everybody was having a great time playing music.
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