{"id":10641,"date":"2013-02-23T00:00:51","date_gmt":"2013-02-23T00:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/?p=10641"},"modified":"2013-03-22T01:21:38","modified_gmt":"2013-03-22T01:21:38","slug":"feature-buckcherry-02-13","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/feature-buckcherry-02-13\/","title":{"rendered":"BUCKCHERRY – A Confessional (February 2013) | Features \/ Interviews @ Metal Forces Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"

BUCKCHERRY – A Confessional<\/strong><\/span>
\nAnthony Morgan<\/span>
\nFebruary 2013<\/span><\/p>\n

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Buckcherry (l-r): Keith Nelson, Jimmy Ashhurst, Josh Todd, Xavier Muriel and
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Los Angeles, California-based hard rock outfit Buckcherry \u2013 had discussed the notion of authoring a full-length revolving around the seven sins for several years. Albeit a concept previously explored by other artists as well as movies, Buckcherry wished to present their own specific take on the subject. This would form the basis of February 2013 record Confessions<\/em><\/a>, though the effort isn\u2019t a concept album. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt turned out to be a lot of fun,\u201d Josh shares. \u201cOriginally we wanted to write seven songs for seven sins, like an EP. We needed an LP though, so we came up with the idea of doing seven sins and four elements. That\u2019s where songs like \u2018Air\u2019 and \u2018Water\u2019 came from. At the time, I was writing a screenplay about my own life. Stevie (D) came into the studio one day \u2013 our other guitar player \u2013 and he said \u2018Why don\u2019t you write a short story film to go with the record?\u2019 I condensed my life story down to a 30-minute film, and there\u2019s a love interest in the film. That\u2019s where songs like \u2018The Truth\u2019 and \u2018Nothing Left But Tears\u2019 came from. The record is just the soundtrack for the movie. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s based on a teenage boy\u2019s life. He comes home from school one day, and finds that his dad has committed suicide. That actually happened to me when I was ten years old. One of the songs on the album is about the day that it happened; it\u2019s called \u2018Sloth\u2019, and it\u2019s on the record. It was a pretty heavy piece that was really hard for me to get through. I think it was a turning point for me, because I blocked a lot of it out at the time. That was even though it never really affected me until later on when I became an adult \u2013 I was looking at my behaviour and stuff, and doing some internal work. I definitely started gravitating towards aggressive music after that point. I grew up in Orange County, California, so I was really into the punk rock movement at that time. It affected me, because I was very angry.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe record\u2019s awesome. This guy in the movie is an adolescent though; he\u2019s a 17-year-old kid, and that\u2019s where the film starts. Throughout the film he acts out the seven sins, and during that time he meets a girl who\u2019s the polar opposite of him. He becomes infatuated with her. He learns how to forgive his father eventually, and then he gets the girl. All the actors involved aren\u2019t known. I actually have a role in it as well; I play a Catholic priest. The director Billy Jayne is the same guy who directed the \u2018Gluttony\u2019 video, and the lead character is Gilby Stretcher. The \u2018Gluttony\u2019 video definitely gives you an insight into the character, but it\u2019s not a scene in the movie.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got a director, we have a cast, and we have locations, but we\u2019re having a hard time with funding. When we started this whole thing, we didn\u2019t know how much it\u2019d cost to make a movie. It\u2019s gonna cost $100,000. We\u2019ve got lots of people we employ. We also have five guys in the band who have to live, so yeah, it\u2019s a lot of money. It\u2019s all new territory for us, so we\u2019re still working on it. We\u2019re gonna try to compliment it with a live performance DVD, maybe a five-camera shoot of a live show. We\u2019ll package it up, and maybe release it towards the end of 2013.\u201d<\/p>\n

The frontman has come to terms with the untimely passing of his father. \u201cI\u2019m 40 years old,\u201d he explains. \u201cI\u2019ve come to terms with it, yeah. That\u2019s the reason I can talk about it. It\u2019s my story, and everybody has a story. I just wanted to tell the story in a song, but the album isn\u2019t all about that. There\u2019s a lot of different kinds of moments on the record, but that\u2019s one of them. I write all the lyrics on Buckcherry records. They\u2019re all very personal to me, but the challenge for a songwriter is to take a little bit of everybody\u2019s life and put it into a song, and your experiences and everything you go through. You can create something that a lot of different people relate to, and that\u2019s the challenge. That\u2019s why we picked the seven sins, because I think they affect everybody and everybody\u2019s life. At some point everybody struggles with them, so I think a lot of people can relate to them. That\u2019s why it was such a cool subject to tackle. I had a lot of fun as a lyric writer going through it, and trying to write the best melodies as well on top of it.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt\u2019s a beautiful journey this record, and it\u2019s one of our best. The album is a great Buckcherry rock \u2019n\u2019 roll record. It\u2019s definitely a deeper subject. We\u2019ve never had a theme for a record before going in like this, so it was out of the box for us. That\u2019s why we had a lot of fun making it, and worked really hard on it. We wanted to make sure we made a record where even if you don\u2019t want to invest in the storyline, you can still go out, get the record, and be happy with it. That was the goal, and I think we achieved it.<\/p>\n

Josh identifies lust as the sin he has been the most guilty of through the years. \u201cI\u2019m male, and I\u2019ve been playing in bands since I was 15,\u201d he reasons. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of temptation, ladies and women around. You can get caught up in it, but it\u2019s part of the gig. I had my fun with it at one time, but I\u2019m married now. I\u2019ve been settled down for awhile. I have three kids, so they keep me busy. The most important thing about being a father is showing up, and being there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Production duties once again fell to Keith as well as prolific songwriter Marti Frederiksen, as was the case for Black Butterfly<\/em> (September 2008) and All Night Long<\/em> (August 2010). \u201cIt\u2019s just the way we\u2019ve been doing it for awhile now,\u201d the singer muses. \u201cWe have a good chemistry and it works, so we keep doing it. Marti oversees the arrangements and stuff, and Keith gets all the performances and gets the sounds. Marti\u2019s very good with singers, so he works with me when I go in and record my vocals. We go through the arrangements together as well. We also co-write songs together with Marti. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s very musically inclined; he\u2019s co-written a ton of songs with a lot of artists. He really understands us and gets us, and we\u2019re really comfortable writing with him. He\u2019s cool, and I like the way he approaches stuff. He\u2019s very subtle in his approach, but the changes that he makes really make a difference. Songs like \u2018The Truth\u2019 he had a big part in as far as melodies and stuff. \u2018Lust\u2019 was a big one. I can\u2019t remember all the other ones he was involved with. He didn\u2019t co-write very much on Confessions<\/em>, just a few songs here on there like he did on 15<\/em><\/a> (October 2005), Black Butterfly<\/em>, and All Night Long<\/em>. Marti\u2019s a good piece to the puzzle though.\u201d<\/p>\n

Graffiti artist Ewok designed Confessions<\/em>\u2019 front cover artwork. \u201cEwok\u2019s this really good graffiti artist out of New York,\u201d Josh compliments. \u201cHe did a great job. We wanted somebody who had never done any prior work in rock music to approach the artwork. He really hit it out of the park. We wanted something that would be cool, that you could get tattooed on you if you wanted. When you open up the record there\u2019s this cool little piece with a seven and a cross, so it\u2019s a really good symbol.\u201d<\/p>\n

Confessions<\/em> was released in Europe on February 19th, 2013 via Eleven Seven Music, and on the same date in North America through Century Media Records.<\/p>\n

Interview published in February 2013.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BUCKCHERRY – A Confessional Anthony Morgan February 2013 Buckcherry (l-r): Keith Nelson, Jimmy Ashhurst, Josh Todd, Xavier Muriel and Stevie D. Los Angeles, California-based hard rock outfit Buckcherry \u2013 had discussed the notion of authoring a full-length revolving around the seven sins for several years. Albeit a concept previously explored by other artists as well […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[492],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10641","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-buckcherry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10641","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10641"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10641\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10655,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10641\/revisions\/10655"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}