BUCKCHERRY

Frontman Josh Todd on the track that lit up a thousand rock clubs

The Californians tell us the story behind their highly intellectual and complex song, Crazy Bitch.

“WE WANTED IT TO BE

LIKE A HIP-HOP SONG”

IT WAS INSPIRED BY PARIS HILTON

“I wrote Crazy Bitch a cappella in my truck. I wrote it a long time before we released it

[on 2006 album 15]. It was right around the time that the Paris Hilton sex tapes came out. I thought it was funny how somebody could launch their entire entertainment career on a homemade porn tape. Then I started reminiscing about all the crazy chicks that I used to go out with. It seemed that from the time when I was about 18 to when I was about 23 I couldn’t really find a sane girl anywhere. They were all really, really good in bed but they weren’t great girlfriends. I just started singing that melody and I didn’t want to forget it.

It was super-easy and I wanted it to be a simple song. I called Keith [Nelson, former Buckcherry guitarist] to record me singing it on his answer machine because this was in the days before things like iPhones!”

IT WASN’T SUPPOSED TO BE A SINGLE

“It was just another song. We made a really great record and Crazy Bitch was kind of an afterthought. We thought we would resurrect it; it wasn’t quite finished, we still had work to do. We thought it would be a cool record song for our core fans and that there would be no way that it could get on the radio or anything like that. We didn’t even think about it like that. Once the record came out, it started really taking off online. This was when MySpace was going on and it had a million listens on there. We were like, ‘This is crazy!’ Radio stations started to play it and it became this phenomenon.”

IT HELPED BUCKCHERRY COME BACK FROM THE BRINK

“We recorded a demo of it. This was when it was just Keith and me in the band, because from the first line-up, all of the guys had quit except for Keith and me. What happens when you’re in those moments is that everybody becomes very focused on the goal. It becomes a collective thought and when you have collective thought with a bunch of people it becomes very powerful and it can’t be stopped.”

WE HAD TO FIGHT TO KEEP IT X-RATED

“There was a pretty well-known producer back in the day who heard the song and said, ‘Oh, that’s a pretty good song but you’ve got to change the lyrics.’ I said I didn’t want to change the lyrics. That was what was great about the song – the lyrics were what was so fun about it! You change those lyrics and it becomes just another fuckin’ stupid song. We didn’t change the lyrics. We sat on the song for a long time until finally it was the right time and place to release it.”

IT HAS HIP-HOP ROOTS

“The song really wrote itself. It was supersimple. I wanted it to be like a hip-hop song, almost. That’s how I described it to Keith when I was trying to get it all together. I always wanted to take that song and collaborate with a hip-hop artist and remix it. That would be really fun. I think the sex, drugs and rock’n’roll has all gone into hip-hop; I don’t see any of that in rock’n’roll anymore.”

IT BECAME A STRIP CLUB ANTHEM

“I want any kind of anthem, so I’m happy [that it became a popular strip club song choice]. You work your whole life to have a hit. Wherever the song wants to be heard, that is fantastic for me. There was nothing that indicated that the record would be a success. No one would sign that album. It was a force that could not be stopped; there was no other option for us other than to be successful at that time. There’s nothing like success when you’ve heard so many nos.”

JOSH TODD & THE CONFLICT’S DEBUT ALBUM, YEAR OF THE TIGER, IS OUT NOW VIA CENTURY MEDIA