Buckcherry savors ‘Crazy’ resurgence

As the new music was formulating, Todd and Nelson went looking for management. They found it in Kovac’s Tenth Street Entertainment, which had worked with what Todd calls “bands that have had somewhat of a career and had a slump,” such as Motley Crue. “They know how to take that brand that you built and just kind of redevelop it,” Todd says.

While “nearly every major label in the world passed on this band,” according to Kovac, Buckcherry financed the recording of ”15” — tracked in 15 days, hence the title — with an advance from Universal Japan, the one company that did believe in the project. The group, which toured Japan twice before the album’s April 11, 2006, release at home, subsequently signed with Universal Canada as well.

But without a U.S. label stepping up, Kovac and the band decided to make “15” the first release on his Eleven Seven imprint, the successor to his previous label, Beyond Music. Eleven Seven then signed an agreement that allowed Warner Music Group’s Atlantic Records to take over a project once it had shipped between 75,000 and 100,000 units.

They didn’t have to wait long. “15,” which shipped 40,000 units to start, made a surprising debut at No. 48 on the Billboard 200, selling 26,000 units. By the album’s third week of release, Atlantic was on the case — an irony, since former executive Jason Flom had expressed heavy interest in signing Buckcherry but was overruled by his superiors.

Connecting the dots

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Prior to Atlantic’s arrival, Eleven Seven drew on in-house research and made extensive use of MySpace and YouTube to lock into Buckcherry’s fan base via the gritty, low-budget video for “Crazy Bitch.”

“The Internet is this generation’s FM radio,” Kovac says, adding that the success of Motley Crue’s 2005 single “If I Die Tomorrow” was an early indicator that there was an unfed audience appetite for hard-hitting rock.

“The whole thing was really just connecting all the dots, utilizing all the rock ‘n’ roll markets,” Todd says. “Where do rock ’n’ roll fans go? They go to strip clubs and wrestling shows. They’re out in the f---ing trenches. We wanted to get to all of them, and we knew where they were.”

While all these maneuvers made “15” a rock hit, Todd says the group knew all along that it had “Sorry” in its pocket with even greater crossover potential.

“The aggravating part,” he says with a laugh, “was it was just taking so long to get to that song because ’Crazy Bitch’ had such a long run. We were just like, ’This song better f---ing get the shot it deserves’ — and it did.”

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Convinced by the showing of “15” that both Buckcherry and rock are indeed back, all concerned are chomping at the bit for the band’s next release, which will be released by Atlantic.

Todd says the band, with all members now contributing, is ”finishing up the songwriting” process for the album. Buckcherry plans to hit the studio in May.

“There’s some deep lyrics,” Todd says. “It’s a rock record. It’s not like we’re reinventing the wheel ... but we’ve matured as songwriters, and I thing it’s going to be more melodic. I think people are going to be happy.”

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