BUCKCHERRY

Song: Too Drunk

A band can respond to success in many different ways.

It can become complacent and rest on its laurels. It can become cautious and just give fans more of the same thing they liked the last time. It can become cocky and not even care about what comes next.

Or it can be like Buckcherry and go for the throat.

Emboldened, enriched, inflamed, and re-invigorated by the success of 2006's RIAA platinum, Grammy®-nominated 15 (which included the monster hits "Crazy B*tch" and "Sorry"), the hard rockin' California quintet returns with BLACK BUTTERFLY, a 12-song set that strides forward with the kind of confidence and spirit of adventure you expect from a band that feels it constantly has more to prove. Produced by guitarist Keith Nelson and Marti Frederiksen (Aerosmith, Def Leppard, "Almost Famous," Fuel), BLACK BUTTERFLY finds Buckcherry using the revival spurred by 15 to push itself even further in its quest for Sex, Drugs, and Buckcherry.

"The bar's been raised because of 15," says frontman Josh Todd. "We spent longer on the writing process for BLACK BUTTERFLY than for any of our other records. We wanted to make sure that we had the goods, because 15 was a great record. We want to continue to elevate our game."

Buckcherry began writing for BLACK BUTTERFLY last November before hitting the studio in the spring. "That's coming off 25 months of non-stop touring," Nelson notes. "Nobody was really taking off on vacation. We got right back to work."

The process, Todd says, was much the same as on 15. "I'll just come in with a vocal melody and we'll build a song that way... Keith'll put his magic on it, and Jimmy or Stevie will add their input as well, and we hash it together in a room," he explains. "We just tried not to overthink it. The challenge is to not get all caught up in 'Are they hits? Are they good enough? Is it gonna be great?' We just finish the songs and start tearing them apart once we have a body of work that we can look at."

The result, BLACK BUTTERFLY, again captures the band's ability to master a diverse repertoire of songs. The album erupts with fierce, fast-paced rock tracks like "Rescue Me" and "A Child Called 'It'." Yet "Don't Go Away" is a melodic, mid-tempo plea "about being vulnerable, longing to be with a loved one but feeling so far away," Todd says.

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