BUCKCHERRY’s JOSH TODD Says Bands Have Five Seconds To Attract Listeners’ Attention On Streaming Platforms

In a new interview with Classic Album Review, BUCKCHERRY frontman Josh Todd was asked about KISS bassist/vocalist’s Gene Simmons‘s much-repeated lament that “rock is dead.”

“I understand what he means by that as far as the bigness of what rock used to be, and I think that’s what he means,” Josh said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET). “But [rock is] alive and kicking. There’s tons of rock bands putting out records and. But I understand what he means… I think it’s just a much different platform for everybody. Information is just so spread out now. There’s no controlled marketplace. There’s no radio-driven stuff anymore. It’s just everywhere. And so it’s very hard for people to focus on you. So, yeah, what he’s saying is completely correct.”

He continued: “Let me just tell you something. I don’t know if it was [around the release of BUCKCHERRY‘s] ‘Hellbound’ or ‘Warpaint’ [albums]. At ‘Warpaint’, we got sat down and said, ‘Okay, you’ve got 20 seconds to get somebody’s attention, and then that’s it.’ I’m, like, ‘What? 20 seconds?’ ‘Yeah.’ Guess what it is now. It’s like five seconds. And so that’s crazy. People are just flipping through stuff, and they just only watch what they see. So many people don’t even know you put a record out. It’s insane.”

Todd added: “Everything’s on streaming. In the States, there’s no rock radio anymore. It doesn’t mean anything. And so it’s just a whole different thing. So it’s all about promoting your stuff online, for sure, and streaming and all that, but it doesn’t mean what it used to mean. And I think that’s what he means.”

Several years ago, Forbes reported that the chance of a song being skipped in the first five seconds on streaming platforms was nearly 25% and there was a nearly 50% chance of the song being skipped before the end. A skip is registered each time a listener abandons a song before the song has completely finished, either because the listener explicitly presses the skip button, they click on a different song or they search for and start another song before the current song ends.

Earlier this month, BUCKCHERRY released a new holiday song called “Tell ‘Em It’s Christmas”.

BUCKCHERRY previously released another holiday song, “Christmas Is Here”, back in 2010.

BUCKCHERRY‘s latest album, “Vol. 10”, came out in June. The 11-song LP features 10 new BUCKCHERRY originals and, as a bonus track, a cover of the Bryan Adams classic “Summer Of 69”. The album was produced by Marti Frederiksen and recorded at Sienna Studios in Nashville. The album was released in North America by Round Hill Records, in Japan by Sony Japan, and by Earache Records for the rest of the world.

Frederiksen previously produced 2021’s “Hellbound” as well as BUCKCHERRY‘s fourth album, “Black Butterfly”, and co-wrote “Sorry”, among other songs, with the band.

In the summer of 2020, BUCKCHERRY recruited JETBOY‘s Billy Rowe as its new guitarist. He joined the group as the replacement for Kevin Roentgen, who left BUCKCHERRY in July of that year.

In 2019, BUCKCHERRY enlisted Francis Ruiz as its new drummer. He joined the group as the replacement for Sean Winchester, who exited BUCKCHERRY after laying down the drum tracks on “Warpaint”.