Buckcherry Singer Josh Todd Wants to Front a Minor Threat Reunion
Buckcherry singer Josh Todd offered his frontman services to Minor Threat should the legendary hardcore punk act ever reunite without their original lead vocalist, Ian MacKaye — the straight-edge icon and Dischord Records label head who also founded the influential indie rockers Fugazi.
Todd's proposal came out of his love for Minor Threat's sole studio album, 1983's Out of Step; it's a fandom that, perhaps surprisingly, has infused his entire career. As the Buckcherry singer recently told Classic Rock, "You can hear Out of Step in what [Buckcherry] do."
Naturally, Classic Rock couldn't help but highlight the dichotomy between Buckcherry's sometimes drug-fueled lyrics (e.g., "I love the cocaine" in 1999's "Lit Up") and Minor Threat's odes to abstinence from illicit substances. Regardless, the Threat undoubtedly made an impact on Todd's formative years.
"I was 15 and I felt like an outcast," the Buckcherry singer recalled. "I was dealing with a lot of dysfunction in my personal life … a lot of adversity at home. I couldn't trust the men in my life. There was a lot of anger inside of me. So I spent all my time at the record store. I had a crazy independent punk rock collection — and Minor Threat's Out of Step was one of them."
He continued, "[That album] felt like it was describing what was going on with me at that time. I truly connected with the recklessness and aggression of songs like the title track. It made me feel like I was part of a tribe when I listened to Out of Step."
Indeed, the musician's Minor Threat love grew so deep that, one time, when Todd ran into former Threat member Brian Baker, now a guitarist in Bad Religion, he told the instrumentalist he'd be willing to take the mic for a Minor Threat trek if MacKaye wasn't interested.
The Buckcherry singer said to Baker, "Hey, man, if you ever want to do a Minor Threat tour and Ian doesn't want to do it, I'll shave my head and we'll fucking do it!"
The former Minor Threat member's response? Baker "just laughed," Todd admitted.
But is the idea so far-fetched? Perhaps there is some way that hedonistic hard rock and straight-edge punk could combine for a Todd-fronted Minor Threat tour. The world may never know.
Buckcherry recently canceled several of their own concerts supporting their new album Hellbound after two members tested positive for COVID-19. Earlier in the pandemic, Todd became a phlebotomist and assisted in the vaccine drive. Get Buckcherry concert info here.