Buckcherry vocalist Josh Todd has offered to step into Ian MacKaye’s Vans trainers and front Minor Threat should the seminal Washington DC hardcore band ever wish to reform without their iconic leader.
In one of the week’s more unlikely news stories, Todd has selected Minor Threat’s 1983 album Out Of Step as his ‘My First Love’ pick in the new issue of Classic Rock magazine, and revealed that he has already offered his services to former Minor Treat bassist-turned-guitarist Brian Baker should the DC punk trailblazers re-group without MacKaye at the helm. Given that Todd is best known for the song Crazy Bitch and the lyric “I love the cocaine” (from Lit Up), whereas MacKaye is the author of the song Straight Edge and sang “I don’t smoke, I don’t drink, I don’t fuck…” on the title track of Out Of Step, this would be a bold recruitment by Baker, to put it mildly.
Speaking of his discovery of MacKaye’s band, Todd tells Classic Rock, “I was fifteen and I felt like an outcast. I was dealing with a lot of dysfunction in my personal life at that time, 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.”
“I felt like it was describing what was going on with me at that time,” Todd continues. “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.”
“You can hear Out Of Step in what we do, too.”
Todd goes on to say that he once ran into Brian Baker, now playing with Bad Religion, and told him, “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!”
Baker’s reaction?
“He just laughed,” Todd admits.
For more from Todd on his love of hardcore punk, pick up the new issue of Classic Rock, which also contains features on Judas Priest, The Who, Elton John, Motorhead and more.
