There's More Broing Out & Fewer Strippers In Buckcherry's Band Room These Days

When asked what some of his favourite AC/DC riffs are, Buckcherry guitarist Keith Nelson laughs before uttering, "Oh, man!" Then after a little more thinking time he offers, "Taking something as simple as an A-chord and making it sound so ominous like the intro to Highway To Hell, I mean, that's awesome." Buckcherry actually toured with AC/DC "a few years back" and Nelson shares, "I did not miss one note of the entire show for every date that we were on tour with them. It was phenomenal... I mean I don't wanna date myself, but I was listening to AC/DC on eight-track tapes, man; that stuff is just like in my DNA, that's a part of the fabric of the music that I'm moulded out of. You know, there's so much to learn."

"Any Led Zeppelin record, or an early ZZ Top record, is a reason to own a Les Paul. Any AC/DC record is a reason to own a Gretsch or an SG."

Although Nelson didn't pick up an axe until he was "about 17 years old" ("I was a late bloomer"), he was playing drums up until that point. "I wanted to write songs and that's something that I was havin' a hard time doin' on the drums, so being a guitarist just kind of evolved out of that," he explains. He's always been "ridiculously passionate about music" and Nelson recalls, "My friends used to call my basement at my house The Museum, because it was [filled with] all records and magazines and instruments... At some point I thought, 'Well I should probably try and do this for a living if I could possibly make that happen.' I have been very fortunate."

Nelson estimates he currently owns "probably somewhere around a hundred" guitars. "In the States, I tour with about ten," he adds. When asked whether he can work out what type of guitar is being used in the recordings of other bands, he claims, "I can get pretty close to telling what they're using. I mean, there's a lotta computer manipulation these days... but — especially when I hear the older records — I can definitely tell what they're using, for sure. Or at least I think I can." Has he ever purchased a guitar based on how it sounds on someone else's record? "Absolutely," he chuckles. "Yeah, of course. I mean, you know, any Led Zeppelin record, or an early ZZ Top record, is a reason to own a Les Paul. Any AC/DC record is a reason to own a Gretsch or an SG, you know? But Stones stuff, maybe you wanna play a Telecaster."

So what's the scene like in Buckcherry's band room these days? "We are five guys that've known each other for a long time at this point. Even the guys that joined the band 12 years ago are guys that we've known for a long time, so we're really old friends and there's a lot of mutual respect. And there's just a comfort in knowing that you got your boys wit ya. We're like a little gang." Pause. "I guess you wanted to hear there's strippers everywhere and... cocaine." Ah, maybe not so much anymore? Nelson chuckles, "We've been through a lot together, let's just say that."