I recently caught up with BADFLOWER frontman JOSH KATZ.

We talked about their first single in over three years, “Teacher Has a Gun,” and last week’s follow-up, “Detroit.”

We also discussed his creative process, why he doesn’t read Reddit, and the importance of being present in the journey. 

Photo credit: Jesse Paul/Publicity 

RYAN J. DOWNEY: ‘Teacher Has a Gun,’ your first single in over three years, arrived at the end of June. I imagine there’s a combination of anxiety and relief in releasing that.

JOSH KATZ: It’s like all anxiety [laughs]. No relief at all. Especially with a song like that. Why did we choose a song called ‘Teacher Has a Gun’ when we could have been so much safer about it? But that’s very ‘on brand’ for us. The reception could have been so bad. I had nightmares about it leading up to the single’s release because the climate has changed since the last time we put out music.

We were definitely nervous. It could have gone badly. And it didn’t. We played it live for the first time at a festival, and it went off. So that was really cool. We opened with it at this festival. We rehearsed it maybe two and a half times – barely played it at all – which is also very on-brand for us. It was fun. People were stoked about that.

The reception seems excellent. There’s even a Reddit thread about the song.

I don’t look at Reddit. It scares me. I don’t want to see what those people are saying [laughs].

The song title and setting of the video in a school gymnasium were provocative. With things so polarized, it is difficult to put out anything that sparks a conversation.

What’s so interesting about how people are polarized is that we’re clearly not on any ‘team.’ The song isn’t an opinion. It’s an observation from the perspective of a kid. It’s not that deep, yet people attach what team they think we are on to it. There’s been a handful of comments on YouTube. People think we’re trying to say something a lot deeper. It’s just commentary. That’s all it is.

There’s so much politics these days that is all entertainment. The whole thing is a big show. It’s hard to create an entertaining piece of art around it when the thing itself is more entertaining than any piece of art about it will ever be.

What was the writing process like? Does it start with a vocal hook, a melody, or a riff?

I’ll play a little riff and sing some gibberish lyrics. I’ll work on it for a bit, then jump to the next thing. And then I’ll cycle through and go back to it. I was just jamming on the guitar singing something, and ‘My teacher as a gun’ came out of my mouth. It meant nothing at all, lyrically. It just happened. It was just like that sound came out of my mouth. I was like, ‘That’s sick. Write that down.’ That’s usually how it goes. And that tells me that there’s something internal. There’s some story I’m trying to tell. There’s something I’m trying to get out. And, usually, the beginnings of it are involuntary. It just happens. And I’m like, ‘Now, there’s a thing that naturally came out. I can write around that.’

Tell me about the creation of ‘Detroit’ and how it became the next single.

That was written mainly on tour. And we were writing a lot like this, the same process, but in the backroom of the bus, all set, with monitors and the whole thing. We wrote this song in Detroit. We had the crowd at the show that night sing a part of it because it felt like it made sense to have a crowd vocal on it. After the tour was over, we threw that song in the garbage. I get insecure about what I’m working on. If I don’t hear that magic I did initially, I’ll move on. And then that was one that I pulled out of the garbage. I was like, ‘I shouldn’t have thrown this away. This needs to be finished.’ And now I love it.

Usually, when you sit down to purposefully write ‘the single,’ it’s never all that great.

It’s always bad if you’re trying too hard to do anything. If you’re trying too hard to be edgy or poppy, or writing a single and creating an identity that might not necessarily be your actual one. That was something I learned from this song. I was afraid of this song because it was poppy. I was like, ‘When we get back into the world, I want to be that fierce rock band that we’ve been many times in the past.’

But then, when I stopped and analyzed that, I was like, ‘What will I do? Sit down to write heavier shit just because?’ That’s not me.

If I feel like writing heavier stuff, the heavier songs come, and plenty of them. If they come naturally, then great. But this one was real. I meant every lyric when I was writing it. So, why am I so afraid of it? Why am I so afraid of what that might do to my identity? So, this is a special one because I leaned into that. I love it, and I feel really comfortable singing it.

It speaks to what you’ve established with the band from the beginning. There are no guardrails regarding how poppy or heavy it can be. You set it up early on as a band.

Yeah, luckily, we did do that. Our band has different sets of fans. There are fans of the softer stuff and fans of the heavy stuff. And all of them liked all of it, but there were the people who were like, ‘Alright, I’m ready for this version of Badflower that I love.’ I want to believe that people are most drawn to the honesty. So [as long as] something that feels authentic and honest, it doesn’t matter what genre lane it’s in. And to me, ‘Detroit’ really has that thing.

Whether it’s a movie, TV show, song, or live performance, all I need to know is that person felt like they had to make it. It has that honesty and that urgency of, like, ‘I’ve got to get this out of me.’

Yep, I totally agree.

Otherwise, you might as well just write jingles for commercials.

Sometimes, when you have a deadline, you’re like, ‘I have nothing to say right now, but I am supposed to be releasing stuff.’ You can tell when it’s purposeless. I hate that. That’s why it takes so long for our band to put out music. We can’t just turn them out like that. There has to be some life experience. Things have to change. There has to be a reason.

Where is ‘Detroit’ coming from thematically/lyrically?

It’s a very personal, real one. It sounds a little bit entitled, and maybe it is. But that’s how I feel, which is such a cliché. Nothing is ever satisfying when you get it. The journey to get it is the most satisfying part. But you don’t know that when you’re on the trip. This song is about what it feels like to get the thing you think you want and how unsatisfying it can be. And that feeling of, ‘Now what do I do? I dedicated my entire life to this thing, and now that I have it, it doesn’t feel as good as I imagined it would.’ Sometimes, it feels bad. So, what do I do with my life now? That’s what the song is about.

‘If I can just get this and this, then I’ll be happy.’ And it seldom works that way.

I would venture to say it never works that way. It never, ever, ever works that way. Maybe I’m wrong.

It’s about learning to be, maybe not satisfied, but at least present in pursuing it.

 Totally agreed. #