Josh Todd and Keith Nelson are tired partners in crime. The BUCKCHERRY singer and guitarist are up early the day after their recent Toronto show and a night of partying at the infamous Bovine Sex Club. But they're not so tired as to let my first question pass unnoticed.

"What's Keith like?" The heavily-tattooed Todd pauses a moment before answering. "Very complex creature. He's a really hard worker, he's a great friend and he's a great guitar player."

Keith, describe Josh."He's a big piece of s**t," Nelson jokes. "You know what? Josh is really passionate. He's really one of the most self-motivated people I've ever met. He does not need a wake-up call or a motivation speech to get going. It's the truth, and I think that's a really rare thing to find in a singer because usually you're trying to get your singer out of jail or trying to get him to rehearsal, and that's not the case."

If Buckcherry is nothing like the rock & roll disaster they seemed to be thanks to their cocaine-positive 1999 hit single 'Lit Up', credit Todd and Nelson, the band's sole remaining original members and its core songwriters. As they graduated from unknown LA hopefuls to major label success story, Nelson and Todd watched their fellow band members change - and not for the better. Their self-titled debut sold well and drew comparisons to early Rolling Stones, while changes at their record label, DreamWorks, and the relative failure of the follow-up, 2001's Time Bomb, only worsened the increasing internal dissension.

"Any time there was a monumental occasion that happened in the life of the band, you would see the personalities shift and change a little bit," Nelson says of the original line-up's unraveling. "And then cut to four years later and we're surrounded by a group of people that you don't even really know because they've changed so much from the guys you started with. It's a bummer."

So Buckcherry broke up. Kind of. Todd recorded a solo album and dabbled in acting while Nelson tried to break into record production. Communication between the duo was intermittent. In 2002, they got a call from ex-Guns N' Roses members Slash, Duff McKagan and Matt Sorum to play a benefit show for the family of Randy Castillo, the Ozzy Osbourne drummer who died of cancer earlier that year. The hastily-arranged band played a brief set that went over well - well-enough for Nelson and Todd to write songs and record demos with the trio, and take meetings with management. Eventually, Slash, McKagan and Sorum would recruit Stone Temple Pilots singer Scott Weiland and form Velvet Revolver. Nelson and Todd were inspired to reform Buckcherry.

"It was quite an evolved process," Nelson explains of the G N' R fling. "And if you would read their press releases and what they say, they make it sound like Josh went and auditioned for them one day, and it wasn't really like that. But they need to tell the story that way for whatever reason, and now we're going to tell the truth. That's what happened, and it was fun while it lasted and it's over. I think from our perspective now, looking at it, it's the best thing because we get to do this and they get to go play with themselves."

Nelson denies any ill will between himself and Todd ever existed, insisting instead that the time off was beneficial to their partnership.

"I don't think that the 'hiatus' or the 'break' was in a nasty way," he says. "Things need to air out a little bit. I think marriages would last longer if you could go out for a year and f**k other broads and then go back to your wife. It might actually work out!"

Suitably recharged and hungry again, Nelson and Todd recruited a new line-up of musician friends, including Jimmy Ashurst (bass), Stevie D (guitar) and Xavier Muriel (drums).

"The great thing about this line-up and this band is that we are kind of in the same spot in our life as far as our age, as far as the blows we've taken in this business," Todd says. "So we're all really grateful to be doing it. It's this common thread that I think is going to keep us together for a long time."

Response to the new Buckcherry has so far been positive, stoked as it's been by the success of Fifteen's first single, 'Crazy Bitch'. Rock radio has picked up the raucous track, but the uncensored version of the video, featuring topless strippers recruited from the band's MySpace page, has been widely distributed online and contributed equally to Buckcherry's newfound notoriety.

"Especially for a rock band," Nelson says, "you live and die by the radio, and I think that was the case for a long time. With Time Bomb, alternative rock radio didn't really embrace that record so we can only take that record so far sales-wise. But now it would seem that radio is just another support mechanism of the whole thing; it's not as big a part. And we've proven that by going to satellite radio, to MySpace."

Todd and Nelson are savouring their hard-won independence and don't intend on giving it up anytime soon. "I think what we learned was just to stay true to ourselves and that we really know what's best for Buckcherry," Todd says. "I think that's why this record is so good because there was no A&R guy in the mix or all these people trying to tell us how we need to sound or what we need to do."

Instead, the band went into the studio with producer Mike Plotnikoff (Hoobastank, P.O.D.) and engineer Paul DeCarli (Rob Zombie, My Chemical Romance) and knocked out the new album in just fifteen days, hence the title. Which was just enough time, Todd says. "You can always spend more time making a record. I'm happy for deadlines because if there wasn't, you could pretty much second-guess it all the way to the end."

"If we needed another week, we could have taken another week," Nelson says, "but we were done. I think that there's a certain beauty to not overdoing it, over-thinking it and basically analyzing it to death. We spent time rehearsing and writing and knew what we wanted to do. The band plays great, we just need to go in and get it down."

That they did. Fifteen is a raw slice of unapologetic rock & roll that tempers its hip-swinging blues influences with a metal-derived crunch. There are tender moments ('Sorry', co-written with Aerosmith song doctor Marti Fredrickson) but this is libidinous rock with little relation to the emo-punk records currently dominating the rock landscape.

"Ugh. I'm so over it I can't even tell you," Todd says. "I can't stand emo bands. They just all sound alike, and it's all so asexual. It's so boring."

Says Nelson: "I think it suffers from any other wave of music, the same demise, which is you have a couple of bands that kind of lead the way and do a really good job at it and then you've got just the f**kin' glut of bands that copy them, to the point where you can't tell them apart."

Which means that the playing field - theoretically - is open for the return of the kind of dirty rock & roll Buckcherry purveys. Whether Fifteen succeeds or not, they're happy with their work.

"I think ultimately there's no guarantee whether you're going to succeed or fail because there's a lot of great records that don't do anything," Nelson acknowledges. "At the end of it all, I think we'd feel much better knowing we stuck to what we wanted to do and we succeeded or failed because of our own hand. I'd rather go out in a ball of fire than whimpering and kowtowing to someone else's needs anymore."

Sean Plummer

Sleep Is The Enemy proclaims the title of the third full-length disc from Danko Jones. Well, the hard rockin' Toronto trio are winning the battle, with their rep as one of the hardest working bands in showbiz fully intact. After recently traversing Canada opening for Nickelback, they're heading back to their happy hunting grounds of Europe for plenty of club and festival dates, followed by more intensive North American gigging.

Even a short breather in Toronto was interrupted when they rocked the Horseshoe twice in one night as part of CMW. Mainman Danko Jones summed up their work ethic to Access, explaining that "the chance to play music that you wrote yourselves in front of people is a privilege. When you start turning down opportunities, you are taking yourselves way too seriously."

That's why he got righteously pissed at indie rock snobs criticizing them for playing with the terminally unhip Nickelback. "Being asked by the band personally and knowing it'd be in sold-out hockey arenas, it was a no-brainer to say yes. It's fun to play in your home country, 10,000 chunks at a time. A couple of members of a Toronto band known to be real chic and cool advised us not to do the tour. I just don't understand that. To have the luxury to turn that down is not something we have."

The no-frills but high-energy DJ sound has travelled better in Europe than here to date. A deal with hot Swedish label Bad Taste helped the band get a real Euro foothold, and the charisma of frontman Danko has made them a popular live attraction there. There's some tongue in cheek humour to his onstage strut and horny persona, but if you're not careful he'll have his tongue in your girlfriend's cheek!

Danko is full of praise for Bad Taste's support. "The people there will e-mail us at 10 pm on a Sunday, while in Canada, labels punch out at 3 pm on a Friday! We've been on several labels here [they're newly signed to Aquarius] but never really had that kind of support."

Is he bugged about their comparative anonymity here? "I'd be lying if I said I didn't want to be just as popular here as there. I've had bitter moments in the past, but I'm kind of over that now 'cos we get to travel to these places and play the great European festivals."

Hopefully the more melodic sound of Sleep Is The Enemy will boost their career, for cuts like 'First Date' and 'Don't Fall In Love' would make rock radio a better place. "It was a conscious decision to get more melodic, but that wasn't just to get airplay. We're not bringing in anything new or alienating our old fans at all. We just wanted to change it up within the parameters of our already established sound."

Don't look for future changes in their three chord rifferama. "We know who we are, and there is something to be said for bands that stick to the story. They're the ones who have survived Mötörhead, AC/DC, Slayer, Ramones. I'm 99.9 per cent sure of how the next Slayer record will sound, and I'm still going to buy it!"

Danko and bassist JC (John Calabrese) have flown the DJ flag for over a decade now, while drummer Dan Cornelius is a very recent recruit. The group's intensive gigging over the past five years especially has seen them earn major peer respect.

"I've met [metal god] Lemmy a few times, and it was very flattering to find out he digs us. About three years ago, we were on a bill with Monster Magnet in London. I told [singer] Dave Wyndorf we were big fans, and he told me how he likes We Sweat Blood more than Born A Lion [the previous two DJ albums].That meant a lot 'cos I've spent many hours listening to that man's voice."

Kerry Doole

It is five o'clock on a Wednesday afternoon in Toronto and Montreal's THE STILLS are sitting in their green room following their soundcheck for a private party they are going to play later this evening. The band is currently on tour in support of their latest record, Without Feathers (due May 9), the follow-up to their successful 2003 debut, Logic Will Break Your Heart.

One thing that has not remained still is The Stills' line-up. Tim Fletcher is still on vocals and guitars, and Oliver Corbeil remains on bass, but touring keys man Liam O'Neil has been brought on board permanently, guitarist Dave Paquet left the band (amicably), drummer-songwriter Dave Hamelin dropped his sticks and moved up front on guitars and vocals, and Julien Blais is the new drummer. Further, on Without Feathers, Hamelin sings nine of the songs, whereas on LWBYH, he sang just one, with Fletcher handling the rest, even those written by Dave.

"Without Feathers is a Woody Allen book," says 25-year-old Hamelin. "I've read that book 10,000 times. I used to read it every night before I went to bed so I'd feel better. We didn't really want a title for this record, but everyone was like, 'You need a title, you need a title', so we were brainstorming."

"I saw that Dave had named the hard drive on his computer Without Feathers and it rang true on a lot of levels," adds O'Neil.

"And," says Hamelin, "it refers to our last record which had feathers on the cover."

Unlike their debut, which drew comparisons to Joy Division and The Church, Without Feathers loses the '80s retro and replaces it with a warmer, more '70s-like intimacy. It's an organic-sounding record, influenced by singer-songwriters like Paul McCartney, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, John Lennon and Paul Robison, and bands like Fleetwood Mac, The Beatles and The Band. It's energetic and has moments of rocking out, but it also retains a more stripped-down, up-close feel.

"I don't think our last record was that personal-sounding," says Hamelin. "The songs were more personal this time."

"We didn't want to undermine the songs by undermining the delivery," adds O'Neil, "so the delivery had to be more personal."

"Last time," says Hamelin, "we rushed. We were like, 'Let's go, go, go'. On this record, we took our time to make sure that we liked every single part and that we thought everything was interesting and special. That was our focus. We wanted to do our best because we knew that people would hear it."

"We knew that at least a certain portion of our fans would buy the record right away," says Liam, "so we wanted to give them something they would not have expected in a million years."

Despite critical acclaim and a loyal fan base, The Stills remains humble about their success. "We're not really that successful, yet. Not enough to ruin everything," Hamelin laughs.

"I think if you believe everything people are saying about you, maybe you stop realizing that you have to earn the success and the praise, and that it's not over," says O'Neil. "You have to keep bettering what you're doing."

"Enough people have dissed us that we have enough of a mix that we just want to keep rolling," jokes Hamelin.

Indeed, the band is just about to roll into a local radio station to preview the record's first single, 'Destroyer', a song Hamelin wrote on the road. Starting off with a simple drum beat and poppy piano riffs, the other instruments slowly find their way on to the track alongside Hamelin's crooning vocals until the song builds into a beautiful, intense, sweeping and melodic epic that sounds a bit like Jellyfish if they had written a '50s song in the '70s. A perfectionist, Hamelin is burning an updated copy of the single from his laptop computer because the radio station does not have the right version, and, like his philosophy for life and songwriting, which is "if you're going to do something, do it, commit to it," Dave wants to get it just right.

Pamela Chelin