Just over a month from the start of Badflower’s “No Place Like Home” tour, Josh Katz, the band’s lead singer and guitarist, meets with me over Zoom. He’s wearing a dark T-shirt, and his dyed, straight blonde hair is brushed to the side of his face. A couple of microphones hang to the left of him on screen. He’s surrounded by four kittens, he tells me, though unfortunately, I never see them.
Badflower formed in Los Angeles in 2014 and has since dropped two full-length albums, 2019’s Okay, I’m Sick and 2021’s This Is How the World Ends. They’ve landed five singles in the top 10 of Billboard’s Mainstream Rock chart, including two No. 1s (“Heroin” and “The Jester”). They’ve shared bills with Incubus, Cage the Elephant, and Soundgraden. Still, Katz can’t help feeling like he doesn’t deserve any of it.
“I feel imposter syndrome like crazy,” he tells me. “I never feel like I’m deserving of anything good that happens in my career. Yet when it feels like things aren’t going well, I feel entitled, like I should have more than I do. It’s never satisfying.”
With the release of Badflower’s newest single, the anthemic, head-bopping “Detroit,” we chat about the band’s new song, their upcoming tour, and the insecurities that come with being an artist.
Tell me about your new single, “Detroit.” It’s not actually about the city, is it?
Josh Katz: It’s definitely not about Detroit. It was conceived and mostly the whole chorus was written and a lot of it was recorded on a bus in Detroit right before a show. None of the lyrics of the song at all felt like a good standout lyric to be the title.
So we went back and forth for a while, but it was always just called “Detroit” to us, so we called it that. Especially during that tour, I was writing in the back of the bus every day. And then the band would come in and we would all work on stuff. But I was pretty much starting a new idea every day. And this was just the idea for that day. We loved it right off the bat. I was like, “You know [what would] be cool…a crowd vocal. Let’s just have the crowd sing it tonight.” We recorded the crowd singing a couple of lyrics, and yeah…that was it.
How do you feel like your relationship with your fans has changed since you guys started off?
Obviously the fans are super important. The fans gave us a career, so I think it is cool to have them featured in a song that’s about how much I hate my career. So that’s pretty cool.
It definitely has changed. I think when it was growing in the early days, I was constantly talking to people, replying to things, and, I think because that was new too…I never had attention like that before. So it was really fun. And it was cool meeting people and getting to know people and obviously people who were moved by our music. Now I don’t think there’s any artist that has a really great relationship with their fans these days because everything is toxic now. I don’t know if you’ve noticed Internet behavior in real life. Different story, right? When we’re at a show and people are waiting in line and we talk to people, it’s the best. They’re the best. But I guess my relationship with fans feels so online now. And it’s weird. I feel like everybody’s judging you constantly. Everybody’s trying to find your flaws and your faults, and that’s not pleasant.
The lyrics to “Detroit” seem pretty personal. What were you feeling when you were writing it?
I’m on the verge of quitting, always. Honestly, I know that sounds kind of extreme, but almost every day I’m like, “Is this really what I want to be doing with my life, despite doing nothing else and dedicating everything I have to this one thing?” It gets really confusing when it doesn’t feel satisfying when things are good…the fall from grace hurts even more.
You know, when you’ve had some success and then you don’t, something doesn’t line up in the way that you expected it to, or people don’t like something that you’re doing, or you sell less tickets to a show. Whatever it is, then it really hurts. And so I’m constantly searching for the joy in it. And that’s what the song is about.
It was never about the success, even though that was the motivation. That’s not what brought me happiness in this. What brought me happiness was traveling the world with my friends and doing something when all of our other friends were starting families and having kids and probably were a lot happier for that. But we were doing something different, something that felt special and different.
Having the thing that you’re searching for is the most disappointing feeling.
You’re starting a new tour in September, right?
We’re actually getting ready to leave for Australia in a couple days. So we’re doing a full Australian run and then a very short break, and then this U.S. run.
Do you get anxious when you perform live?
It’s mostly the hour leading up to the show. I’m most nervous right now about the flight to Australia. I’m going to hate that flight. I’ve done that flight, and it sucks. I’ve struggled with anxiety my entire adult life. So I still get super nervous before I play, sometimes to the point of panic. But it’s definitely less and less. It hasn’t been a debilitating problem like it has been in the past. So now I think of it as just normal nerves.
I’ve tried to shift my motivation a little bit. Like, I know that the things that really make me happy are not when I’m validated for being a cool rock-star guy. It’s when I feel like I’ve done something that affects somebody’s life in a positive way. Or maybe it shifts culture in the subtlest of ways just by our little corner of what pop culture is. You know, we exist there somewhere and we sort of color that in a way. And by coloring that you’re changing the entire color of all culture.
To see our running list of the top 100 greatest rock stars of all time, click here.