Josh Katz Says Badflower Have 'Always Been Rewarded For Honesty'

"It was harder for me than it's ever been."

Josh Katz joined Loudwire Nights on Tuesday (July 15) to dive deep into Badflower's third studio album, No Place Like Home. In the conversation, he held nothing back about how difficult it's been getting excited to talk about new music.

Listen to the full conversation in the player near the end of this article.

"Normally it's just, these songs write themselves," Katz told host Chuck Armstrong.

"But this time around, I had to really force — I don't have that blind confidence like I did. I'm not sure how well it worked, but I really did my best. I think if people are feeling the way that I'm feeling, maybe I nailed it, but we'll find out."

When Chuck asked Katz how he focuses on pushing ahead to write and promote new music, Katz shared some brutal truth with the audience.

"Nothing, nothing right now," he said about what keeps him motivated.

"Honestly, right now, the thing that's keeping me going is the memory of how I used to feel about it. I have to force myself into the mindset of me 10 years ago and just remind myself, like, you're supposed to love this. You do love this. You're just going through something right now."

Katz admitted it'd be inauthentic for him to feign excitement, even though he is very proud of the work that he and his bandmates put into No Place Like Home.

"This is new territory for me," he shared.

"I've never felt quite like this before. But what I will say is my entire career, in this band's career, we've always been rewarded for honesty. When we are being the most honest and writing songs that were honest and we're talking about them in an honest way, that's when people connected the most."

READ MORE: Daron Malakian Discusses Scars on Broadway's New Album + Writing For System of a Down

He acknowledged that he feels the least glamorous he's felt as a musician, especially right when a new album is released, but he has no shame in being truthful with where he's at.

"If it blows up in my face and if this thing becomes unsuccessful because of my lack of enthusiasm...if that ends up being the downfall of my band, I think I'll be able to sleep at night better than if the downfall happened when I was pretending to feel a certain way that I didn't feel."

What Else Did Badflower's Josh Katz Discuss on Loudwire Nights?

• Why the song "Paws" — about saying goodbye to his best friend, his dog Maggie — hasn't been as cathartic as he expected: "The death of my dog is more important than anything else to me in that moment. This dog was my life ... Music historically for me has always been very therapeutic and it's not working like it used to. Which is really unfortunate, but it's just the truth."
• Where "Paws" began: "The first two lyrics of the chorus — 'You could never know it was your time to go' — was the first thing that came out of my mouth. I was in this room, just kind of strumming along and I didn't even write it down. I went, 'That's stupid. That's so generic. I would never say something so generic.' Like, that's beneath me. But then as I was doing it, I looked down and my dog was laying down right next to me, breathing kind of heavy, which she started doing toward the end of her life...and it's just like, in that moment, it hit me."
• Why he's surprised he doesn't have the motivation he once did: "It could be because I'm sober. It could be because I'm a little bit older and a little more jaded and the magic of music it doesn't seem to be as magical as it once did for me, which is real doom and gloom ... This album, if you listen to a lot of it, is about these feelings."

Listen to the Full Interview in the Podcast Player Below

Josh Katz joined Loudwire Nights on Tuesday, July 15; the show replays online here, and you can tune in live every weeknight at 7PM ET or on the Loudwire app; you can also see if the show is available on your local radio station and listen to interviews on-demand.