Q and A: John Boecklin (Bad Wolves)

By BRENDAN CRABB

PROLIFIC rock-radio heavy-hitters Bad Wolves have unleashed their fourth full-length album, Die About It (Better Noise Music).

The Los Angeles hard rock/metal outfit collaborated on the record with Josh Gilbert (As I Lay Dying), who co-produced it alongside John Boecklin (drums) and vocalist Daniel Laskiewicz, who joined the band for 2021’s Dear Monsters.
Hot Metal jumped on a Zoom call with Boecklin to find out more about the new record, being a “middle-class band”, touring plans and more.
Hot Metal: Here we are, another new Bad Wolves album – your fourth since 2018. It seems like it’s a non-stop album/tour/album/tour cycle for the band. Is that wanting to keep busy, or a need to keep putting new product out there?
John Boecklin: “This was the longest time we’ve had to record a record where there wasn’t like a deadline before we even started. Immediately we got back from the Volbeat tour, which was two-and-a-half months in Europe. That was around December 16th . And I was writing and recording pretty soon, within a month-and-a-half later. But they weren’t like, you have to have it done by this point. It was an open-ended book, so we took our time. So this one doesn’t quite feel as tour/album, tour/album. And in this day and age, too, depending on how big your band is, most bands can’t take off five, six years between records. They don’t have the money to because recording an album comes with an advance that you can use to record and live off and spread that money around a little bit. And then touring is obviously a means to make money as well, even though these days touring is crazy expensive. It’s insane. But you’ve got to stay busy if you’re a middle-class band.”
HM: I’ve heard Doc (Coyle, guitars) say that before, that Bad Wolves is a middle-class band. You’re not at that upper echelon yet, but that’s obviously the level you want to reach.
JB: “And every band that even is an upper-class band, they have their own financial problems. I just read an interview with Slipknot saying that they don’t make that much money. They’ve got nine guys and all that stuff. But look at the level of how they tour and what that musT cost. I don’t know what that’s like. I know Metallica has like 68 trucks on that new tour they’re doing. Those are numbers that I don’t even want to know what they are, what that overhead is. That’s insane.”
HM: Given how expensive it is to tour at the moment, does that just make it logistically Impossible to visit certain markets right now, either at home or overseas?
JB: “If the offer is good enough, then the band can come. I would say in America right now, you can say a tour bus right now costs $100,000 a month. And then if you add payroll and then you add commissions from your agent, your lawyer, your business manager, then it goes on from there to your management and taxes. It’s crazy (laughs). But yeah, to come to say, Australia, we have to have a significant amount of an offer, or we need to find money to invest in the tour at a loss to come there.”
HM: We’ll circle back to the topic of touring. This is DL’s second album with the band, and he seems more comfortable in the ranks now. On Die About It he’s able to showcase his versatility, from rapping to clean singing and growling.
JB: “Yeah, I totally agree with that. He came into our last record, Dear Monsters, which was kind of like half done, (maybe) a little bit more so than half done. This was the first record from scratch that we all started on the same page. And yeah, he’s about as versatile as anybody out there right now. And it was, maybe it’s the songs we wrote, but he was able to shine more on this one than the last one. That’s how it feels to me as well. I don’t really know how that happened, but being that it’s a transition into a new singer, it’s great to have him at the forefront of things. And he’s definitely outshining a lot of parts more than the music, where maybe Dear Monsters was a little … everything was more streamlined. (On the new album) he has standout parts on the song, like the ‘Bad Friend’ intro and stuff. You just think about the vocals; (on) ‘Die About It’, ‘Legends Never Die’, too. The music is more of a backseat. It’s a vocal hook song.”
HM: He’s written songs for other acts and has a production background too. Has he settled into Bad Wolves in that respect as well?
JB: “You’d have to ask him what his journey has been like, but stepping into a band, of what we were going through and all that, you’re going to tiptoe around things for a bit and kind of see what works and how it works and all that. There’s nothing worse than someone who joins a band and they’re very overzealous; ‘alright, this is what we’re doing’. And we didn’t need that at the time. But now DL is very comfortable with saying things he doesn’t like, things he wants to do, and he’s comfortable with telling me that, no, I’m wrong. Me and him don’t have any arguments on creative issues at all. So it’s great. I feel he’s very comfortable in the band at this point in time, of what he wants to do and what he won’t do, and what direction we should be going in. It’s great to be a part of his little world and he’s a part of ours.”
HM: How does the group’s writing dynamic operate these days?
JB: “Every one member would agree that it kind of starts with me, and I kind of get the ball rolling. Whether it’s a riff, whether it’s whatever idea, and getting ideas to a certain level. On this record, we worked with a writer named Seth Evans as well. He was a major part of helping with a couple of these tracks like ‘Hungry for Life’ and ‘Legends Never Die’. And Josh
Gilbert, the producer on this record is a very big help. But at the end of the day, it’s neither one person more than the other. It’s a group effort and DL certainly pitches in. DL wrote almost all of Savior. He wrote all of (it) vocally and melody wise, all of ‘Move On’, and some other parts. It’s an equal partnership, if you will, on just trying to get the best product possible. When it comes to specifically like vocal melodies and stuff, there’s no one person that is doing everything all the time.”
HM: After a very public and problematic change of vocalists, do you feel the band can now stand on its own two feet? That you’re now out the proverbial other side, and fans can judge Bad Wolves’ new music on its own merits?
JB: “Further out on the other side, yes. We’re further through the hole, not all the way through it, and we never will be. I mean, certain past members just seem to never want to leave us alone. But that’s okay. Even when we first started with the huge success of (a cover of The Cranberries’) ‘Zombie’ and stuff like that, it only took a little bit of time before in some people’s, in critics’ eyes or whatever, maybe we were an eye-rolling band, a one-hit wonder or that kind of thing. So I’m used to it at this point (laughs). No matter who’s in the band, there’s a stigma that comes with having a song, a cover song, being so successful.
But in terms of this record, we will stand on our own two feet. This record is fucking cooler than anything else we’ve ever done. And if you don’t like it, I don’t care.”
HM: (Laughs) And you’ve got a new touring member in the ranks, Issues guitarist Adrian  Rebollo. What does he bring to the band?
JB: “Well, it’s yet to be determined, as he hasn’t done any shows yet. I had my first and only rehearsal with him the other day, so he came fully prepared. That’s about all I could say. You know when you watch someone play guitar and you’re like, ‘that guy just looks cool?’ He just looks cool to me. And I don’t know him that well yet, and so to answer that question would be impossible. But his playing speaks for itself, that’s for sure.”
HM: It must be a welcome position to be in too, that you’re now so established that if you need to fill a spot in the band, quality players are lining up to take the gig.
JB: “Yes and no. It’s still a hard process of choosing someone, where it’s very important that they live in Los Angeles. Because DL, we learned quickly, he lives in Massachusetts, but he was the talent that we wanted. Flying him to rehearse and all that just it becomes difficult. So we kind of learned through that, that we do want someone who lives in California. And to find that is not always easy because, of course, there’s tons and tons of guitar players out there, but no one in our band is at the Whisky every Monday night checking out what’s happening, what young kids are doing (laughs). We’re a bit older, so it’s not that easy to
find. And to find someone who’s not green, who’s been on the road before, who understands tour etiquette, who has the skills and isn’t a fucking idiot, that is not easy to find in one package.”
HM: On the touring front, what do you have in the works, and is Australia in the mix at some point?
JB: “We’re doing this Bush tour, then that brings us to the close of 2023. We are discussing a three-band bill for next year. We are trying to do the European festivals again. We are looking at Australia. There was one thing that came up, we couldn’t afford to make it, but there’s no solid plans of anything I could announce today that would juice people up. But it’s all in the works.”
HM The band’s only visit here so far was playing arenas opening for Nickelback. So that’s a high level of touring to try and match the second time around.
JB: “I know. And it really makes me nervous when you start not getting over to markets, and it’s been way too long. That was 2019, I believe. We’re just approaching a bit too long (between visits). I feel like we will be coming back, and we apologize for not making it back there, but we’ve had some bumps in the road.”
HM: Any famous last words?
JB: “If you’re going to cry about it, might as well Die About It. Go check out our new record. It’s a heavy, positive album that reflects a band that’s been through a lot. It’s fucking cool and it’s not your average run-of-the-mill rock album, I think.”