{image1}Todd Joseph would prefer his life be all but ordinary.
"I'd rather be on a tour bus talking to you from there," admits Joseph, bassist for Milwaukee rock act The Buzzhorn, which tasted success this time last year as their single "Ordinary" picked up airplay around the country off the band's Atlantic Records release, "Disconnected."
"To be honest, it sucks being at home," Joseph says. "We did shows around the country and everywhere we went we had a killer response."
But victimized by budgeting cuts, marketing shortfalls and unlucky circumstances, The Buzzhorn struggled to keep the national spotlight despite a continuous high local profile.
"We were in the studio and the fourth day in there was when the towers got hit. Between that and the economy, and a marketing plan that wasn't all that well put together, we were already fighting an uphill battle."
Joseph said the disc's eventual release coinciding with Taproot and Audiovent, two high profile bands in the rock industry, hurt matters as well. And of course the band was from Milwaukee, not exactly a nationally recognized hot spot for rock bands.
"We had (the CD's producer) Howard Benson tell us that the album was really awesome, but you're coming from Milwaukee. So already we're not starting on the 20-yard line, we're starting from our own end zone," Joseph says.
The band put forth a tireless effort to manufacture response among national radio stations, finding success in cities such as Sacramento and at WRIF in Detroit, a station Joseph says was using "Ordinary" as bed music for on-air promos without any lobbying from the group.
"We had a lot of stations listen to the record and they said it was awesome, and you could tell they were genuine. But it was spotty; we were on stations on the eastern seaboard and Oklahoma, Atlanta, the spaces should have been filled in.
"We got all the ads but they were never followed up. Sad as it was, there was no reason to keep throwing money at the record, it was time to take what we learned and move on."
Joseph says the biggest casualty of the situation was "Out of My Hands," which was released as the album's second single. But before the buzz dies down completely, a lot lies ahead for the four-man unit, including a big local gig at summer's end and a new album.
Following up their Summerfest performance as an opening act for Taproot July 1, the band returns to the lakefront headlining a two-day stint August 29 and 30 as part of the Harley-Davidson 100th anniversary celebration.
"We had Jeff Bleustein, who's a Vice-CEO with Harley, (who) we met through a web designer, and the word is out and they love the album," Joseph says. "So now we have two killer shows, and at Summerfest we sold a lot of albums so hopefully we can keep going with that."
Joseph also hopes to begin work on the album in late August, aiming to finish pre-production by the end of September and have studio time booked shortly thereafter.
"We're not going to move forward with the album until we have a massive marketing plan hammered out," he said, hoping that the album will surface around April or May 2004. With about 32 songs already penned in anticipation of the album's creation, The Buzzhorn plans to work with producer Mark Richardson, whose production company has worked with Moby, among many others. The Strokes are currently recording in Richarson's studio, TMF.
"He's done a lot of hip-hop and other stuff, but he's looking to do rock. We went out to meet him a while ago, and he's the nicest guy, we played his party on the Fourth of July and we totally hit it off. As soon as The Strokes are done doing over-dubs for their new album, we're going to go meet him in New York on July 16."
From there, The Buzzhorn can resume touring, something Joseph speaks about with the most animation in his voice. "The coolest thing is when we rehearsed between the Foo Fighters and Queens of the Stone Age, we were literally walking around in the same 20 feet of space," he said. "Then we go backstage and there's P.O.D. sitting right there.
"I think the one guy that really knocked me off my feet, and the other guys too, was Jerry Cantrell, because we're inspired by a lot of the writing he did. I got to meet Tommy Lee, and he was cool too, he's a rock icon."
Until the band can get back on the road, Joseph does studio work to make a living. "You can't sit here and not work so we're all trying to grab bar jobs, whatever it takes. Just some side work here and there -- it's a hectic life, and I'm not sure how many people realize that."
Recently tabbed for a WAMI award celebrating local music, the band isn't about to give up on reclaiming a piece of the national airplay pie.
"You look at bands like Soundgarden and Queens of the Stone Age, five albums later they start to get noticed. What had happened if they had been dropped after one album? We're happy that we haven't been dropped (by Atlantic).
"Radio's got to step up to the plate, we've already lost two rock clubs in the area and we can't afford to lose anything else," Joseph says. "People have to go out there and support music too, if you want to put this city on the map, you have to go out and buy albums and not download them."
Joseph, drummer Rob Bueno, vocalist Ryan Mueller and guitarist Bert Zweber want to put Milwaukee on the map and stop the rock music world being so "Disconnected" from the area's scene.
