Making History

The nature of garage bands has changed. Years ago, the term referred to a group of people struggling to compose basic rifts that would embody their hopes and fears, all in less than four minutes. Now, a garage band is an altogether different beast. Young angry musicians slam around a stage, distorting lyrics with harsh vocals. Or maybe it is the hopes and fears that have changed. Staind offers a perfect example of this transition.  

Staind was formed when Aaron Lewis and Mike Mushok met at a Christmas party.  The two remain the most outspoken members of the band. Drummer Jon Wysocki and bass player Johnny April make up the remainder of Staind. Lewis serves as front man and also writes all of the music.  For the young musician, song styling is akin to therapy.  His childhood was admittedly rough, including emotional distance between his parents and sexual abuse.  These events fuel Lewis' lyrical fire.  Ironically, Lewis was to join the family business as a jeweler in his Springfield, Massachusetts, home.  Staind put those plans on hold when they started to tour.   

Many critics feel it is Lewis' poetic revelations that make the band special.  However, Staind always knew they had what it takes.  For the first few years of their union, the band toured the New England area, building a local fan base.  Other bands were also noticing the group's power to get fans moving and staying with their particular beat. 

Besides helping to define band members musically, touring helped the band perfect its live show.  Soon, they were attracting fans that just wanted to see them in person.  In 1996, Staind released their self-produced album, Tormented. With over 4,000 copies sold, the band had a hit.  

With a legitimate album under its belt, Staind began opening for other metal bands. On October 23, 1997, they received an offer to play with Sugarmilk and Limp Bizkit at the Webster Theater in Hartford, Connecticut.  This really excited the band.  

To their surprise, Limp Bizkit lead singer Fred Durst approached them as soon as they arrived at the Webster Theater. They were little prepared for the verbal barrage that followed. Fred had seen Staind's cover for Tormented and feared he had booked a gig with Satan worshipers.  

"Fred [Durst] is a spiritual guy," explains Mushok, who exchanged words with Durst that night. "The artwork on our first album was a bit, uh, graphic [a bloody Bible impaled on a knife, with a Barbie hanging upside down from a cross]. He threw the CD across the room and tried to get us kicked off the bill. They hated us before we played a note."  Luckily, Durst let Staind play as scheduled. 

While Durst fumed at the stage-side, Staind went on with the show. Then, a miracle happened. Listening to the powerful, hypnotic lyrics, spine-chilling bass, and drum backup, it moved Durst. 

"When we came offstage, he told us we were the best band he'd seen in a long time and that he wanted to produce us for his new company," Mushok says.  Suddenly, the art did not matter so much anymore. Durst urged Staind to contact him about collaborating on a future project. 

The moment lives in Lewis' mind as defining for the band. A month later, they were unable to get in touch with Durst because of the busy touring schedule. Staind hit the road to find Limp Bizkit. The band found Limp Bizkit in Boston, opening for The Deftones. Outside Bizkit’s trailer, Lewis handed DJ Lethal a demo tape and left. In the middle of the night, Lewis received a call from Durst himself declaring Staind brilliant. Durst immediately invited them to come to his Jacksonville, Florida, home to revamp their sound. 

Amusingly enough, the band’s van broke down just outside the Florida state line. With only one breakdown to contend with, Staind arrived at Durst's Jacksonville studio ready to make history. The Limp Bizkit front man was convinced that, if Staind would refine a few songs, they would succeed.  They recorded "A Flat," "Suffocate," and one of Lewis’ acoustic tracks, "Black Rain," at Sound City Studios with Fred and DJ Lethal producing. When the demo sounded right, Durst played some of Staind’s music to Jordan Schur, president of Flip Records. A few months later, in February 1998, the band performed at Limp Bizkit’s gold record party for 3 Dollar Bill Y’All. 

In April of 1999, after a stretch on the Vans Warped Tour, Staind entered Studio X (Pearl Jam’s studio), in Seattle, to record their full-length debut. Staind released Dysfunction, their first album from Flip/Elektra.  From the album, Staind built a remarkable success story. The band scored three major rock radio and video hits with "Just Go," "Mudshovel" and "Home."  They sold over a million albums. They became the Favorite New Band in Hit Parader's Reader's Poll, and in Guitar World's Reader's Poll, guitarist Mike Mushok was voted Best New Talent. They received five 2000 Boston Music Award nominations. They landed the headline slot on MTV's Return of the Rock tour.  

Staind has a fortunate stroke of luck that helped propel them to rock stardom.  Aaron Lewis' acoustic performance of the song "Outside," from the Family Values Tour 1999 live album, grew into a #1 radio smash right before the release of Break the Cycle.

"It's really an accidental phenomenon," Lewis explains about "Outside." "I've been playing it for quite some time. In the early days of the band, any money we made went back into the band, so two or three times a week I played acoustically to make money to live off. 'Outside' was one of the songs I played, but it wasn't really finished, so I made up different words every time. We almost put it on Dysfunction. Then, one night on the Family Values tour, ten minutes before going onstage, we decided to do it."

"We feel like we won over a lot of people while we were on the road," says Mushok.  

With so little rest and a new reputation to uphold, Mushok admits he did feel some strain. "It was this thing hanging over my head," he says. "I had a lot of ideas, but as a band we hadn't written or practiced in over a year and a half. Even though we lived together the whole time, now we had to create. On the road, you just have to play." The band agrees, however, that the pressure lifted after the new songs took shape.

The songs from Break the Cycle offer more of the introspective intensity found on Dysfunction, but this time, along with the rage and melancholy is maturity, hope, understanding, and even love.

"Over the last couple of years I've learned a lot about myself and about life," says Lewis. "There's been definite growth from Tormented to Dysfunction to Break the Cycle. It took me 28 years to figure out what I'm saying now. It's like I'm finally seeing a little light at the end of a 28-year-old tunnel. I hope that what I've written will help the kids listening to it have an easier time figuring out things in their own lives."

The first single from Break the Cycle, "It's Been Awhile," a song which was part of Lewis’ acoustic repertoire and written for his wife, climbed quickly to number one and propelled the album into platinum glory.  "It's pretty self-explanatory," he says. "It's about all the things that you don't do often enough, like say you're sorry, make a phone call, let yourself feel proud about something."

"Waste" is an intense track about a fan that committed suicide. "The kid's mother came to a show in Detroit and stood outside our bus crying. She wanted to talk to me as if I could give her answers," Lewis relates. "The song is me questioning how everything could have been so bad, being angry at the reasons for this kid's misery, and also being hurt and angry that he didn't have the strength to pull through."

Break the Cycle was a huge commercial success, selling over a million copies in its first two weeks of release and spending weeks at number one on the Billboard album charts.

"I've already gone farther than I ever imagined," Lewis says. "I'm just enjoying the ride. We're all about making music. That's why we chose to do this, because we love music, not for the chicks and to live the life of a rock star. It's not as fucking glamorous as everybody thinks. You're always on the go, always tired, always rushing to do nothing. The thing that makes it all worthwhile is the time we get to spend on stage. And I'm looking forward to it all."