When Staind first hit the music scene they perked up a lot of ears. Hailing from Springfield Massachusetts, their major label debut, “Dysfunction” unleashed tracks like “Mudshovel“, “Just Go” and “Home“. The sound was heavy, dirty and the vocals were full of emotion that made you feel exactly what Aaron Lewis was going thru.
The band had quite the success with seven albums before things went quiet. Each album seemed to tone down; becoming less angry and more sad.
In 2011, drummer Jon Wysocki left the band after a major falling out with frontman Aaron Lewis as Aaron had been working on a solo project that apparently no one in the band knew about. Lewis released his first solo EP “Town Line” and the band went on hiatus. While Aaron was going country, guitarist Mike Mushok joined up with Adam Gontier formerly of Three Days Grace and formed Saint Asonia. In a super weird turn, I found Jon Wysoki playing drums in a cover band off Broadway in Nashville a couple years ago.
The band did a couple of one off’s for festivals over the last couple years, but Lewis made it clear it would not become a regular thing.
The touring machine, as you call it, of Staind will never be again. Not like that, no. Never. I could never go back to playing six shows [a week] eight weeks in a row. I can’t do that. I have grown in my age and become very accustomed to playing Thursday, Friday and Saturday and being able to go home for a few days and unwind and try to kind of have a life aside from doing this
Now for the first time in nearly 10 years Staind is ready to release new material. Aaron sat down, virtually, with Sully Erna of Godsmack for Erna’s Youtube show, “Hometown Sessions” and announced he’d been in Nashville working on new stuff and it wasn’t going to be solo country stuff but new Staind!
No timeline has been set but let’s hope we’re going back to the angry Staind and not the sad Staind. Though admittedly it’ll be good to hear something new either way.
Check out Aaron and Sully on “Hometown Sessions” The actually conversation starts around the 7 minute mark.
