Culture
‘Like riding a bike’: Toadies on three decades of music
By: Bradley Cunningham
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LOUISVILLE, Kentucky (WOUB) — For more than three decades, Texas alternative rock band Toadies have built a career around heavy guitars and songs that continue to connect with new generations of listeners.
Formed in Fort Worth in the late ’80s, the band broke through nationally with its 1994 debut album, Rubberneck, home to songs including “Possum Kingdom,” “Tyler” and “I Burn.” Since then, Toadies have weathered lineup changes and shifts in the rock landscape while continuing to record and tour.
More than 30 years after Rubberneck, the band is still looking forward. Toadies released The Charmer earlier this year and are touring behind the album, while also preparing the long-awaited first vinyl release of their second album, Hell Below/Stars Above, and teasing what singer Vaden Todd Lewis calls a “big secret magic thing” for next year.
Cunningham: I want to say, off the rip, that “I Burn” is one of my favorite songs on my morning commute. I know it’s a sinister thing to do, but when you sit in traffic for an hour, that one just kind of gets it done.
Clark Vogeler: Cathartic, I bet [laughs].
Cunningham: One thing I like about your guys’ music is the storytelling aspect. It seems like there are a lot of characters in motion in your music. How do you guys come up with that lyrically? Does it come out of a riff or a mood?
Vaden Todd Lewis: I write the lyrics, and it’s hard to explain. Generally, when I write, I try to fill in the blanks. ‘And these are just placeholders.’ That’s what I tell myself. I want the melody line to go like this. I want it to rhyme here at the end. I want it not to rhyme right here. I want it to have a turnaround. Whatever it is I’m looking for. And I put the words in. And then later I read them, and I go, ‘Oh, those are the words. Cool. ’ It’s just kind of, it’s turn off your editor and just get in there and just let it come right out.
Cunningham: What inspires those words? Is it nonmusical or do other songs inspire you?
Lewis: Oh, who knows, man. “I Burn” was inspired by a dream I had. “Tyler” is inspired by stories I heard from my grandparents in East Texas. As I’ve written over the years, I’ve learned to make it more personal and more cathartic. And with this new album especially, we have a new album called The Charmer that just came out earlier this year. There’s some real deep sh*t on there. Like real, real stuff. Yeah. It’s learning the craft and learning how to say what you want to say without editing it and cutting yourself off at the knees.
Cunningham: You mentioned “learning the craft”. How did that change over three decades?
Lewis: It’s evolving. For this latest record, we started it during lockdown, and we just emailed each other bits of songs. I had some songs that I had written top to bottom. Clark has some cool riffs. There’s one song where our drummer sang a beat into his phone and recorded it, texted it to Clark, and Clark wrote a guitar riff over it and sent it back. Then we wrote drums over that and then sent it back to me. And then it’s a song.
Cunningham: Is that weird doing it like that?
Lewis: It’s weird, but then eventually we get together, and we play it. We’re like, oh, that’s how that goes. The final piece is when you’re in the same room and make a noise.
Cunningham: Those classic tracks, like “Tyler,” that you mentioned. How has your connection to those songs changed over time? Like when you play them live, do they feel different? Do they feel the same?
Lewis: That’s a hard question to answer. What’s cool about doing a song for 30 years plus is it’s like riding a bike. Now we can be in front of all these people doing that song and not worry about, you know, what’s the next part of the song? Like our first tour. Now I can look out and see people enjoying themselves. That’s where I get my payoff. It’s amazing. And it just feels super lucky to be able to play songs for this long and have people still jump up and down.
Vogeler: People ask as if it gets old playing the same songs. But when you’re up there playing these songs, and you see everybody’s face light up, everybody’s singing along and having a good time, that never gets old.
Cunningham: I walked in, and I saw a couple kids wearing Toadies shirts, and that’s got to feel awesome, right?
Vogeler: Yeah, people that are a third of our age listening to our music, it’s amazing.
Cunningham: You mentioned it’s like riding a bike, and now you’re at a point where you’re probably learning new tricks on that bike. It’s more of a jam session with a familiar setting.
Lewis: Totally. We have a couple of songs, especially off the new album, that we can stretch out and vibe off each other. It’s a lot of fun.
Cunningham: I always like to ask about nonmusical ones specifically. I think there’s something about movies, books, different forms of media that inspires people differently. Is there anything that helped you capture your sound?
Lewis: You know, this just came out of my brain, and I had never thought about it. My father was a Southern Baptist preacher, and he was really freaking good at his job. And I remember just watching him do his job; it gave me goosebumps, man. And I don’t buy any of that stuff. That’s not my jam. But I’m realizing as I get older that’s where I got it. That’s why I want to be doing what I’m doing and coming up from the church. As vain as that sounds, that’s probably the genesis of the whole thing.
Cunningham: And that makes sense because, like your father, you’re sharing stories. It’s the same thing. It’s just a different venue.
Lewis: I see the parallels. Ideally, you’re moving a bunch of people in a direction.
Cunningham: The righteous Toadies. [laughs] What does the future look like? What can fans look forward to?
Lewis: We have this new album called Charmer that’s out, and we’re still touring on that through the end of the year and potentially in the next year. Then we have, like, a big secret magic thing that’s going to happen next year. So we’ll probably be back in the fall. We can’t really talk about it yet. Our second record, Hell Below, is out on vinyl. That’s coming out very soon. It’s never been on vinyl, and we’ve been trying to get it going for forever.
Vogeler: We’re going to be busy for a while.