Ladies & Gentlemen, The Fabulous Staind

12/10/1999 4:00 AM, Yahoo! Music
Janiss Garza

All right folks, let's name the band: the first time this hard-edged quartet opened up for Limp Bizkit, Fred Durst almost kicked them off the bill because he was thoroughly disgusted by their album cover. Who are they?

"I think everybody in the country has heard that story probably three times!" protests Staind guitarist Mike Mushok. But it is a really good tale--when Durst saw a copy of Staind's indie CD Tormented, with its bloody, impaled Bible on the cover, he thought they were devil-worshippers. But he was wrong--they were just a great band that played extremely heavy, angst-ridden music. After he heard their performance, he wound up liking them so much that he brought them to Flip Records.

Okay, now that the story's out of the way for the 5,007th time, we can move on. Quite a lot has happened to Staind since they recorded their current album, Dysfunction, with Durst and producer of all-that-is-hard-and-heavy, Terry Date. Flip released the disc through Elektra in April of 1999, and before the year's end, it went gold. "We sold a hundred thousand records without really having radio or MTV," Mushok mentions. Both radio and MTV eventually jumped on the single "Mudshovel," but Staind attribute their success so far to nonstop touring. They've had quite a bit of luck there, too--among other gigs, Staind have opened for Kid Rock and played on the Family Values Tour, headlined by--of course--Limp Bizkit. Korn, who started Family Values in the first place, often popped by as well. "We used to play Korn songs!" Mushok says. "So for us to be playing on the same stage as them was pretty amazing."

With their brawny, straightforward wallop, Staind are reaping the benefits from the resurgence of rock's harder side. "Heavy music has really become acceptable now, a lot more so than it has been in a long time," Mushok nods. "I mean, when Limp Bizkit puts out a record, it goes No. 1 in the first week. Rage Against The Machine puts out a record and it's No. 1, Korn's No. 1."

But then, these Springfield, Mass. guys--Mushok, singer Aaron Lewis, bassist Johnny April, and drummer Jon Wysocki--have always been an ambitious bunch. Tormented did very well locally, and even while Dysfunction is still hot, they're looking towards their next release.

"I don't know if it's gonna happen, but we'd really like to have a record out next year at this time," Mushok reveals. In January 2000, when their headlining tour begins, they plan to set up a studio in the back of their bus and arrange some practice time a few days a week. "I have a ton of ideas," asserts Mushok. "We need as a band to sort through it all and start putting it together."

Although Staind are one of the millennium's brightest up-and-coming bands, they haven't exactly reached celebrity status in Springfield yet. "I ran into a friend of mine from high school who I haven't seen in almost 10 years and he knew what was going on," Mushok grins. "So he congratulated me, and then we started ranking on each other like we used to do!" The bottom line, he says, is "we're very grateful for the opportunities we've been given, and I'd like to think we've made the best of them."