Staind Breaks the Cycle
By: Gary Graff - Wall of Sound
May 26th 2001 12:40am
How much pressure did the hard rock quartet Staind feel in following up its million-selling debut album? "Enough to write a song about it," notes frontman Aaron Lewis, referring to the track "Pressure" on Staind's recently released second album, Break the Cycle "There's always the sophomore-slump pressure of outdoing your first record that had some success. It's a scary thing to be in the middle of that. We just dealt with it and put it to good use." In fact, Lewis' bandmates -- guitarist Mike Mushok, bassist Johnny April, and drummer Jon Wysocki -- didn't spend much time pondering the challenge that the second album presented; the trio went right into writing mode after the tour for 1999's Dysfunction ended. They were prolific -- so much so that Lewis found himself under the gun to come up with lyrics and melodies to accompany the music they had written. "Oh, man, they were completely done when it was my turn," Lewis says with a laugh. "When we went into the recording studio, I had a few choruses, and that was pretty much it. I had nothing. I wasn't really keeping up with them. I was actually putting myself under extreme duress and putting everything off till the last second. ... It would have been nice to have a little bit more time to write songs, but everything worked out." Break the Cycle also features a full-band version of "Outside," Staind's improvised, acoustic radio hit from the Family Values Tour 1999 album that provided what Lewis calls "the perfect accidental bridge" between Staind's two albums. And he adds that the group hopes it's passed beyond its connection to Limp Bizkit's Fred Durst, who established his reputation as a talent mogul by hooking Staind up with its recording contract. "We just kind of wanted to stand on our own two feet now," Lewis explains, quickly adding, "Not that we're trying to get away from Fred. We owe so much to Fred and all the guys in Limp Bizkit for taking a chance and bringing us to all the people they brought us to and basically putting us where we are now. There's always gonna be that family love there between us, but at the same time, it's up to us to take what they gave us and move it forward by ourselves." For more music news & reviews, visit http://WallofSound.com.
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