untitled
viviti 
  Aaron Lewis, Jon Wysocki, Johnny April & Mike Mushok
Staind's Facts and History, as told by Mike Mushok, guitarist 


The band Staind has had the current line-up since 11/24/95. We put out a self-released CD on 11/29/96. 
The 1st CD party was an overwhelmingly great success with over 900 people in attendance. We sold 
more than 200 CDs that night. During the next year, we sold more than 2000 CDs while playing gigs 
throughout New England with bands such as: Honkeyball, Shed, Kilgore, GWAR, Far and God Lives Under 
Water. 

The band's big break came October 23, 1997 when Staind performed with the band Limp Bizkit at the 
Webster Theater in Hartford, CT. 

The story begins approximately 20 minutes before we were supposed to perform. Fred Durst, the singer for 
Limp Bizkit, approached Aaron, our singer, and me with a copy of our CD in his hand. Someone had given it 
to him, which was fine, except Fred thought we were Satan worshippers due to the nature of our cover art. 
Of course we weren't, but they tried to have us kicked off the bill. Fred and I exchanged words. Then, he took 
our CD and threw it across the table; he wanted nothing to do with us -so much for our big break. Well, at 
least until Fred saw our show! 

After our set, Fred approached us and said we were the the best band he had seen in 2 years." Also, he 
said that he was starting a production company and wanted to work with us. We exchanged phone numbers 
and then went our separate ways. 

At the time, we were in the studio making a demo with 4 new songs. I tried to reach Fred, but I was 
unsuccessful due to their busy touring schedule. I found out that Limp Bizkit was opening for the Deftones 
outside of Boston, the night before Thanksgiving 1997. I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to give 
Fred a copy of our new tunes, so the band and I drove up to see the show. 

We went to Limp Bizkit's bus and knocked on the door, where we met up with DJ Lethal -Fred was busy 
elsewhere. We gave Lee a couple of tapes with the new tunes, then went to see the show (WHICH ROCKED). 
We tried to find Fred, but were not successful. 

That night I went home and went to bed. Around 2 a.m., my phone rang -it was Fred. He LOVED the new 
songs and wanted us to go to Jacksonville, FL (Jax) to work with us on our material. After a few phone 
conversations, we decided that we would leave the day after X-mas. We would stay at Fred's house and 
play a show with the Limp Bizkit at the Milkbar in Jax on January 4, 1998. We had a gig the day after X-mas. 
After the show, we loaded the van and trailer and headed to Jax 

We almost made it, but our van broke down 1000 feet from the Florida state line. We had it towed to Fred's 
house and started work the very next day. 

Fred played an integral part in helping us to develop our sound. Aaron, our singer, has an amazing voice 
and Fred helped to bring that out. We had a lot of screaming parts in our songs. Fred said, "Man, you can
sing, why don't you do that more?" The trip was very productive because we reworked 4 of our songs and 
played a KILLER sold out show in their hometown of Jax. 

While there, Fred contacted Jordan Schur, the President of Flip Records. Fred told Jordan about us and 
within a week of leaving Jacksonville, we were on a plane to L.A. where we met Jordan and recorded a 3 
song sampler. 

We recorded "A Flat," "Suffocate" and one of Aaron's acoustic tracks "Black Rain" at Sound City Studios 
with Fred and Lethal producing. By February 1998, we had signed to Flip Records. Jordan did our project 
as a joint venture with Elektra Records in the Spring of 1998. 

During this time, we were to play some shows with Limp Bizkit, Sevendust and Clutch -all of which went 
great! In April, we went back to Jax and worked with Fred on some more tunes. 

By June of 1998, we were working closely with our management company, The Firm, who also managed 
Limp Bizkit, Ice Cube and Orgy. We were then able to persuade Terry Date (The Deftones Pantera, Sound 
Garden, White Zombie) to produce our 1st album. On August 1, 1998 (the day after we played the Warped 
Tour in Northampton, MA) we flew to Seattle to record at Studio Litho (Pearl Jam's Studio.) During early 
October, the album was mixed at Studio X (the old Bad Animals) in Seattle. 

This brings us to the present. Currently, we are playing shows here and there, while we wait for the 
release of our 1st major label release Dysfunction. The album is scheduled for release on March 23, 1999. 
Look for us to start touring with Limp Bizkit in April.


Bio Courtesy of Elektra Records



Staind's History Continued...Life After Dysfunction

Since the release of their Flip/Elektra debut album Dysfunction in April 1999, STAIND have built a remarkable
success story. The band have scored three major rock radio/video hits with "Just Go," "Mudshovel" and 
"Home"; they've played for hundreds of thousands of fans on tours with Kid Rock, Monster Magnet, Sevendust 
and with their Family Values brethren Limp Bizkit and Korn; and they've sold over a million albums. They were 
voted 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. Most recently, STAIND had an unexpected bit of luck 
that couldn't have happened in a better way or come at a better time, as vocalist AARON LEWIS' spur-of-the-
moment acoustic performance of the song "Outside," from the Family Values Tour '99 live album, has grown 
into a #1 radio smash on the eve of the release of their new album BREAK THE CYCLE. And now, with 
virtually no break, they're going to do it all again. 

"We feel like we won over a lot of people while we were on the road," says MIKE. "When we finished touring 
we only took about a week off before starting this record." With so little rest and more at stake, MIKE admits 
he did feel some pressure at first. "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." All four band members agree, 
however, that the pressure lifted after a couple of weeks as the new songs began to take shape. 

In all directions--musically, lyrically, even in the choice of title--BREAK THE CYCLE moves forward from what 
STAIND accomplished artistically on their predecessor. Produced by Josh Abraham and mixed by Andy Wallace, 
the new album has heavy moments that out-thrash anything on Dysfunction, but the band isn't afraid to make 
some gentler sounds as well. The songs offer more of the introspective intensity found on Dysfunction, but this
time, along with the anger and sadness is maturity, hope, understanding and even a love song. Above all, 
BREAK THE CYCLE solidifies STAIND's identity as a heavy rock band like no other right now, a group that writes 
real songs and imbues the most aggressive and dissonant sounds with a musicality and beauty that would 
be equally as powerful even if performed on an acoustic guitar. 

"Over the last couple of years I've learned a lot about myself and about life," says singer and lyricist AARON. 
"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." 

It's tough to pick out highlights on BREAK THE CYCLE--the album is deep with standout tracks--but band 
favorites include the first single, "It's Been Awhile," a song that had been part of AARON's acoustic 
repertoire and that has now been newly arranged for the band. "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." "Can't Believe," perhaps the band's heaviest song ever, features, 
in AARON's words, "a few seconds of singing, then all-out Anselmo screaming" (an appropriate reference to 
Pantera frontman Phil Anselmo). "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," AARON 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." 

And then there's "Outside," the song AARON performed solo, acoustically, exactly once on the Family 
Values tour. The track, which appears on the Family Values Tour '99 live album, found its way onto 
the radio and MTV, and quietly became one of the biggest rock records of late 2000 and early 2001. 
"It's really an accidental phenomenon," AARON explains. "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. There was never any 
thought of releasing it this way." However unintentional this turn of events may be, the strength of the song 
and the performance earned some well-deserved success, and STAIND decided to record the chilling, 
powerful full-band version that appears on BREAK THE CYCLE. 

STAIND's roots go back to a Christmas party in their hometown of Springfield, MA, where guitarist 
MIKE and singer AARON met. Their conversation ended abruptly, as MIKE reminisces, "when the 
drunken host smashed his head through a wall and kicked everyone out of the house." With the 
addition of drummer JON WYSOCKI and a bassist (who would soon be replaced with current member 
JOHNNY APRIL), they played their first gig in February of 1995. 

After a year and a half of steady playing in New England, STAIND self-released their debut album 
Tormented in October 1996. Nearly a thousand rabid fans attended the release party, and over the next 
two years Tormented sold over 4000 copies. Of the band and album, Boston's Lollipop fanzine said, "Unlike 
many a band, especially heavy bands that rely more on strength than dexterity, STAIND has songs. Songs 
you get to know. Songs you move with, go the distance with." [Tormented is currently available on the band's
website.] They also drew plenty of attention for their fierce live show. Northeast Performer said, "STAIND's
musicianship is striking, and their live performance takes their recorded material one step further: pushing 
the envelope, ripping up the envelope, then jumping up and down all over the envelope til there ain't a damn 
thing left." But by the fall of 1997 they were ready for bigger things. "So when our friends in Sugarmilk invited 
us to play with them and Limp Bizkit in Hartford, we jumped at the chance," MIKE says. 

In a meeting that since has been well-publicized, their first big break didn't go so smoothly. "Fred [Durst] 
is a spiritual guy," explains MIKE. "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." Thankfully, Fred was 
persuaded to let the band perform. "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," MIKE reports. STAIND eventually got a 
demo to Fred, who invited the band to his home and rehearsal space in Jacksonville, Florida. After Durst
played some of their music over the phone for Jordan Schur, president of Flip Records, they became the 
newest signing to the label's roster. Fred also gave STAIND their formal introduction to the heavy rock world 
when he invited them to perform at Limp Bizkit's gold record bash for 3 Dollar Bill Y'All in 1998. 

As before, the members of STAIND seem both humbled and thrilled by their success and all the things 
that come with it. "We love this record, and we can't wait to get out and play it for people," MIKE says. 

"I've already gone farther than I ever imagined," AARON adds. "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."


Bio Courtesy of HipOnline