AARON LEWIS On Beating COVID-19 Twice: 'Aside From Losing My Taste And Smell, I've Had Colds That Were Worse'

In a new interview with Donald Trump's daughter-in-law Lara Trump for "The Right View With Lara Trump" podcast, STAIND frontman Aaron Lewis spoke about the inspiration for his 2021 solo single "Am I The Only One", which takes aim at liberals and touches on American flags burning and statues that have been removed in the country. "Am I The Only One", which Lewis wrote with Ira Dean and Jeffrey Steele, was released five years ago this month and topped the Hot Country Songs chart on Billboard. Lewis sings in the song's chorus: "I'm not the only one, willin' to fight / For my love of the red and white / And the blue, burnin' on the ground / Another statue comin' down in a town near you." Lewis also criticizes Bruce Springsteen — who can best be described as Lewis's political polar opposite, having been a vocal opponent to U.S. president Donald Trump on many occasions — at the end of the track, singing: "Am I the only one who quits singin' along every time they play a Springsteen song."

"Me and Jeffrey and Ira wrote the song in the middle of COVID shutdown," Aaron told Lara Trump. "We broke the rules, and we got together and didn't wear masks.

Referencing government-mandated shutdowns of businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic, Aaron said: "I found that to be the craziest thing that I've ever experienced in my 54 years on this Earth. And I never thought in a million years... I can't even imagine all the grandfathers and the aunts and uncles and great-grandfathers that were rolling over in their grave, watching us give up every last bit of our freedom over fear."

Aaron went on to cite the case-fatality ratio (CFR) associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, claiming that "0.007 was the original number that was thrown out — 0.007% of the population of the Earth" was estimated to die among identified confirmed cases. "The flu kills more people than that every year. Everything else was fear. I'm pretty sure the treatments killed more people than the actual virus."

Lewis also blasted COVID vaccine mandates, which placed legal limits on where people who didn't receive a COVID vaccine could go or work. He said: "As a boss that is all about people's rights and everything else, I didn't get vaccinated. I didn't make any of my employees get vaccinated. None of my band got vaccinated. And when I got it, inevitably — I've been way sicker. Aside from losing my taste and smell, I've had colds that were worse."

This is not the first time Aaron has publicly made anti-vaccine and anti-mask statements. At a March 2022 concert in Portsmouth, Ohio, Lewis lashed out at the media, the Internet and the big corporations he claimed "made billions and billions" off locked-down Americans during the COVID-19 pandemic's worst days.

"They made you believe that a vaccine was gonna keep you safe," he said at the time. "They made you think that a fucking mask was gonna keep you safe. They made you think that avoiding your friends and your family and staying locked up in your house was gonna somehow keep you safe. But guess what — didn't we all get COVID? Didn't every single of us in this fucking room get COVID and live to tell the tale? We're okay. I survived. I didn't stick that poison in my fucking body. I did just fine. I had it twice. I'm not fucking dead."

As of June 2026, there are 7,114,321 officially confirmed deaths globally directly attributed to COVID-19 reported to the World Health Organization. However, because of varying protocols, limited initial testing, and unrecorded cases, researchers and health organizations agree that the true death toll is substantially higher.

Lewis will release his new solo album, "Give My Country Back", on July 17 via Big Machine Label Group.

Lewis co-wrote five songs on "Give My Country Back" alongside longtime collaborators including Jeffrey Steele and Bobby Pinson, with additional contributions from Casey Bethard, Travis Meadows and others.

Image credit: DeadMike.com