STAIND Working On 'Very In-Your-Face And Heavy Record'

Caroline Fontein of Vegas.com recently conducted an interview with STAIND frontman Aaron Lewis. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

Vegas.com: Your new album explores more of a country sound than what people are used to hearing from you in STAIND. What inspired you to move in that direction with this solo album?

Aaron: "Honestly, it stems back to the way I always write. I've always written on an acoustic guitar, and when I decided to do this acoustic thing and I wanted to steer it in a different direction, it seemed like a natural progression for me to add more acoustic instruments to it like the dobro and add some pedal steel, and it just fit. It fit for me a lot more than any other options would have, and I really didn't want to make it a STAIND light record. I felt like if I kept the rock 'n' roll quality to it, that it would just be an album full of light STAIND songs, and I didn't want to do that and you know it fits me. The statement that I make in the song when I say, 'A country boy is all I'll ever be,' I'm not saying a country recording artist is all I'll ever be I'm saying that just like the guys in SEVENDUST, just like the guys in BLACK STONE CHERRY, just like Jerry Cantrell from ALICE IN CHAINS, just like Les Claypool from PRIMUS, we all live in the country and we're all country by definition. Are we country artists? Who knows? That will remain to be seen, but I was just following my heart."

Vegas.com: Is writing new music something that you're always doing?

Aaron: "Honestly, I have to force myself not to because a lot of times I'm not in a situation where I can, you know, put it down and record it and remember it. So a lot of times I just stuff all the ideas back down and hope they come back up again… I can't even tell you how many songs I've lost like that. The whole entire song, lyrics, music and everything was going through my head and all I had to do was get it down, and it's gone."

Vegas.com: While you're on tour with your solo album, what's going on with STAIND during that time?

Aaron: "Honestly, we're in the studio right now recording another record. All mixed into me trying to support this solo endeavor and everything else, I'm in the studio recording another record with my band because, you know, I can't allow myself to have an easy schedule, that would be sacrilege."

Vegas.com: What is the band working on for the next STAIND album?

Aaron: "Oh it's heavy. It's heavy. You know especially now that I've kind of picked the path to go down with my solo stuff and not wanting to create a situation where the stuff that was coming out solo and the stuff that might be on a STAIND record were similar. So we are steering clear of any ideas that come out of us that might be of the more poppy or mellow nature, and we're concentrating on this being a very in-your-face and heavy record."

Read the entire interview from Vegas.com.