- 2 days ago
While celebrating the 25th anniversary of their landmark album, 'Break The Cycle,' Staind is already hard at work on what’s next. The band shared their new single, “Ghosts,” this week and singer Aaron Lewis joined Abe Kanan to dive into new music and their humbling “second chance” with sold out crowds.
Category
🎵
MusicTranscript
00:00There isn't all that much great music out there that's being made right now.
00:07The landscape has changed so much.
00:10Everything is so digital.
00:12Nobody's actually playing live on stage anymore.
00:16There's like this hole in a culture that was there that you've got to look backwards for.
00:28Dave Gannon, it's an Odyssey check-in.
00:31So, Aaron Lewis from Stain, I've heard ghosts.
00:33It's awesome, but I have to start out.
00:35I was at your show Friday night outside Sacramento at the Toyota Amphitheater in Wheatland.
00:41That, to me, it felt like a special show.
00:45The whole tour has been special like that.
00:47Oh, my God.
00:49It's unbelievable.
00:50It was jam-packed.
00:53And, you know, you guys have been around 28 years.
00:57And there was a point in the show where you said,
01:00Is this your first time seeing Stained?
01:02And I swear to God, 90% of that crowd raised their hand.
01:05And I was shocked.
01:06I'm like, this is crazy.
01:10And this show's been sold out for a month, two months, whatever.
01:14Jam-packed.
01:16Every person in that house, I swear, 80%, 90% raised their hand.
01:20And this is our first time seeing Stained.
01:22And you looked like you were touched.
01:24Like, I saw you smiling.
01:26I mean, tell me what that, what does that feel like?
01:29You guys are 28 years in.
01:32You're celebrating breaking the cycle 25 years.
01:35To be in front of a sold-out crowd.
01:37And it's all new people.
01:39It has to be crazy.
01:41It's so crazy that it feels like a second chance.
01:45It's insane.
01:48Like you said.
01:50And it's like that every night.
01:52I ask that question every night.
01:54And I get the same response that you witnessed yourself every night.
01:59And it's the same humbling, so full of gratitude moment to have somehow been given the opportunity
02:18to play for a whole new audience after 25 years, almost 30 years.
02:30So it's nuts.
02:33And I saw you couldn't help but smile.
02:35Like, you're looking at this crowd.
02:36And it's, I mean, Stained, you've only, the band's been huge a long time.
02:40But every band has the ups and downs, the ebbs and flows.
02:43I feel like Stained in 2026 is the biggest you've ever been.
02:48Am I right?
02:51Yeah.
02:52How did that happen?
02:54Like, just, it just, it just kind of, just out of, even like who, you know, the lineup
02:59you put together, it's Stained, Seether, Hoobastank, and Hindor, even Hoobastank are like, how
03:05many of you is your first time seeing Hoobastank?
03:08Like, everybody, everybody is having this, this same moment on this tour of, of just utter
03:19disbelief as to, as to, in the best way, of course, but utter disbelief as to what, what
03:27is, what is happening?
03:29It's, it's, it's, it is crazy.
03:32And every single band on this tour has a moment, like, Hinder, when they play Lips of an Angel,
03:41and then Go Home Get Stoned, like, the whole place is singing with them.
03:46And then Hoobastank comes out, and they drop their bombs, and the whole place is singing
03:51with them.
03:51And then they play The Reason, which is like, one of the moments of the night, as far as
03:58I'm concerned.
03:59Like, I make sure that I'm out on stage, side stage, so that I can be there to experience
04:06that moment with them.
04:08Yeah.
04:09To experience that moment with them every night.
04:12This is, this is them playing The Reason, and this is hours, hours before Stain hits
04:19the stage.
04:20And so I'm up, so I go in the lawn at these shows, and I go to the back of
04:24the fence, and
04:25the first 98 Rock listeners that come up to me, I, I upgraded them to pit passes.
04:30So I'm back in the lawn, and I'm, I'm just standing there watching them play The Reason,
04:35and like you said, the whole place is, I don't know if you know this, Aaron, it's very hard
04:40to get into that place.
04:41Like, the traffic was two hours, hours before you guys came out, right?
04:45Two hours before Stain hit the stage.
04:49The place is jam-packed for Hoobastink, which is beautiful to see.
04:53And then when they play that song, The Reason, I love his story that he leads into it with,
05:00how he's talking about how you're in the grocery store, and you reach into the frozen
05:05food section, and you grab him some ice cream, and, and you stand up, and you close the freezer
05:09door, and this song comes on, and they start playing The Reason.
05:14And that's happened to me.
05:16Like, it's happened to everybody, I think.
05:18Like, it's one of those moments where, I mean, Stain kind of had a moment like that, too,
05:27where the song became bigger than the band ever was.
05:33That song, The Reason, was bigger than the band itself ever was.
05:39And same with It's Been a While, with us.
05:42That song is bigger than, than the band ever was.
05:48I'm very grateful.
05:50I'm honored.
05:52I'm blessed.
05:57And, and very humbled by the whole thing.
06:01You know, it's funny, I was thinking about this, like, 25 years since Breaking the Cycle
06:05came out, it's equivalent to the day Breaking the Cycle came out in 2001.
06:10It's equivalent to when Kiss Destroyer came out in 1976.
06:15Like, that's, that's how long it's been.
06:17Like, in 2001, if you look back to, oh, Kiss Destroyer came out in 1976, that was 25 years
06:23ago.
06:23Today, that, that's what it's like.
06:26Breaking the Cycle came out 25 years?
06:29Like, it's, it's crazy to think about it that way, because you always think about,
06:32like, oh, well, when, when you're, when Breaking the Cycle came out, you're like, well, God,
06:37Kiss Destroyer came out so long ago, but it's the same amount of time.
06:41Like, it doesn't seem like it though, right?
06:43It just, it, it seems like it just came out, but it's been a long time.
06:47Well, I, I feel like there might be some of, some of what happened when, when, you know,
06:55when I was that age, the music that was, you know, in the beginnings of that age, the music
07:05that was available and being stuffed down your throat on the radio and, and all this stuff
07:11was like, was not good.
07:16It was, it was, it was, it was, and it was Flock of Seagulls and it was Dexy's Midnight
07:26Runners and like, so I looked backwards and I was listening to Black Sabbath and The Doors
07:40and Zeppelin and The Who and, and I think that the kids these days are in a similar dilemma
07:53where there isn't all that much great music out there that's being made right now.
08:02The landscape has changed so much.
08:05Everything is so digital.
08:07Nobody's actually playing live on stage anymore.
08:11There's like this hole in a, in a culture that was there that you got to look backwards
08:19for.
08:20You know, I met, I met Aftershock last week, Limp Bizkit headlining Aftershock, like,
08:25hell yeah, like you said.
08:27And, and, you know, when you played outside the other night on Friday, a couple of nights
08:30ago, you play that clip of you and Fred Durst, who's like, Biloxi, I'm feeling those
08:35sliders, y'all, that whole, that whole thing, you know, up on the screen.
08:39And there's Fred, there's you, you guys, 25 years ago, whatever it was, two, a few days
08:45apart, he's headlining Aftershock and you're headlining this massive place.
08:49So it just, look, I grew up, you know, with all your music, you know, I'm, I was born in
08:531981.
08:54So I grew up when you guys were the new band, you know, so it just, it just, all these
08:59years
09:00later, JJ, it feels good to see it.
09:01I'll just, I'll just say that.
09:02It's, it feels good to see it.
09:06Yeah.
09:07So it feels good over here to see it too.
09:09Yeah, I'm sure.
09:10So, okay.
09:11So the tour, the tour continues a few more dates in October.
09:14Then you come back March and April.
09:16The new song is awesome.
09:18Ghosts.
09:18That's going to be off a new album.
09:20Can we say the name of the new album yet or no?
09:22So it is the space between the darkness and the light.
09:27The new song is out now.
09:29We had no idea.
09:30I don't know when the record comes out.
09:31I know it.
09:31I know it'll come out soon.
09:33I know that it's done.
09:35I know that I'm, I'm pretty confident in saying that it's a hell of a record and I'm,
09:43and I'm proud to put it out.
09:45And that's kind of where I've needed to be at the end of every writing and recording process
09:51for Stained is, is to be proud of it and, and, and feel like anybody could pick any song
10:02off the record and that could be a single and I'd be perfectly okay with it.
10:06And, and that's where we got.
10:09And I think this is a great record and I think it's a good, it's a great continuation of the
10:15thread
10:16that you can follow in Stained's music, which is my lyrical content.
10:25And it, it fits right in with, with, with everything before it perfectly in, in line, just like this, the
10:35whole
10:35thing has been basically all the Stained records start from the beginning and move forward has
10:42been an adult man trying to navigate his way through the wreckage that was left behind
11:02Do you, do you think the, do you think the final Stained record will be a very happy album?
11:08The final, whatever becomes the final Stained album, it should just be, every song should
11:12be like just all happy songs.
11:15And just all, you know, I found the meaning of life.
11:17If I answered all of my questions, yeah, you know, I, I loved your last album, Confessions
11:23of the Fallen here and now is one of the greatest Stained.
11:26I was, I was, I was sad.
11:27You have so many great songs to play.
11:29You know, you couldn't even work that into your set.
11:31You have all these great songs.
11:33You can't even work in like what the hell?
11:36Terrible, terrible place to be in.
11:37I know.
11:40Third world problems for sure.
11:42Exactly.
11:42So I'm at the, I remember in like 11 years ago, I'm at the MGM grand.
11:46And it's a Chad Mendes, Conor McGregor.
11:49I was at that fight.
11:50Me too.
11:52I know the great, the greatest, the greatest fight ever.
11:56Uh, Robbie Lawler versus Rory McDonald before Conor fought Chad Mendes, two of the greatest
12:01fights ever.
12:02Chad Mendes comes out, you sing Chad out and then Sinead O'Connor sings out Conor McGregor.
12:07That has never happened.
12:09Uh, it never happened before and it hasn't happened since.
12:13Can you just, cause a lot of people, people might not even know what we're talking about here.
12:16You, you, for the first time in UFC history, you sang out a fighter.
12:21You were the first one too, because Conor came in.
12:23She went after me, I guess.
12:25Yeah.
12:25I guess.
12:25So I officially makes me the first, but.
12:28Could you, could you just the scene?
12:29Because that was all those Irish people.
12:31And that, that was, okay.
12:33I will, I will paint the scene for you.
12:37There was someone directly to my left yelling at me from Ireland, yelling at me.
12:43Fuck you.
12:44Fuck Chad Mendes.
12:45Like that, all that was happening around me as well.
12:49I am trying to just focus and tune all the craziness that's going on out while I'm juxtap on that
13:00little platform in the middle of the crowd.
13:04Yeah.
13:06And, and, and I, I, I, I made it through.
13:10I had to, I had to see it myself for the first time and experience it myself for the first
13:16time when I went back and watched it afterwards.
13:18It's, but, because, I mean, to recall anything in that moment, that would be like, you know, asking somebody to
13:29recall all the details in the middle of a firefight.
13:33Yeah.
13:34It, too much going on at once.
13:37Too many, too, too much just trying to, and I did it.
13:41And then Sinead sang and like an angel.
13:46It was great.
13:47It was, it was probably my favorite sport, just my favorite sporting event I've ever been to.
13:51I mean, it was, I've never seen a crowd like that at a fight.
13:54So it was so awesome.
13:56But, Aaron, it's awesome talking to you.
13:58I'm telling you, go to, this lineup you put together, Stained, Seether, Hoobastank, and Hinder.
14:04It's like, it's a touring festival that you put together.
14:07I mean, it's.
14:08It's a good one.
14:08It's a good lineup, and, I mean, it has, it has definitely proven itself to be a well-thought-out
14:18and, and, and, and good decision.
14:22The, the, the, the tour has been incredible.
14:26The shows have been absolutely incredible.
14:29You'll catch me side stage watching all three of the bands in front of us.
14:37It's, it's been a great time.
14:38You know, it's funny.
14:39It's kind of like a stand-up comedian.
14:40You go see them perform, and it feels like it's the first time you've heard this stuff.
14:44I felt like I was in the middle of something so special.
14:46I'm like, God, I don't know if this has ever happened with a, but that, that's just every night of
14:50this tour.
14:51So if you get a chance, go to this tour, like a few more shows in October, and then you
14:55pick it back up in March and April.
14:58And then the new song is Ghosts.
15:00Great new song.
15:00Check it out.
15:01Aaron, thank you very much.
15:03It was awesome talking to you.
15:03Yeah, bud.