“There’s a certain uneasiness to the Toadies,” says Vaden Todd Lewis,
succinctly and accurately describing his band—quite a trick. The Texas band
is, at its core, just a raw, commanding rock band. Imagine an ebony sphere
with a corona that radiates impossibly darker, and a brilliant circular sliver of
light around that. It’s nebulous, but strangely distinct—and, shall we say
incorrect. Or, as Lewis says, “wrong.”
“Things are done a little askew [in the Toadies],” he says, searching for the
right words. “There’s just something wrong with it that’s just really cool… and
unique in a slightly uncomfortable way.”
This sick, twisted essence was first exemplified on the band’s 1994 debut,
Rubberneck (Interscope). An intense, swirling vortex of guitar rock built
around Lewis’s “wrong” songs—like the smash single “Possum Kingdom,”
subject to as much speculation as what’s in the Pulp Fiction briefcase, it
rocketed to platinum status on the strength of that and two other singles,
“Tyler” and “Away.” Its success was due to the Toadies’ organic sound and
all-encompassing style, which they aimed to continue on their next album.
Perhaps in keeping with the uneasy vibe, that success didn’t translate to
label support when the Toadies submitted their second album, Feeler.
Perhaps aptly, things in general just went wrong. It was the classic, cruel
story: the label didn’t ‘get’ it. “These were the songs we played live,” says
Rez. “It was pretty eclectic… different styles of heavy rock music—some fast,
heavy punk rock songs and some slower, kinda mid-tempo stuff. I’ve never
really been able to figure out what the beef was.”