You guys are still broken up, right?
Yep.
How long has it been since you broke up?
Oh, let’s see. Almost two years.
Why did you break up?
Um... (laughs) I don’t know... our bass player quit. We thought about going on for a while after that, but we just
figured that time had come.
Ok, can you tell me a little about Toadies?
Todd, the singer... and Lisa, the bass player... used to work together in a record store. I guess they decided to start
a band together. There was another guy at the time named Charles. The three of them were the original Toadies. They had various
drummers - different guitar players. Charles quit kinda early on, and the two of them continued... then eventually I joined...
and eventually Clark joined.
Where did the name come from?
I think it was a nickname for Todd when he was young.
It took a while for you guys to get noticed - was it a rough start for you guys?
When they started off they were pretty much just playing at parties and in front of their friends and families... the crowd
just got bigger and bigger. Eventually we got signed - and naturally progressed.
Why did it take seven years to record another CD after Rubberneck?
(Laughs) Well, we actually recorded another album between there that never got released. We’re actually hoping to
release that soon. After Rubberneck came out we went on tour for probably two years, then we spent another year writing and
recording the followup... which got rejected basically. Then we spent another year or two writing and recording. I guess it
added up to about seven years... (laughs) But we were busy the whole time. We weren’t just sitting on our asses.
Were you guys surprised by the success of "Opossum Kingdom"?
Oh yeah.
I mean they pretty much play it all the time here... still.
Oh, I know... you can hear it pretty much all over the country still... on any given day. It’s weird. But it was
just that one song... on our second album, which I guess is kinda frustrating. We were on tour and still getting pretty good
crowds, but the radio stations and record label weren’t supporting the new album.
What are you guys up to now?
We’re all doing various things. I’m playing in a band - it’s a country band actually... called Eleven
Hundred Springs. They’re a Texas phenomenon. They’ve been around for about five years - I’ve known the guys
and when it came time that they needed a drummer... they gave me a call. Todd’s got a band called the Burden Brothers.
They put out a couple of EP’s around here in the Texas area - they play a lot of shows around. Clark went to film school
- now he’s working as a film editor out in Los Angeles. I heard rumors that Lisa is starting another band here in Texas
- I’ll be looking forward to hearing that.
You guys keep in touch?
Yeah, we talk to each other every once in a while. We had a few reunion shows between this past Christmas and New Years.
Like four shows. Yeah, that went fine... so who knows... we might get together every once in a while. I live around the corner
from Todd - he just had a baby. Well, actually his wife had the baby. (Laughs) He had something to do with it.
I hope so.
Yeah, that’s what we assume anyway.
What was the best part of being in Toadies?
There were a lot of good things. Obviously the fame and fortune. (Laughs) If you want to call it a fortune. Making money
making music - really doesn’t get any better than that. I mean, people seemed to like it... we were able to tour and
get crowds and make records... some of our stuff is still getting played on the radio. It’s all great. It was quite
an experience.
What was one of the craziest things you’ve done as a band?
Wow, there were a lot of weird things. I guess being on tour with Red Hot Chili Peppers. We were playing big hockey arenas
- never played in front of a crowd like that. Oh, there’s plenty of stories about our band breaking down and being stranded
in the desert... worrying for our lives. We were having all kinds of troubles with our vans breaking down. That’s pretty
common road stories. We got to play in Hawaii several times - that was pretty crazy. Gosh, there’s all kinds of stuff
that I can’t talk about. (Laughs) Pretty much typical rock ‘n roll stories. Every band’s got ‘em.
Would you do it all over again?
Oh, sure I would.
Would you do anything differently?
I would do some things differently. You know we were supposed to appear one time on Conan, but they wanted us to edit "Opossum
Kingdom" down to three minutes... we didn’t feel that we had enough time to do it. So we offered to play a different
song, and I guess that didn’t work. So we ended up not appearing, and the band that appeared in our place was No Doubt.
And their next three months exploded after that. So I guess we should have tried harder to edit that song on Conan O’brian.
But we did the best we could - for a bunch of dumb musicians.
