The Dallas based band Toadies to a lot of people seemed like they had overnight success,
but that wasn’t the case. The band’s debut record Rubberneck was almost dead on arrival
and the label almost gave up on it. To many people close to the band, their success was a surprise,
But the Toadies would take almost a decade to release their follow up album.
So whatever happened to the band and why was there such a
long delay between albums? Today let’s explore whatever happened to the group.
The Toadies history dated back to 1989 where all four members of the band worked together at the
Sound warehouse in fort worth, texas. Frontman and band leader Vaden (odd Lewis \ had played
through his share of bands and was tired of playing in cover bands telling bluronline:
“I wanted to play original music but the guys I was playing with just wanted to do covers
because there was money in it but you can’t grow creatively doing covers. I wanted to do
my own stuff. Also working at sound warehouse on camp bowie boulevard was Lisa Umbarger guitarist
Charles Mooney and drummer Guy Vaughn. Vaughn and Vaden knew each other since they played
previously in bands together with Vaughn telling l Fort worth texas online “He (referring to Vaden)
called me one day and said he had a vision for a new band, and he wanted me, Charles, and Lisa
to be part of it. When I heard the new songs, I thought, This guy has really got something."
Umbarger and Mooney didn’t really know how to play instruments at this point in time,
but Vaden offered to teach them and so they formed a band. But from the
start Toadies struggled to keep a drummer, going through a revolving cast of characters
until Mark Reznicek joined the group and stayed as the drummer ever since.
In 1989 and 1990 the band put out its self published EP’s and started selling their
first two song cassette featuring the singles dig a hole and i hope you die
The band would undergo several more lineup changes with Charles Mooney leaving the
band telling fortworthtexas.com Mooney: I quit in April 1993.
I just finished college, was getting ready to get married, and I felt some
pressure from the family to get a “real job.” Darrell Herbert would take over on lead guitar
and it was around this time that labels started showing interest in the group.
A small indie label named Grass would put out the Toadies EP Pleather in 1993. which
attracted bigger labels. According to billboard magazine pleather would sell around 1400 copies
and Initially Grass wanted to put out a full length LP
but the band held back some songs knowing they wanted to save them for their major label debut.
It would be an A&R guy named, Ray Santamaria, who worked for interscope
who heard the group’s EP and flew out to see the band at at a club named Mad Hatters. But the band
didn’t get signed immediately. The A&R guy Ray told the band according to the same article that
he could get more people from his label to check the band out if they could land a gig in LA.
Herbert would recall I pestered the only club I had heard of out there, the Whisky A Go-Go,
until they booked us a show in the middle of the week. We strapped a U-Haul trailer to one
of those giant land yacht sedans from the ’70s and drove all night to get there. Ted Fields,
owner of the label, came to the show and signed us on the spot" he'd remember.
Within 3 months of signing with Interscope the band began work on their major label debut
Rubberneck with the band choosing to work with Tom Rothrock and Rob Schnapf who had a long list
of credentials including Beck and Foo Fighters, but it would be their work with the punk rock band
Wool that made The Toadies want to work with the pair of producers. Most of the songs on pleather
would end up making their way onto rubberneck & the band and the producers would retreat to a
pretty secluded studio in mendocino. california to record Rubberneck. The band broke up the boredom
of seclusion by smoking pot and playing street fighter & the biggest hit off the album would
end up being the single Possum Kingdom, but the song narrowly made it onto the record. The band
fought with their label over the single with Lisa Umbarger telling fort worth texas.com:
We didn’t want that song on there at all. We fought Ray, and we fought the label on it.
They came back to us and said, “This song is one of the reasons why we signed you.”
As the band saw it they had already released the song twice on their earlier
works and thought their fans already heard it so there was no need to re-release it.
The artwork for the album would be commissioned from an art student from University of North
Texas.who initially had a different idea for the album cover suggesting a woman kneeling in
front of a burning house since the band had some songs about fire on the album.
Instead the band chose an image of a man leaping that would be inspired by artist Robert Longo
and his men in the cities series in addition to a 1951 series called mysterious island.
The albums dark subject matter was the product of Lewis upbringing which saw
him have a baptist minister father. He would tell Billboard “Im not really rebelling against
that. I got over that when i was age 16. It’s more about looking back on what shapes your
thinking and writing about what twisted things were put on you as a little kid.
Like the whole thing about worrying and dying and going to hell.
Prior to the album’s release the members of Toadies were well aware they could be
dropped if their debut record didn’t sell. Lewis would tell the NY Times
“Our expectations were low,” “I looked at the whole scenario like I’d tricked
them into letting me make a record. I figured we’d do what we could get away
with and then they’ll drop me and I’ll get to go back to work in the store.
Released in the summer of 1994, almost a year after recording finished, Interscope didn’t
seem enthusiastic about Rubberneck. They were far too busy promoting other more established
acts including Bush, & Marlyn Manson and Nine Inch Nails. In fact the first two singles released from
the album barely got any radio or MTV airplay and a third single was almost never released.
The band meanwhile were touring in a small van with Bush thinking their shot as success
was almost over. Even the band's tour with Bush was not enjoyable for Toadies
with Lewis telling billboard magazine “we love meet and greats but it’s frustrating because we
can’ get through to the people we want to meet in those big venues with Bush’s security people
around we-re like the red headed step child. We haven’t had much fun and no off days" he'd say.
By Christmas 1994, the band members were contemplating getting day jobs.
But almost a year after being released the band’s fortunes changed. By the end of 1995
Rubberneck would go gold selling over 500,000 copies. But what happened?
Lewis would tell the LA Times in 1995 “We were doing everything we could do, and
the label kept pushing things back and changing things around,” “So we
were about ready to . . . move on to work with someone else.”
But their label though would tell a different story revealing how they
were holding off on releasing the group’s biggest single until The Toadies had some
touring under their belts and built up some familiarity with their first few singles.
It was probably the label's way of saving face and fourteen months after its release, the albums
fortunes changed and Rubbernuck would become a big seller thanks to the success of third single
Possum Kingdom. Possum Kingdom pushed Rubberneck up the college & alternative rock charts.
The band’s success followed the path of other alternative rock bands including
Soundgarden and Alice in Chains with the LA Times interviewing a fellow named Rob Tarantino
who is a national radio promoter for the band’s label who told the Times
“Just like with Pearl Jam, the band has had to tour for over a year and build a fan base
before it could sell records,”. “And like Pearl Jam, as well as Soundgarden and Alice in Chains,
they had to make it on rock radio before they would cross over into alternative radio.”
The Toadies owed a lot of their success to a radio station in Tampa Florida WXTB,
which added Possum Kingdom to their rotation at the end of 1994. Soon enough other stations
followed including WAAF in Boston. Before they knew it the single was added to other
stations across the country and the music video was added the MTV's buzz bin program.
Toadies manager would tell the LA Times that the band owed their success to their grueling
work schedule which saw them touring relentlessly. Lewis would reveal the inspiration behind the song
telling Billboard in 1995 “the story of it kind of came from this really cool eerie outside of fort
worth texas called Possum Kingdom. The whole lake has a weird vibe to it even during the daytime”
Lewis would go on to claim that his parents leased some land around the lake growing up and he heard
several spooky stories about the lake as a kid. The lyrics would be inspired by Lewis who crafted
a story about a fictional serial killer who met a woman by the body of water and took her life.
Following the success of Possum Kingdom radio stations wanted a follow up and they soon
started play I Come From the Water even though it was never released as a single according to
the LA Times. By the end of 1996 Rubberneck went platinum selling over a million copies.
But, It would take years for the band to write their long-awaited follow up
with , Lewis recalling to the Dallas Observer: " we never write on tour,""It takes a lot of time,
and it's too hard to concentrate." Also adding to the delays was that in '96,
guitarist Darrel Herbert left the group and he would turn around and
sue the band over financial disputes and the matter would be settled out of court.
Toadies planned to reenter the studio in 1998 and initially worked with butthole surfers guitarist
paul leary. But the sessions didn’t go well and it was further compounded by the fact
that the butthole surfers had their own issues with interscope and both bands shared the same
manager Tom Bunch who coincidentally enough they were both fueding with.
The sessions with Leary would produce 15 songs — but Interscope wasn’t a happy with the tracks and
told the band to head back into the studio., Lewis would tell the dallas observer in 1998
"When we sent the tapes in to Interscope, we got the usual second-record spiel about
how they wanted more singles and what not" The band would end up working with the same
producers they worked with on Rubberneck and while the sessions went better, it was still
a slow process with Lewis telling the Chicago Tribune in 2001 "We're not really fast writers,
especially now that everyone in the band is more involved in the process. There was some
red tape in our way too." 7 years later the band came out of hibernation with their long awaited
follow up “Hell Below/Stars Above,” In addition to lineup changes,
squabbles with their label and manager, The 7 year delay could also be attributed
to Interscope undergoing a restructuring. The band’s struggles over that seven year
period would end up showing up on the band’s sophomore effort on songs like
Motivational & the album also featured some throwbacks to Rubberneck with songs like
"Jigsaw Girl" which felt much more like Possum Kingdom took a dark undertone telling the tale
of a narrator who takes the life of his lover. Lewis would tell the Tribune "I think it's fun
to pull off a love song that's really f---in' twisted. It's funny to hear a
love song about something really dark and sick that still sounds nice and pretty."
Lewis took pride in distinguishing themselves from what was popular at the time saying "I know it's
an egotistical and probably predictable thing to say, but I think our stuff kicks butt over
98 percent of what they're playing right now,". And while 2001 should have been a year to
celebrate the return of the Toadies, thing completely fell apart. Interscope did little
to promote the band’s long awaited follow up and bassist Lisa Umbarger revealed she
was quitting. She would cite the label’s lack of support for quitting the band
and as a result Lewis would breakup the Todaies rather than continue without his bassist.
Sales of the groups second major release would hover around 60,000
copies. far below that of Rubberneck. Following the Toadies dissolution, Lewis founded
the new project the Burden Brothers with Reverend Horton Heat Drummer Taz Bentley and would put out
several records. In 2006 the band reunited with umbarger who charted her own path becoming getting
an irrigators license in addition to managing international marketing for a juice company,
and apparently worked with nanotechnology. During the band’s hiatus,they found some new
fans when possum kingdom showed up in guitar hero and years later in rock band as dlc.
The reunited lineup of the Toadies would release several subsequent albums including
No Deliverance. Feeler, Play Rock Music, Heretics and Lower Side of Uptown. Feeler actually featured
the music that Interscope rejected for the group’s follow up to Rubberneck. And while
the band couldn’t get the master recordings from their old label they would re-record the tracks.
The band announced the sad news that umberger was diagnosed with cancer and they were raising money
for her treatment. That does it for today's video guys thanks for watching. Be sure to hit the like
button and subscribe and we'll see you again on rock n' roll true stories. Take care.