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Toadies, who will be at The Van Buren on Wednesday, June 17, are best known for their monster 1994 hit “Possum Kingdom,” one of the darkest and most intense songs ever to achieve massive airplay. “Rubberneck,” the album from which it spawned, is full of creepy tunes — some of which are downright terrifying.
For decades, Toadies frontman Vaden Lewis believed the same myth that countless other artists believed — that somehow darkness and despair are connected to his creativity. The singer/songwriter feared that if he took medication, it would cause him to lose his edge or make him become bland and boring.
But after years of suffering, Lewis had had enough.
“Self-doubt and, well, despair in general, have dominated my life for a very long time,” he says. “I got help from medications for my horrible thoughts about five years ago, and it really made an impact. It really changed my life, and I so wish I would have done it 30 years ago.”
Lewis says that he talks a little about his past feelings of unworthiness during the Toadies’ performances.
“I’ve been walking around with this garbage in my head for my whole life, all my adult life, most of my teen years. So, when we got signed, I just thought, ‘I guess we put one over on the major label. I don’t deserve this.’”
We asked him if he thought that “Rubberneck” would have had the same level of intensity if he’d been on medication at the time he wrote it. “That was one of the main reasons I didn’t want to get help was because I thought, ‘That’s just who I am,’” he responds.
“That’s part of being an artist. It’s part of what makes me creative, and it’s part of what sparks that creative urge — this negativity and self-doubt and self-loathing, and it’s just bullshit.”
Lewis says he wrote the new album, “The Charmer,” with a clearer head than he ever had during the band’s classic period. It’s the first Toadies album written and recorded since he got help, and the result is far from a sanitized, sun-kissed version of Toadies. The songs are still strange and unsettling, but they’re no longer fueled by the self-loathing that once convinced him that he didn’t deserve his success.
“I’m still weird as hell. I’m still dark,” Lewis says. “Anybody out there that thinks that medication is gonna steal their soul or make them a zombie is just wrong.”
Toadies: With Local H and Sparta. 7 p.m. Wednesday, June 17. The Van Buren, 400 W. Van Buren St. Tickets are $52.90 general admission. Mezzanine tickets available through resale.