{"id":2460595,"date":"2026-06-15T17:33:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-15T17:33:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2460595"},"modified":"2026-06-15T17:33:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-15T17:33:09","slug":"toadies-singer-talks-old-wounds-new-music-before-phoenix-show","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/toadies-singer-talks-old-wounds-new-music-before-phoenix-show\/","title":{"rendered":"Toadies singer talks old wounds, new music before Phoenix show"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<div class=\"article-thumbnail-caption\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\tThe Toadies will rock The Van Buren on June 17.\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<span class=\"article-thumbnail-credit\"><\/p>\n<p>Live Nation<\/p>\n<p><\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div><\/div>\n<div>\n<p>Toadies, who will be at The Van Buren on Wednesday, June 17, are best known for their monster 1994 hit \u201cPossum Kingdom,\u201d one of the darkest and most intense songs ever to achieve massive airplay.\u00a0\u201cRubberneck,\u201d the album from which it spawned, is full of creepy tunes \u2014 some of which are downright terrifying.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>For decades, Toadies frontman Vaden Lewis believed the same myth that countless other artists believed \u2014 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.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>But after years of suffering, Lewis had had enough.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSelf-doubt and, well, despair in general, have dominated my life for a very long time,\u201d he says. \u201cI 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.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"vmg-newsletter-form\">\n<div class=\"vmg-newsletter-form__container\">\n<div class=\"vmg-newsletter-form__form-wrapper vmg-newsletter-form__step1\" id=\"vmg-newsletter-step1\">\n<div class=\"vmg-newsletter-form__form-wrapper-inner\">\n<p>Sign up for the Music newsletter to get the latest stories delivered to your inbox<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"vmg-newsletter-form__success hidden\" id=\"vmg-newsletter-success\">\n<div class=\"vmg-newsletter-form__success-content\">\n<h3>THANK YOU!<\/h3>\n<p>You&#8217;re all set.<\/p>\n<p><button type=\"button\" class=\"vmg-newsletter-form__close-btn\" id=\"vmg-close-success\"><br \/>CLOSE\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/button><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<div class=\"jeg_video_container jeg_video_content\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"The Toadies - Possum Kingdom (Official Music Video)\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/EkwD5rQ-_d4?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p>Lewis says that he talks a little about his past feelings of unworthiness during the Toadies\u2019 performances.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ve been walking around with this garbage in my head for my whole life, all my adult life, most of my teen years.\u00a0So, when we got signed, I just thought, \u2018I guess we put one over on the major label. I don\u2019t deserve this.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p>We asked him if he thought that \u201cRubberneck\u201d would have had the same level of intensity if he\u2019d been on medication at the time he wrote it. \u201cThat was one of the main reasons I didn\u2019t want to get help was because I thought, \u2018That\u2019s just who I am,\u2019\u201d he responds.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat\u2019s part of being an artist. It\u2019s part of what makes me creative, and it\u2019s part of what sparks that creative urge \u2014 this negativity and self-doubt and self-loathing, and it\u2019s just bullshit.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Lewis says he wrote the new album, \u201cThe Charmer,\u201d with a clearer head than he ever had during the band\u2019s classic period. It\u2019s 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\u2019re no longer fueled by the self-loathing that once convinced him that he didn\u2019t deserve his success.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m still weird as hell. I\u2019m still dark,\u201d Lewis says. \u201cAnybody out there that thinks that medication is gonna steal their soul or make them a zombie is just wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline\">Toadies: With Local H and Sparta. 7 p.m. Wednesday, June 17. The Van Buren, 400 W. Van Buren St. <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ticketmaster.com\/toadies-the-charmer-tour-phoenix-arizona-06-17-2026\/event\/1900644B1FFCA9C5\">Tickets are<\/a> $52.90 general admission. Mezzanine tickets available through resale.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><em> \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em> \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.phoenixnewtimes.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Toadies will rock The Van Buren on June 17. Live Nation Toadies, who will be at The Van Buren on Wednesday, June 17, are best known for their monster 1994 hit \u201cPossum Kingdom,\u201d one of the darkest and most intense songs ever to achieve massive airplay.\u00a0\u201cRubberneck,\u201d the album from which it spawned, is full [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2460596,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25179],"tags":[379470],"class_list":["post-2460595","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music","tag-concert-previews"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Toadies-singer-talks-old-wounds-new-music-before-Phoenix-show.webp","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2460595","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2460595"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2460595\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2460597,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2460595\/revisions\/2460597"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2460596"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2460595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2460595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2460595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}