Cleansing The Palate With MIKE MUSHOK From STAIND

Interview by Kris Peters
Springfield rock outfit Staind are universally recognised for their
2001 smash hit balled It's Been A While.
Unfortunately, many people in the hard rock and metal world wrote
the band off because of the global success of that song, failing to
care or acknowledge the fact that Staind came from much heavier
pastures.
Their early shows consisted of a sprinkling of originals plus
covers of Korn, Rage Against the Machine, Pearl Jam, Tool, and
Alice in Chains, among others.
These bands had more of an influence on the emerging rockers, who,
despite the universal acclaim sent their way because of their
success with a rock ballad continued plying their hard
rock/alternative trade over consecutive albums.
After a five-year hiatus where frontman Aaron Lewis concentrated on
his growing country career, Staind reformed in 2019, hitting the
touring circuit with renewed vigor and falling in love all over
again with the world of music.
Last month, after 12 years between studio albums, Staind released
Confessions Of The Fallen, reaffirming their status among their
peers and casting doubt on all those who had written them
off.
HEAVY sat down earlier today with guitarist and founding member
Mike Mushok to find out more.
"I'm pretty excited," he enthused when asked about the new album.
"We worked pretty hard on this. It's been so long since we put out
new music it just feels great to be working again. I'm really proud
of the way the record came out."
We press Mushok to take us deeper into the musical side of
Confessions Of The Fallen.
"We got together… we hadn't played together in a while, and we got
together around 2018 and did some shows in 2019 and signed a record
deal then," he explained. "Then COVID happened, and it put all of
our plans on hold, but we were able to go on a tour in 2021 with
KORN, and Aaron has a successful country music career in the
States, so he's always out playing. He doesn't stop (laughs). On
that tour with KORN it was a great opportunity - because we were
all together - to get him in a room and play him some of the ideas
that I had and get his feedback of what he liked and what he
didn't. With a lot of those notes I was able to go back and start
making changes and follow what his guidance was or what he was
into. We actually wrote a lot of the record on that tour. When we
finished we chose Eric as the producer and it was funny. COVID was
still a thing and him and I were supposed to get together at the
beginning of last year and he got COVID, so we ended up doing a lot
of stuff through zoom. We tried for a song a day. One week we did
five songs, and he put his twist on it because one of the things
Aaron wanted to do was introduce more of an electronic element that
we'd never really experimented with. I feel like Eric did a great
job, because I remember saying to Aaron I play guitar, I don't
wanna play any of those electronic elements (laughs). Really what
it was is there might be a verse or a riff that I wrote on guitar
that ended up getting played on a synthesiser. Eric added in some
loops and that type of thing in certain areas and I felt he had a
great grasp of adding some of that but not too much, you know what
I mean? So it still maintained who we were, yet kind of a little
more modern sounding. At the end of the day I think he did a great
job in going back and listening to it. I'm happy with the little
production things that he added as well."
In the full interview, Mike talks about the singles released, why
they chose Lowest In Me to be the lead single and first song on the
album, how Staind have changed as a band since their last album 12
years ago, the early days of the band and the musical climate that
gave birth to them, how Break The Cycle in 2001 changed things for
Staind, resisting the urge to recycle the successful formula of
It's Been A While, how Staind has adapted to the changing musical
landscape and more.