Copyright 1994 Francine Maher Alberquerque Journal -- transcript of an interview with Toad's Dean Dinning follows -- ME: Well, are you ready to be drilled again? HIM: Sure, just try and make it as painless as possible. (laughter) ME: OKAY The new album, this one is very different from Fear, is that done on purpose? Did you try to go for a different approach this time? HIM: Well, I think we learned alot when we made Fear, the songs were embellished alot, but that didn't necessarily make them better. In fact they got better when we took them out on the road and started playing them in front of audiences in a more stripped down form and so I think this record is like more reflective of the last tour, you know, and the sound we were getting there. ME: Do you feel like you are getting more attention with this album than with any of the others? To me it seems like your name has been coming up more... HIM: attention? ME: yeah, more people seem to know about your band... HIM:Well I guess that's good ME: Well, it may just be Albuquerque is finally finding out about your band HIM: UM Gosh, maybe we are, um it doesn't seem like we're (laughter) like we're on MTV as much as we were with the last record just because you know, MTV is alot different now than it was back then ME: Right... HIM: and um it used to be that, you know, I'd turn it on and see ourselves, you know, accidentally a couple of times a day and um, I haven't noticed it that much, but, you know, I think, ju st the longer you stay around, naturally, people are going to know about you and you know, we don't really have that much national press, but i guess our longevity is something we have on our side , people will find out about us eventually. if we just stick around. ME: The Rock and Roll party all night cd's... HIM: Yeah! ME: What's up with those, are those meant to be kind of a secret, they're not really played on the radio are they? HIM: no, not unless somebody at a radio station has signed up to be on the mailing list, and buys one just like everyone else, they're not like service to radio, for airplay, they're just kind of a little gifty we do for the mailing list slash fanclub people the people we want to keep in touch with and treat a little specially and hopefull you know, who will remain fans of the band for you know, for a long time hopefully. ME: Okay, speaking of fanclubs, do you all know anything about the internet? HIM: Um, I'm aware of it. Um, I haven't gone in and read anything because that would be like uh, like airing dirty laundry or something, or reading about your dirty laundry (laughter) I don't know it's just kind of weird that this stuff exists to talk about you. ME: It's pretty interesting because there are people on there everysingle day, talking about the band HIM: WHAT do they talk about? ME: Lyrics, songs, meeting you guys, music, complete reviews of the show, sometimes even arguments about lyrics and what they meant.. HIM: UH HUH ME: Gosh, just.. HIM: The one thing I heard about that was on the internet thing that someone told me about was that somebody went on there and wrote, after we had gone on the Letterman show, they went on and kind of like gave a critique of our appearance on Letterman, it was like "God they they looked really tired and like they weren't really into it" and all that kind of (laughter) stuff and it was like, God, that's the last thing you want to hear. ME: Right... HIM: you know its like, we had come into New York on a, you know, sleeping on a bus that morning and we had a show to do that night and so we were going back and forth between the Letterman show and sound check for our own concert at the uh, Roseland, and its like, YOU try it.... laughter ME: Right...well, HIM: We're human ME: Well, someone came to your defense, I think it was a friend, came on and said that and explained it all HIM: Yeah! ME: so that was nice HIM: i thought, I mean we thought, we all were looking at it and going... cause I don't know if you saw the performance we did on Letterman with THEIR band, when we did All I Want.. ME: no, I didn't HIM: which, it was aboutthree years ago, it was like we had, we HAD to do it with their band playing with us and with all them singing too ME:(laughter) HIM: and it wasnt' the same, you know, we always wanted to do it by ourselves as a band, and why couldn't we just go on and play by ourselves, and this time we finally got to and we were all pretty stoked on it like "yeah, that's the way it should go," you know, it actually sounded pretty good. so were kind of going "yeah, i wish the other one had sounded that good", "boy haven't we come a long way" and then you read this thing on the internet and you go "ugh! oy! i should have smiled more!" ME: (laughter) you know, that's probably the only thing on there that has ever been negative, i don't even remember if it was really NEGATIVE, it's a pretty positive thing, there are people on there every day, it's kind of unique, HIM: yeah, i know ME: I get a copy everyday and it's huge and i just can't get through it all HIM: yeah, and plus on the internet its just the way its' set up, ME:uh huh HIM: you have to read through alot of bullshit to get to the good stuff, so ME: so none of you guys ever plan on getting on there or you know, dropping a line HIM: I uh, I think, there's like something in the back of my mind tells me that would be a good easy way to answer fan mail if you ever really wanted to, to just kind of say "hey, i'm gonna be hooking into this thing like once a month and I'm gonna answer like 30 you know, short inquiries or something, you know, sometimes you just get people wanting to know SO much that its daunting, you know, so if you were... if one of us were able to go on line and answer, or talk to people i think that would be ag reeat way to keep the communication goinga nd you know, we get mail all of the time and we always read it, but sometimes its hard to get motivated to wrtie back to some one, even if tehy have a relaly good story that they've told, but we try.. ME: this is really a cool way to do it, you can type right in there HIM: yeah! it's more immediate that way ME: i think that everybody would be really thrilled too HIM; it's like you know, i just got like a computer this year and got myself hooked into the networks and stuff and i've always been a terrible letter writer all my life, but i have no problem with e-mail ME: right HIM: for some reason ME: it's weird like that HIM: it's really motivating some how, maybe just because its fun, its like new wave and 90's ME: (laughter) and it's quick HIM: it's very quick ME: you don't have to drop it in the mailbox, you dont have to buy a stamp MIM: Yeah, no, it's real quick, i like that ME: that would be cool, that would be something I could tell them because they all know i'm doing this HIM: really? ME: yeah, i'm sure people will want the details HIM: (laughter) ME: Well, there's alot of interpretation of lyrics and some arguing.. HIM: Right ME: your lyrics are very intense, its not what you hear in alot of bands... HIM: right ME: they're always really great and intense, do you do that on purpose, is it a way to get a message across...a way to get people to think, or is that just what you end up writing about? HIM: i think in a way its a way to encourage people to get their own message because the lyrics are vague enough that they can mean a lot of different things to alot of different people. and um the one thing that i think has been avoided, and quite successfully I think,, is getting too specific and too situational you know, um, i don't know, it''s just kind of, it's great to do music that has lyrics that affect people, its a powerful thing, some of the letters we get about songs like hold her down, or before you were born, you know, some of the really intense ones, you know, they bring tears to your eyes, the stories that some peple have about these songs and their lives is just really moving. I don't think anyone should be fighting over what its about i think it would be fun to see how many different meanings you can get out of a song, you know, and have them all affect you personally. ME: right, but I guess what they want to know is what... HIM: what specifically inspired it... ME: yeah, where did it come from... HIM, yeah, yeah...and sometimes if someone asks that, it's really up to glen if he wants to tell them or not because sometimes its just too personal, when you're dealing with lyrics that are emotional like these sometimes you don't, you know, you want to protect peopples privacy and not say, even within your own group of friends ME: sure HIM:if um, if somebody were to read something that would pinpoint that you were inspired to write some song because of some thing that happened to them, you know, there could be all kinds of weird tension ME: yeah, that could be real sticky HIM: yeah ME: I read an article that you were the only all male band invited to play at the national organization for women's rally HIM: yeah! that was the big NOW rally held on the mall in washington for reproductive freedom ME: and why do you think, do you know why you were the only all male band? Do you think it had to do with your song writing? HIM: I'm not sure whether it worked out that way, um because of some of the songs we've written, we've had kind of a thing going with women's issues from the very begining, one of the first, well one of the first i guess, issue related songs we ever had was a song called one little girl which was on bread and circus. and you know, peiople got that one and we sort of became, we sort of decided , you know, we get asked to do alot of charity work and things like that and we got, we decided early on that we were going to stick to one and well, one mainly locally, back when we were local anyway and we started working with the santa barbara rape crisis center... so we would do benefits for them and give money to them, you know, locally, its kind of , with hold her down on fear and it just kind of grew outward from there until more people around the country were hearing about our work with either the santa barbara rape crisis center or having tables from rape crisis centers at the shows when we were on tour and you know, our work with amnesty international and things like that so, it was really just kind of , it just seemed like a pretty natural extention of that. IT was a great thing to be a part of ME: yeah, that's really cool, do you know anything about rock for choice? HIM: we've done a rock for choice benefit in L.A. we played with like Dada and some other people ME: One last question, the fans that meet you always seem to have a great report coming back HIM: Yeah ME: of how receptive you guys are is that something you try to do on purpose? do you usually try to stick around after a show trying to meet people and talk to people? HIM: ummmm, yeah! no, its just fun, its fun to meet people to see whose getting your music and you know i've, i don't know, sometimes i think about when i was, well, i can't even say when I was younger, just the way i am now, the way i feel when i go to concerts you know, and how much i'd really like to meet that person, i sort of just project that into these people and you kind of think "you know this is kind of cool, not only can i just go out there and show them a little bit more of who i am than just that person on stage, " you know you're always thinkin that people have this picture of you either from the records or what you play or what you say, or what you write and then your stage persona, you know, how ever you are, barooding or wacky or whatever you are and they have this one image of who you are and the only way to make, ithink, to humanize, one good way to humanize yourself is just to be normal and talk to people and make friends, it's really not that big a deal and um, sometimes you have some weird experiences ME: (laugter) HIM: you know, with so called fans, you know theres' a difference, some people are there for the moment and some people are really there for the music, and some like, one time there was this girl who was totally in mine and glen's faces, just saying "oh god, don't you guys love this, don't you guys just love being pressed by the crowd and all these people are just going crazy, and isn't this just the greatest.." and we're just like uHHHH go away, you know, we just want to meet some people (laughter) this is NOT beatlemania ME:right, it must be nuts. you guys are doing a college thing this time around, and those are usually all-ages HIM: yeah! ME:do you end up getting alot of younger girls that are maybe just there for the teeny-bopper thing of it all? HIM: um, you know, I don't know, I think that... we have a large female audience, its kind of weird, when we, just in general its been a thing that i've noticed we've played some big radio festivals right, and when um, like henry rollins is on, like all the bare chested burly guys come to the front and their like "fuck yeah, rollins!!" (laughter) right? and then when we play, all those burly guys go back and get bored in their seats and all their girlfriends come up and watch us, or maybe they're on their burly boyfriends shoulders you know, but its just like, there's this change that happens, ME: just because of the nature of things i guess HIM: yeah i guess, i think its just maybe something in the music or something something that projects out of us, maybe donn't knw. we're not like a scarey band, ME:uh huh HIM: (laughter) you know?, its like I hate to use the word but i'd have to say that people probably think that we're nice, whether that's good or not, I don't know , (laughter) ME: I think maybe for women, it seems that you are very aware of things, aware of issues HIM:Yeah! ME: Some bands really are scarey HIM: Yeah! ME: I wouldn't want to stand up in the front and watch Henry Rollins right at the front of the stage HIM: Right! Chances are, you know if people come up to the front at one of our shows, you know , we're liable to go back stage and come out with a plate full of cheese and pass it around, that's kind of just more the way things are. ME: Do you ever get any time to hang out at all? Do you ever get a chance to stop and hang out or is it town after town after town after town? HIM: Well usually its town after town after town but when ever we have a day off, its never in a fun city like New York or something like that, its invariably in like the proverbial like "bum fuck iowa" kinda place where you know you have to get in a cab and go ten miles out of town just to go see a movie or something and you're there because your playing at the college, but we can always find things to do, we don't really tend to go out to clubs and stuff, its kind of the last thing you want to do is go to a smoke filled bar when you've been playing in smoke filled bars all your life, but um we recreate, (laughter) definitley. sometimes you just have to be motivated and reminded that there's cool stuff to do everywhere. and there are places that we like to go and somedays you just want to stay in your hotel room all day with the tv on and call home sometimes that's ...you know.. ME: a great day HIM: a great day! ME: DO you ever get to hang out in Albuquerque at all? HIM: I've been to Albuquerque before because I have two older brothers who live in Farmington New Mexico ME: ewww HIM: I know, its gross, but i've been through albuquerque a number of times, I haven't spent that much time there, but its probably a little nicer than farmington ME: ONe last question, everybody knows where the name came from, the big question is... HIM: WHY??? ME: why? HIM: gosh, what people have to remember its like, when we started this band, when we first started thinking about it, we were just kids, three of us were 16 and glen was barely born yet, (laughter) it was like, todd and randy and i got together to record a song for a class as a final project and i had this monty python record and we were a band but we were just screwing around so we called it toad the wet sprocket, cuz, you didn't have to callit anything, but was fun, and i could draw up little logos of frogs jumping through bicycles and droplets of water spraying everywhere, randy still has the original toad logo that i drew on a napkin at like carrows or something some restaurant in the middle of the night and "here, we're toad the wet sprocket" ah, we were constantly thinking of other names for ourselves and i just wanted to see it in print once, just once, so when we had our first gig, umm, we told the owner to put toad the wet sprocket in the paper and we were going to change it, and um, unfortunaelty we either never thought of anything better or we were just too damn lazy to change it, but i 've thought about it alot since then, it kind of in a weird way, goes along with kind of the overall picture of who we are i think, cuz, this thing that we do is really just about music, we don't really have an image, we don't get like tons of press, there's no fad or fashion about it,we're not COOL, the only reason that people like us is the music, and that's the way we feel about it too, we put the priority on the music and nothing else really matters, the name, who cares? getting on the cover of rolling stone, screw it, it'll never happen, what's important is, the 4 of us together making this music and if people don't like the music, ther's no reason for them to like us, there;s nothing else there ME: can I ask how old you guys are HIM: well, three of us are 27 and glen is 24 i think. closing remarks, etc;