Subj:	Toad interview, article in 4/7 Lux

Wednesday, April 12th, 1995 at 2:22am

Toad Speaks
Well, no, Toad's bassist talks with writer Troy Carpenter

	Writer Troy Carpenter phoned Toad the Wet Sprocket bassist March 28 to 
talk about life on the road.

Troy:  First, congratulations on your upcoming wedding.
Dean:  Hey, thanks!
T: Regarding the "Fly From Heaven" video--I've heard it's been banned from 
play on MTV and VH1. What exactly was the content that was deemed unshowable, 
and how do you feel about it?
D: Well, I'm not sure whether the video was banned because the content was 
unshowable or whether, you know, MTV just has their priorities on playing the 
next Green Day video. We certainly didn't put anything in the video that would 
make it any more disturbing than a clip like, let's say, "Lightning Crashes" 
by Live. It's not any more disturbing than that, it's just--not to put too 
fine a point on it--they have friends at MTV, and we don't. That's just kind 
of the way it is, you know?
T: Is there any particular reason for such extensive, nonstop touring that you 
guys have been doing since the release of _Dulcinea_? Are there plans in the 
making for a live album?
D: Well, we have been recording all of the shows on the tour ever since we 
started, so yeah. We put out a little disc called _Five Live_ a few years back 
just as a promotional thing with some copies of the _fear_ album. So people 
have been wondering when we might put out a full-length live disc, and we just 
said, "Gosh, you know, we just have to get some material."
	So we do these shows, we send the tapes back to California, we have a 
guy who will listen to one show every day and hopefully tell us which parts 
were good and catalog it all. And then we can hopefully go in and mix it and 
come up with something that'll be really good. We've wanted to put out a live 
record for a long time. We've always felt like something a little different 
happens live with us--when we get in the same room as our audience--just the 
vibe that gets going. We've been trying to capture that.
T: I've noticed that there is a great deal of interaction between you and your 
opening bands. Darius Rucker comes out, and I know you played a lot with the 
Gin Blossoms when you were touring with them. Do you choose your opening bands 
yourselves?
D: Yeah. We usually try to take out people that we like their music and know. 
We knew the Gin Blossoms through a friend of ours in L.A. who was working with 
them and heard their record. (We) thought it was great, and we took them out 
on tour for about six months or so. And Hootie we met last year.
	But actually we met them about three or four years ago when we played 
a show in their hometown, and they came to see us and gave us a tape and 
said "Hey, we're in this band--Hootie and the Blowfish--we're gonna be big 
someday, and we want to do a tour with you someday." We were like, "OK, 
great." But I think we told them that they had to choose a better name, 
because "Toad the Wet Sprocket" and "Hootie and the Blowfish"? You know.
T: That could be rough.
D: Oh yeah. But later on we met them last year and did one show with them in 
Wisconsin. It went so well that we decided to set up a whole tour. And damn, 
since then, their record's just been soaring.
T: How do you see the audiences at the shows now differing from, say, the 
audiences before and during the rise of _fear_, your "breakthrough album?"
D: It's actually mellowed out a little bit. The crowds are still big, and 
they're still into it, but we don't have as many people coming just because 
they heard one song off the radio. I think most of the people who come now 
have realized that we've been doing this for a while and have at least one of 
the records, probably, and know more than that one song. You know, back during 
the "All I Want" thing, and the rise of _fear_, we got a lot of people who it 
was all new to them except that one song, and they were waiting the whole 
night for that one song. That's fine--that was a lot of people's introduction 
to it. But that's been a definite change.
T: There has been a theory that whether or not Glen wears shoes has a direct 
effect on the quality of the show you do. What do you think about this?
D: Hogwash. That's my one word answer. It has absolutely no bearing other than 
if it's warm out and comfortable, he will probably not wear shoes. If it's 
cold out, and if we're playing outside or if there's broken glass on the 
stage, then he'll tend to wear shoes.
T: Along the lines of B-sides, do you plan to record more studio B-sides or 
keep putting out the live B-sides that have been the staple for _Dulcinea_?
D: See, these are osme of the live tracks that we recorded when we were first 
thinking of doing a live record. Back on the last tour. So these are songs 
that are live tracks that we're not playing every night, so they're little 
teasers of things that people might have heard at the show but probably
didn't, like "Corporal Brown" and ... I forget what the other song was.
T: I think you put out "Know Me."
D: Well, we have been playing those but not so much in the last couple of 
months. I don't know. I think it was kind of Joe, who is our assistant. He got 
this idea with the second single to put out two live B-sides from _Bread and 
Circus_ or ... what were the "Something's Always Wrong" B-sides?
T: I'm not sure.
D: I forget. Well, he likes to group them by previous albums, so we have two 
songs off of _Pale_, like "Don't Go Away" and "Corporal Brown," but live, so 
it kinda gives people a taste of what the _Pale_ album was about. And then, 
maybe we'll put two live songs from _fear_ out. You know, it just kinda makes 
a cool package.
T: Do you keep up with the Toad Internet mailing list?
D: Yeah, we usually download a digest of it and look through it. Our manager 
is not really involved but he snoops around in there and sees how things are 
going. And yeah, we read it occasionally--sometimes it's pretty funny.
T: I thought you'd like to know that there are people out there on the list 
who have posted that, all this time, due to the writing on the cover of
_Dulcinea_, that the song "Stupid" was actually called "BigutZ because it's 
backwards.
D: Yeah, so how stupid do they feel now?
T: Seriously.
D: That in itself has kinda come full circle, because when they realize that 
it's just written backwards, they just go "Duh!"


More Toad
Two concert freaks rock to Toad and Hootie and the Blowfish

by Troy Carpenter and Jonathan Cohen

	OK, so we're groupies. We've traveled more than a 1,000 miles in the 
past few months to see bands of all types: from The Dave Matthews Band in a 
quaint theater in Cincinnati, to Letters to Cleo at a rowdy bar in 
Indianapolis.
	Last week, our adventures encompassed both of these cities and the two 
bands we have both come to adore. Toad the Wet Sprocket, touring with Hootie 
and the Blowfish, were the object of our desires. Courtesy of Troy's interview 
with Toad bassist Dean Dinning, we attended the duo's show Thursday at the 
Murat Temple's Egyptian Room in Indianapolis.
	Arriving five minutes before showtime didn't get us off on the right 
foot. Further, we had no idea that the Egyptian Room had no seats. As Hootie 
prepared to take the stage, Troy took of for the bathroom. When he returned, 
the lights were low and Hootie was already ripping into "Hannah Jane." But 
Jonathan was nowhere to be found.
	Hootie looked sharp, performing every song from its smash-hit album 
_Cracked Rear View_, except for "Look Away." Members of Toad meandered on 
stage to assist in the instrumentation for several songs. "Drowning" featured 
Dinning, guitarist Todd Nichols and Toad's lead singer Glen Phillips. Dinning 
played keyboards on three other songs while the remaining member of Toad, 
drummer Randy Guss, was in the back of the room, running the lighting for the 
show, no less!
	"I've been experimenting with the lighting since we toured with the 
Gin Blossoms," Guss said. "One time a couple of weeks ago the light board was 
locked up, and I couldn't get any lights on for Hootie's set. They were 
wandering around in the dark."
	When Guss raised the lights to indicate the end of Hootie's 60-minute 
set, which closed with radio-darling "Hold My Hand," we finally spotted each 
other amidst the crowd.
	Toad the Wet Sprocket took the stage at 9 p.m. and opened with "Is It
For Me," "Fly From Heaven," and "All I Want." Hootie's lead singer Darius 
Rucker then took the stage to sing "Woodburning," the first time he had ever 
performed the song live.
	This kind of musical chair atmosphere is common of late on this tour, 
as the two bands have become good friends and often accompany each other in 
select songs. Rucker told the crowd during his band's set that the two groups 
wanted to do a compilation album similar to Pearl Jam and Soundgarden's
"Temple of the Dog."
	Toad added further zaniness to its performance by playing the theme 
song from Phillips' favorite television show, "Battlestar Galactica," a cover 
of the Neil Young song "Cinnamon Girl," and a botched attempt at the funky 
"Wild Thing." Rucker came onstage again to join with Phillips in a duet of "I 
Will Not Take These Things For Granted" as the last of four encores.
	Toad seems like just like the band next door; they are just plain 
nice. Fan Sherrill Cederlund's husband, Jerry, drove Toad's tour bus during 
its first U.S. tour. She views them almost like her own children.
	"When Jerry had a heart problem, they came to the hospital to visit 
him," she said. "They're wonderful guys."
	Wonderful guys indeed, as we found out when we went backstage after 
the show. We decided to hit up Nichols for tickets to the band's performance 
two nights later in Cincinnati.
	"Sure guys! No problem," said Nichols in response to our request.
	So, two days later, we were on the road again. This time, it was the 
harrowing 160-mile drive to Cincinnati's Taft Theater.
	We arrived on time for this one. But the tickets we were expecting 
were conspicuously absent. We could already hear the din of scalpers selling 
single seats for upwards of $60 at the theater's entrance.
	Finding our way to Toad's bus, we summoned our pseudo-pal Todd 
Nichols. Boy was his face red as he fished Troy's name and address out of his 
wallet.
	"You guys are going to kill me," he said. "Let me go inside and see 
what I can do."
	Within minutes, but not before Hootie had started playing for the 
evening, Todd had worked his magic. We were ushered into the theater via the 
proverbial back door and onto the stage itself. Then the manager of the whole 
place brought out two folding chairs and planted them on the right side of the 
theater, within 10 rows of the stage front.
	Hootie varied its set a bit in comparison to its performace two nights 
prior by playing "Use Me," which Rucker said the band hadn't played live in 
more than six weeks. Oddly, when we asked Rucker for a set list after the 
show, he said the members don't use set lists and make up their set as they 
go.
	Again, Hootie closed with "Hold My Hand," and Toad was back in front 
of us some 20 minutes later.
	After the opener, "Fly From Heaven," Phillips told the crowd, "Good 
night Cincinnati! It's been a great show," and, with that, he and the whole 
band and the crew left the stage. Even the house lights came on before the 
band immediately returned to the stage as Dinning said, "Happy April Fools' 
Day, everyone!"
	We'd been duped just like everybody else. But we didn't care. Toad put 
on another amazing show, including songs from albums days past. "Don't Go 
Away," was sung by Rucker and "Know Me" was also performed, the latter from 
their 1988 debut album _Bread and Circus_.
	They also launched into a few jams, which yielded some unlikely 
covers. Phillips sang "Staying Alive" supported by Dinning's funky bass, as 
well as the appropriate "My City Was Gone" by the Pretenders.
	Glen Phillips told the crowd about the analogy between the band's 
single "Something's Always Wrong" and the common problem of finding gum on 
one's seat at concerts. "If you take gum as an allegory for life, when things 
get all screwed up, this is a gum song," he told the crowd.
	Toad ended its performance in the same fashion as it did in 
Indianapolis, with Rucker and Phillips collaborating on "I Will Not Take These 
Things For Granted."
	After the show, we wanted to chat with Nichols for finding us seats, 
folding chairs or otherwise. We waded through groupies and security folk, but 
not before encountering some Toad fans from IU like us.
	Nichols finally showed up at the aftershow meet-and-greet. He looked 
relieved as he saw us and took our permanent addresses to keep us informed of 
future performances in the area.
	Wearily, we passed through yet another sea of backstage-passless 
groupies and headed for home with memories galore--without having spent a 
dime. An amazing week was coming to its conclusion, and we had the pictures to 
prove it.