Staind consists of Aaron Lewis (vocals), Johnny April (bass), Jon Wysocki (drums), Mike Mushok (guitars).
Staind is a four-piece hard rock/ post-grunge/ nu-metal group from Springfield, Massachusetts, USA.
Aaron Lewis - Vocals/Guitar Mike Mushok - Guitar Johnny "Old School" April - Bass and Background Vocals Jon Wysocki - Drums
Together, throughout the course of their five albums, fifteen radio hits and progressively maturing career, house-hold name Staind have impacted modern rock, or at least post-grunge / alternative metal of the new millenium in some way.
After meeting through friends and covering KoRn, Rage Against the Machine, Pearl Jam and Alice In Chains, among others, in smalltime clubs for two years, alternative metal fourpiece Staind self-released their debut album, Tormented, in November 1996. The album is generally regarded as the band's heaviest and "rawest" effort to date, with a gun being cocked and unloaded at the start and finish of the album and eleven grind-core metal tracks that bring to mind Sepultura or Pantera and until recently was difficult to obtain, as only four thousand copies were originally sold. Since then, the demand from fans has allowed it to be released through the band's official website.
The band's big break came after lead singer Aaron Lewis befriended Limp Bizkit frontman Fred Durst after opening for the band in October 1997 in Hartford, Connecticut at the Webster Theater. At first, Durst (who was fast becoming the frontman of the most popular band of the early 00s) disagreed with Staind's choice of cover art for Tormented, which depicted a stabbed Bible, a crucified barbie doll, and the words 'there's nothing left for me' scrawled in blood across the wall, and refused to sign them on the argument that they were Satan worshippers. However, after hearing them out, Durst was so impressed he signed them to his Flip record label, and co-produced their 1999 breakthrough Dysfunction with Terry Date. To this day, Dysfunction has sold over two million copies in the US alone. The album was given mediocre reviews by critics for being 'indicative of the times,' but a large number of the band's fans nonetheless regard it as the group's best work. The nine-track LP (with one hidden track, Excess Baggage) in the genre of nu-metal produced three singles, all of which enjoyed radio play. The most well-known, "Mudshovel," (which also appeared on Tormented spelt as "Mudshuvel"), has since become a staple of the band's live show. Staind toured with Limp Bizkit for the Family Values Tour during the fall of 1999, where Aaron Lewis performed their first mainstream hit "Outside" (a song he was working on at the time but had not yet finished -- he finished it on the fly while performing) with Fred Durst to hundreds of waving cigarette lighters, and which set them up for their smash hit 2001 album Break the Cycle, which brought them international success (it went number 1 in both the US and the UK), has sold more than 7 million copies, and had first week sales of over 700 000 in the US alone. The album sees the band move away from the nu-metal sounds of their previous album and resort to an alternative metal sound that many bands, including Cold, Seether and Crossfade have tried to replicate. Break the Cycle has spawned five hit singles to date, "It's Been Awhile," (which hit the Billboard Top 10) "Fade," (which has been featured on a number of movie soundtracks and television shows), "Outside," "For You," and "Epiphany," and included a track called "Waste," devoted to two teenage fans who committed suicide shortly before the album was released. The album also received mixed critic praise, with Rolling Stone magazine calling them the grim genre's most song-oriented, downright sensitive band in years and New Musical Express labelling them as the final nail in grunge's coffin. .
