toadies – Mark Reznicek

By: Lori Smerilson Carson  |  Photos: Jeremiah Wehler & Steven Visneau

Autumn rock concerts are awesome in Florida, and the toadies are adding their talents to the states’ venues with their latest tour that Floridians can experience at FIVE in Jacksonville on October 14^th, Revolution Live in Fort Lauderdale on October 15^th, House of Blues Orlando in Lake Buena Vista on October 16^th, and Jannus Live in St. Petersburg on October 17^th.

The toadies were spawned into worldwide recognition in 1994 when their debut album RUBBERNECK hit the music scene and sold over a million albums which then reached Platinum status by 1996. Now, over thirty years later, they are still going strong and recently released their eighth studio record THE CHARMER.

Catching up with original Drummer Mark Reznicek, he revealed some details about the new show that he and original Lead Vocalist/Guitarist Vaden Todd Lewis, Guitarist Clark Vogeler, and Bassist Donivan Blair will be performing, about the new album, a bit about their music, and what fans can look forward to.

SFL Music Magazine: toadies are playing all over Florida. What can fans look forward to with the new show?

Mark Reznicek: Well, this tour we’re promoting our latest album called THE CHARMER. So, the shows will include a lot of songs from that new album, but we’ll also play favorites from throughout our career including plenty of songs from RUBBERNECK, the album that probably most people know us from.

SFL Music Magazine: This is your eighth studio album. What inspired this record? I read the charmer is a character that Vaden Todd Lewis came up with?

Reznicek: Yeah. What he had said is that the charmer is sort of the voice inside you telling you, you can’t do it. Kind of a snake charmer trying to get you to not believe in yourself. The album kind of deals a lot with his personal mental health journey that he’s been dealing with the last few years and his path to overcoming some of the negative thoughts that he’s lived with most of his life. So, that kind of was the springboard for a lot of the lyrics on the album.

SFL Music Magazine: You all worked with Producer Steve Albini, and this was one of his last recordings. I read you all wanted to do that for a long time, ever since your debut album. How did that come about?

Reznicek: Well, we didn’t have a label. The label that we’d been on for our last several releases, they went out of business. The owner of the label decided he didn’t want to do it anymore. So, we didn’t have a label. We took some of the money that we made over the last couple of tours and just set it aside and decided to go record an album on our own without the backing of any label at all. Since it had been our dream to work with Steve Albini for like you said since our first album, that was who we wanted to work with. We said there’s no better time than now, so we basically just called him up and he told us when he was available. So, we scheduled it. It was really just as simple as that. Like calling him up. Said we wanted to work with him. Said these are the dates I have free and we were off.

SFL Music Magazine: How did it go?  Was it everything you hoped it would be?

Reznicek: Yeah, it was even more so. At first, just because he had a reputation as kind of a pricky personality, I, myself was kind of intimidated the first day or two. I wasn’t sure what I should say or if I should say anything, but the longer we were there with him, we discovered he’s just another guy in the music business like us, and we all got along great!

We were joking and having fun together but also getting a lot of work done.

SFL Music Magazine: What would you say inspires toadies’ music in general?

Reznicek: I think it’s as simple as the desire to make the kind of music that we would want to listen to, really. Our main audience is us and if we, all four guys in the band, like a song, we figure that the audience will probably enjoy it as well.

SFL Music Magazine: The band formed in 1989; the first album was released in 1994. You all have sold millions of records. What would you say attributes to the band’s success and longevity?

Reznicek: Hmmm. That is a good question. I mean, people keep coming to the shows whenever we do a tour, so there’s no reason to stop if people still want to come and see us. But also, I think, we just, we don’t quit (he laughed)! We just keep going.

SFL Music Magazine: Would you recommend that to a new band?

Reznicek: Well, I guess so. When our first album RUBBERNECK came out, nobody had heard of us at the time. We bought a van, loaded our gear into the van and went out on tour, and we pretty much stayed on tour for like two and a half years. Over the course of that time, the crowds got a little bit bigger with each tour and each show. The album was already out for like a year, year and a half before the “Possum Kingdom” video and single started to blow up. Through that whole time, we stayed on tour, we just didn’t quit. Eventually it went gold and then after that it went platinum. It’s not what we expected when we started out. We just wanted to sell like fifty-thousand records or something. We thought we would be doing good, so it really came as a surprise to all of us. Thankfully, we’ve been able to sustain a career based on that early success and keep putting out albums and doing tours.

SFL Music Magazine: Do you think that being from Fort Worth and the Dallas area had an influence on the band?

Reznicek: Oh yeah. Definitely! The band started in Fort Worth, and at the time maybe even today to some extent, Fort Worth sort of lives in the shadow of Dallas. So, there were a lot of Dallas bands that were getting a lot of attention and stuff at the time, and Fort Worth was kind of ignored, like bands from Fort Worth and the music scene there. Even though the two towns are only like thirty miles apart, they were kind of two separate music scenes. So, I think the sort of underdog nature of being from Fort Worth really feeds into what our whole philosophy is. Overcoming adversity, kind of.

SFL Music Magazine: You are into comics books, and you have two comic book series or one?

Reznicek: Yeah, just one that I co-wrote a few years ago. It’s called BUZZKILL and it was originally published by Dark Horse Comics. Then the four issues series was combined, compiled into a graphic novel that is now being published by Image Comics. We sell them at the merch booth, and it’s available at all the finer comic shops around the country (he laughed).

SFL Music Magazine: Is there anything else new that toadies will be putting out?

Reznicek: Well, our second album Hell Below/Stars Above has never been released on vinyl. It came out in 2001originaly, and that was kind of the middle of the CD era. So, coming up October 2^nd, it will finally be released on vinyl. I know a lot of fans have been clamoring for it to complete their toadies vinyl collection. So yeah, that’s kind of exciting that our old label Interscope (Records) finally decided to reissue it on vinyl. They allowed our input. We had a lot of say so. We wanted to make sure that the album sleeve reflected the original artwork as closely as possible. We listened to all the mixes and everything to make sure that everything was up to snuff. So yeah, it’s pretty exciting to have that one finally coming out on vinyl.

SFL Music Magazine: You’ll be in Jacksonville, Fort Lauderdale, Orlando, and St. Pete.  Is there anything in particular you are looking forward to when you come to Florida?

Reznicek: Well, we always have a great time there. The fans are very enthusiastic, and I think it’s while we’re playing in Fort Lauderdale that will be my birthday.

SFL Music Magazine: Oh! The Revolution is a great place to celebrate your birthday!

Reznicek: That will be fun and also, those four shows are pretty much the end of the tour. We have some shows in Texas at the end of the year. Every year between Christmas and New Year we play four or five shows around Texas. But as far as the national tour, promoting THE CHARMER yeah, the four Florida shows will be the end. So, we’ll be in a celebratory mood, and it should be a lot of fun!