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>> '90s BAND TOAD THE WET SPROCKET LEARNS HOW TO GET ALONG
Toad the Wet Sprocket band members get all they want after years of ups and downs
Date published: 5/21/2009
BY BOBBY McMAHON FOR THE FREE LANCE-STAR In hundreds of years, when time capsules are dug up and historians search for artifacts from the early 1990s, they will invariably emerge with a Toad the Wet Sprocket cassette. Through ubiquitous radio hits like "All I Want" and "Walk on the Ocean," Toad the Wet Sprocket created acoustic, melodic music that has come to epitomize what rock sounded like in that moment in time. Twenty years since their first album, they're still performing together--and bassist Dean Dinning knows what keeps the fans coming back. "The only reason they show up is because of the music, and we know that," Dinning said in a recent phone interview. "It's not because we're good-looking or because we're super-cool or anything." The band will perform tonight at Washington's National Harbor and tomorrow night at Fredericksburg's Celebrate Virginia Live. As Dinning remembers, Toad broke out when radio stations switched formats from '80s pop to '90s alternative rock. In search of music that could be considered "alternative" but wouldn't scare away pop listeners, stations put Toad into heavy rotation. "I think radio kind of moved into the street where we already lived," Dinning said. "You can't ask for anything better than that." From there, the band became a mainstay of pop culture, putting out hit albums of their own and having their songs featured on TV shows such as "Friends," "My So-Called Life" and "Party of Five." As the '90s waned, though, so did the band--internal tensions broke them up in 1998, and they haven't released new material since. Older, wiser and with two subsequent breakups under their belts, the band has had to redefine itself to perform together again. "We just decided, 'Enough with the breakups,'" Dinning said. "'Let's just never break up again. If we want to play, we'll play, and if we don't want to play, we won't. Simple.'" Now self-managed, the band has less pressure to stay on the road for long stretches of time. Dinning said the group now tours for only a few weeks in one area of the country, flying home between stints on the road and staying closer to family and friends. "The only way my wife and daughter really know that I was gone is that the litter boxes don't get cleaned and the trash doesn't get taken out."
Date published: 5/21/2009
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