Staind frontman Aaron Lewis anticipates having a “kind of endless” supply of songs when he hunkers down to record his first solo album in the spring.
“”I can write songs on the acoustic guitar, in an acoustic-type manner, extremely easily,” Lewis tells Billboard.com. “It’s not a difficult thing for me. I was making ‘Outside’ up as I went along for that first original recording of it. There’s a handful of songs that are already there that just have to get revisited, and I don’t think I’ll have any trouble coming up with more.”
Lewis says he’s blocked off April and May to work on the album, which he hopes will come out when the cycle for Staind’s latest album, “The Illusion of Progress,” comes to an end. Lewis plans to record it at his home studio in Massachusetts and to produce it himself, but he says that plan could well change.
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“I’m very open-minded,” he explains. “If we get to a point where I’m just like, ‘Y’know what? To take these songs to the next level I gotta get (Staind producer) Johnny K to come up here and help me out a little bit,’ then that’s what I’ll do. But as it stands, I’m gonna attempt to do it myself.”
Recording the album will be sandwiched into what’s shaping up to be a busy 2009 for Lewis and Staind as they continue to promote “The Illusion of Progress” and its second single, “All I Want.” After wrapping up its 2008 schedule on Dec. 18, the quartet will hit Europe beginning Jan. 18 in Belfast, Ireland.
Lewis is planning solo acoustic tours both before and after that jaunt, and Staind will return to Europe for festival dates in the early summer after playing a couple weeks of overseas shows for the U.S. Armed Forces.
Another trip through North America is also likely. “I’m sure there’ll be another one,” Lewis says. “I know that (in) late summer there will definitely be a big tour put together of some sort. We’ll try to put something really good together for that.”