Santa Barbara legacy alt band Toad the Wet Sprocket (TTWS) formed in 1986 when, at 15, guitarist Glen Phillips was scarcely a teenager. Inspired by an obscure Monty Python reference, the band earned back-to-back platinum albums: 1991’s Fear and 1994’s Dulcinea. Perhaps more significantly, the group has endured for nearly 40 years in an industry that’s nothing if not in almost constant flux and evolution. TTWS now stands poised to release RINGS: The Acoustic Sessions, an album that will feature reimagined versions of its classic hits and fan favorites. Music Connection talks both biz and rizz with band-founder Phillips and he also drops some insights for baby bands.
With nearly four decades of industry experience, Phillips has formed several thoughts about the keys to longevity. Or at least he’s discovered how to pick a few of its locks. What secrets has he learned? “I don’t know,” he observes playfully. “We broke up for a few years after [1997’s] Coil and after we got dropped [by Columbia Records] and tried to understand things. At times it was difficult, so part of it was taking enough breaks and having the audacity to try again instead of just giving up. We didn’t talk shit about each other publicly so there was less to forgive when we got back together.”
“The last few years, it’s felt like we’ve had some mojo again,” he continues. “There’s something we do together musically that’s special, unique, and it gels. No matter who brings a song in or how it gets developed, it always ends up sounding like us. So it’s a combination of figuring out what absolutely has to get talked about and what needs to become water under the bridge. We met young and we’re changed people now. Bands have these automatic reactions and assumptions that are built on faulty old information or misunderstandings. We still have a lot more to learn about communication but there’s been more ease in the last few years just realizing that people are who they are. Wanting to change them or wishing they were different is a waste of energy. The stuff you can work on makes your communication better. Understand the places where you grind against each other and either decide to make room for that or address it in a way that doesn’t cause more conflict. There’s a certain delicacy that’s required around that because any band has stories and there are old hurts. So it’s a fascinating thing because it’s creative, business and familiar. As Todd [Nichols] once said in an interview, ‘It’s like family. We love each other but we’re not friends.’ It doesn’t mean there’s enmity. We spend six weeks together while we’re on the road so all of these things are built in.”
The inspiration to record RINGS: The Acoustic Sessions came after years on the road, seeing what other bands do and trying songs in different ways. “We have always done acoustic sets during our shows so there’s constantly that kind of thing around the edges,” Phillips explains. “Most of my songs are written on acoustic guitar. It’s kind of the genesis. So it’s always been in the band. I like that we have good harmonies and can pull that off pretty well. We went on a tour with Barenaked Ladies and enjoyed their acoustic subset and thought ‘We need some of that.’ So we beefed that up during our set. As kind of a joke, we were doing the song ‘Good Intentions’ as a bluegrass version and felt that it was pretty good so we took that and ran with it.”
With a discography that boasts seven studio albums and several live and compilation records, the challenge the band faced was which songs to include on their upcoming release. “A few of them were kind of necessary,” Phillips asserts. “We knew we’d hit the big singles and then it was a question of which other songs hadn’t been featured before. We wrote up a few lists—Dean [Dinning] is particularly good at them. The attitude throughout was that we wanted every album represented; we didn’t want it to be a partial document.”
Phillips’ virtual lifetime of industry experience has exposed him to many things that he likes and others that he likes decidedly less. But it’s helped him grasp the challenges that emerging bands face. “I feel lucky to have come up at a time where you could be as shy, nerdy, and not-at-all media-savvy and still end up with a career and an audience,” he observes. “Now you have to be the captain of your own ship. People in the business I talk to ask new artists ‘Do you have a hundred thousand followers yet?’ That metric is a strange one. In my solo world, I often have fewer Spotify listeners by a factor of 10 than my opening bands do. There’s an interesting gap between streaming success and people that will actually buy a [concert] ticket. Metrics are important but they’re kind of an incomplete measure. It’s an interesting era because you have to make records on your own, be self-starting, and have a sense of your look and feel. Labels now just want to have something that they plug in and it already works. I wouldn’t know what to do as an indie band starting today.”
Released on January 30, much of RINGS: The Acoustic Sessions was recorded at Sean McCue’s Coyote Road Studios in Santa Barbara. Phillips does about 100 shows a year, half solo, half with TTWS. Apart from having headlined the annual 30A Songwriters Festival on January 18 in Santa Rosa Beach, FL, the band has Midwest and New England dates planned.
Contact – toadthewetsprocket.com, Instagram @toadthewetsprocket
