30+ years. That’s a long time to maintain relevance, especially in the music community. But  that’s exactly what Toadies and especially their legendary Rubberneck album have done.  Released during the height of the grunge era, it’s mistakenly labeled a grunge record. But  it’s not, not by a long shot. Described as “the Pixies meets Metallica”, the Toadies had their  feet firmly ensconced in indie, alternative, punk and (near) metal to forge a sound truly all  their own.

There’s a place in the hearts for Rubberneck that seems to transcend generations. Parents  bring their kids to shows, they know all the words to the songs, get tattoos, wear the shirts  and generally go crazy when any of those 11 songs come up in Toadies sets. “Possum  Kingdom” remains one of the most played recurrent tracks on Active Rock and Alternative  radio and still pops up all over the place to this day: Earlier this year Ultimate Guitar named  Rubberneck one of the Top 10 Grunge albums that survived the ’00’s and the album also  made Rolling Stone’s ’50 Greatest Grunge Albums’ as well as their list for 1994: The 40 Best  Records From Mainstream Alternative’s Greatest Year.

The album hit #1 on Billboard Heatseakers chart and went on to spend 49 weeks on the  Billboard 200. The songs on Rubberneck are fearless, literate and visceral. Certainly, they  are not your average accessible radio fodder. “We didn’t even have singles in mind,”  drummer Mark Reznicek says. “Or the idea of even possibly ever getting on the radio.”  Tracks from the album continue to appear in unexpected places from Guitar Hero to as far  away as England’s NME, including it in their A History Of Rock’N’Roll in 100 Riffs right along  with The Beatles, Rolling Stones, The Who, Queen, Ramones, The Smiths, Metallica, Rage,  Nirvana, Foo Fighters, and White Stripes. TV shows from Beavis and Butthead to the much  more recent, This is Us to For All Mankind, to The Midnight Club and Reacher have included  Rubberneck tracks. Robotman in Season 2 of Doom Patrol even wore a vintage Toadies shirt. Girl Talk’s ‘This is the Remix’ sampled “Possum Kingdom,” while Kelly Clarkson was  heard singing along to the song in her dressing room during an episode of last season’s The  Voice. Indie chanteuse, St. Vincent also covered the song on a Sirius XMU Session.

More inspiration from Rubberneck has made its way to the written page with Marvel Comics  featuring the band in two X-Men comics and NY Times and USA Today best selling author  Xio Axelrod’s latest novel The Girl With the Stars in Her Eyes has the main character’s band  cover Toadies ‘I Burn’ off Rubberneck.

Rubberneck’s staying power breeds new fans to go along with Toadies’ cult like early fans,  whose faith never lagged even as the band struggled to release new music. Interscope  rejected Toadies next album Feeler. It then took 7 years after Rubberneck for Toadies to  release their follow up album, Hell Below /Stars Above. A few months after its release,  the band broke up. A one-off gig in 2006 became a full-fledged reunion. A third album, the  independently released No Deliverance, came out in 2008 and saw the band playing  Lollapalooza and ACL. Toadies have been active ever since, releasing 4 more full lengths  and consistently touring nationally.

Toadies most recent release is an unlikely cover of Kelly Clarkson’s smash hit “Since U  Been Gone.” The track is part of the compilation, Texas Wild, celebrating 100 years of  Texas State Parks. It features Texas musicians covering other Texas musicians, including Ryan Bingham’s version of the Toadies “Possum Kingdom.”

What’s next? Toadies have just recorded their next record, The Charmer, with Steve Albini in Chicago. Bassist Doni Blair refers to Albini as a “bucket list producer. Guitarist Clark  Vogeler adds “There are records in each of our collections that were recorded by him which  mean the world to us. The sound he brought to records like The Pixies Surfer Rosa, and PJ  Harvey’s Rid of Me, capture the feeling of being in a room with a band while they play,  (quite loudly, it would appear). His recordings of bands are honest; there’s not much in the  way of Pro Toos fixing or studio trickery. We’ve always felt like we deliver live so why not  record the band live?” Blair says if the process “Steve was very helpful and us sound  like…the Toadies. He just set up mics and let ‘er rip.”

Thirty years and still going strong, so much so so that Toadies hometown of Fort Worth,  Texas has even declared an annual “Toadies Day.” What’s next? Stay tuned and find out.  There are surprises in store.

Vandoliers are a uniquely Texas band, distilling the Lone Star State’s vast and diverse musical identity into a raucous, breakneck vibe that’s all their own. After spending much of the last three years furiously writing and recording music, this Dallas-Fort Worth six-piece is back with The Vandoliers, a new album that proves these rowdy, rollicking country punks are tighter, more cohesive and more sonically compelling than ever.

Forged in the fires of the COVID-19 pandemic, The Vandoliers is the product of a time of immense growth and change for the band. Though most of the record was written in 2019, following the release of their much-acclaimed album Forever, plans changed quickly in March 2020. “It was supposed to be a quick turnaround,” frontman Joshua Fleming says. “After touring with Lucero and the Toadies, we were supposed to go into the studio to knock out an album, and head to Europe for the first time.” That didn’t happen —their tours were canceled, the band’s label folded, and what was to come next was totally up in the air.

Recorded with Grammy-winning producer Eric Delegard at Reeltime Audio in Denton, TX, The Vandoliers is an album interrupted. The band’s original two-week recording session ended abruptly in March 2020 as shutdowns began across the globe. The band didn’t get back into the studio until November, at which point they realized that, like many of the best-laid plans, their original strategy for the record had to change. “We wanted to make an album that had the same power as our live performance — a tight, big sound,” Fleming says. “Through trial and error, label closure, fatherhood, sobriety, relapse, the album grew on its own stylistically. After the hardest two years of my life, we created a collection of songs that push us as musicians, songs that reaffirmed my place as a songwriter and a faith in ourselves as a band I don’t think we had before.”

Amid all that uncertainty, Vandoliers did what they knew best: they made music. First came “Every Saturday Night,” a pandemic-era appreciation of all the rowdy, late-night shows that we all missed while stuck at home. “I thought for sure that this would be the last song I would ever write. I missed all the little things about the life I lived up until that point,” Fleming says. “I missed the smells and tastes of a smoky dive bar, the long overnight drives listening to our favorite bands.” Those thoughts clearly struck a chord with listeners, earning the song heavy rotation on the radio, especially Sirius XM’s Outlaw Country, and jumpstarting the band’s plans to head back into the studio to encapsulate their electric live shows into the album that would eventually grow into The Vandoliers.

The Vandoliers is a manifesto, both sonically and lyrically. It’s an assertion of the band’s distinct character, their sonic rebelliousness, and big, bold stage presence. They’ve got range, too, but that should be expected from a band that deftly blends mariachi horns with country-punk rhythms. On “The Lighthouse,” tender vocals pair with Travis Curry’s delicate fiddle to create a sweet cowpunk lullaby written for Fleming’s one-year-old daughter Ruby Mae, born at the height of the pandemic. And then there’s “Bless Your Drunken Heart,” a hard-driving ode to the town drunk that makes apt use of the South’s favorite passive-aggressive slight and has quickly become a favorite at the band’s live shows, and “I Hope Your Heartache’s a Hit,” a swinging, swaggering tribute to a one-night-stand written by multi-instrumentalist Cory Graves.

Taken all together, this impressive fourth album builds to what is the Vandoliers’ most cohesive effort to date without sacrificing any of the distinct identity that makes the band work as well touring alongside punkers Flogging Molly as they do opening for independent country legends the Turnpike Troubadours or Dallas rockers the Old 97s. Few bands can bring together the square toes and the steel toes quite like the Vandoliers. As its members have grown and matured, so has the sound of Vandoliers. But what remains the same, though, is the band’s core philosophy of solidarity and hope, evidenced by the motto they’ve all had tattooed on their arms: Vandoliers Forever, Forever Vandoliers.

Vandoliers are Joshua Fleming, bassist Mark Moncrieff, drummer Trey Alfaro, fiddler Travis Curry, electric guitarist Dustin Fleming, and multi-instrumentalist Cory Graves. Formed in 2015, the band released 2016’s Ameri-Kinda and 2017’s The Native on State Fair Records, and Forever (2019) on Bloodshot Records.