Cover Story: The Darkness Within

Lewis recalls that a sudden surge in popularity always seemed to come after he'd perform at a talent show or a battle of the bands: "That was the only time girls were interested in me." A sly smile pushes at the corners of his mouth. "When I look back, it's like, 'Fuck all of you.' My ten-year reunion was last year. I was going to have the tour bus drop me off. But then I was like, 'Fuck that.'"

It's an unusual treat for Staind to have two days off in a row, and Mushok is spending the first one at a Chicago White Sox home game with his old friend, Staind security guard Dave Mitchell. Their seats are spitting distance from Comiskey Park's first-base line - a view wasted on Mushok, who has little interest in sports. Back home in Springfield, Massachusetts, he says between slurps from his second cup of Miller Lite, his fiancee, Dawn, is celebrating her thirty-third birthday without him. "We've been engaged since last summer," he says. "After this tour is over, I really need to start planning the wedding."

Unlike Staind's brooding singer, Mushok is relaxed and chatty. A self-professed neat freak, he keeps his short hair gelled into perfect little spikes, and his broad face has a freshly scrubbed pinkish glow that deepens when he laughs. He rattles off anecdotes that go nowhere, with no punch lines, and then, realizing his poor comic timing, declares, "The end." With pride, he calls his parents - mom, an educator; dad, a builder - "really cool," and he's not even resentful that they pressured him into going to the University of Massachusetts (where he studied engineering) instead of letting him go to a music institute like he'd hoped.

The guitarist was raised in Springfield, where he still resides. He was an honor student in high school and says he was pretty popular, despite his tendency to hole up in his room alone with his guitar. "I would sleep through classes because I was up all night playing guitar," he says while riding home from the Sox game in the band's rented minivan. Mushok says he's always been a serial monogamist ("No one-night stands"), and he can count on one hand the number of times he's smoked pot.

Later that night, the band reconvenes in the lobby of Chicago's Omni Ambassador East before heading out to gorge at Lawry's Prime Rib. Wysocki has spent his afternoon playing golf, while April trolled antique shops looking for old bottles to bolster his 600-strong collection. "I'll give you 100 bucks if you can name an off day when we all hung out together," Wysocki challenges Mitchell at dinner. Tonight, Lewis is absent, having dashed off on a last-minute Miami fishing trip by himself. Even when Staind have a show, Lewis doesn't spend much time with the other three. Instead, he tends to remain sequestered with his wife of nearly three years, Vanessa, in the bus' back lounge. (That's Vanessa he's singing to in the video for "It's Been Awhile.")

Lewis met Mushok "hovering around the keg" at a 1993 Christmas party in Springfield. Lewis had been playing some acoustic gigs and was hoping to put a group together. Mushok was already a veteran of the local rock circuit and had tired of playing in bands that sounded like "two guys who solo a lot." He gave Lewis his phone number and then waited. And waited. Lewis had moved to Atlanta to attend goldsmith school, figuring that if music didn't work out he'd go into the jewelry business run by his mother's family.

While in Atlanta, Lewis worked part-time as a cook and started hanging out with two metalheads, Tim and Mitch, who turned him on to Pantera, Sepultura . . . the kind of heavy shit that Lewis had previously ignored in favor of Led Zeppelin, U2 and James Taylor. Eight months later, after completing the goldsmith program, Lewis returned to Springfield and eventually managed to get together with Mushok to jam. "I remember Aaron coming to my house for the first time and singing," Mushok says. "I said, 'Where have you been for fifteen years? I've been looking for you!'"

[Excerpt From Issue 873 — July 19, 2001]