Aaron Lewis With Two Shows in Iowa

Staind front man Aaron Lewis will have two shows around the Quad Cities this February.

First, on Friday, February 14th Aaron will be at Riverside Casino.  Followed by a show on February 15th at Rhythm City Casino.  Info on all his show dates and times can be found on his website.

Throughout his more than two-decade career, whether topping the charts as front man of Staind, or his second act as a country solo artist, Aaron Lewis has always been painfully honest in his music.

"That's all I've ever done. My songs have always been me wearing my heart on my sleeve, and my emotions on my sleeve, and my misfortunes on my sleeve, my sins on my sleeve," Lewis says. "I don't feel like it would be genuine nor worthy of this crazy ride I've been on if it wasn't."

He is 100 percent open, as he has to be, about his new collection, STATE I’M IN.

"The songs I wrote on this record, they were some dark times," he says. "The state I'm in is not Mississippi, or Texas, or Massachusetts, it's more about the emotional state I'm in and everything I've surprisingly talked about in this interview. I'm always surprised by what comes out of me. I'm always surprised by the overall content of a record. It is a flow of consciousness."

"I'm gonna be 47 in April and the Country music that was the soundtrack of my childhood is the Country music of the '70s," he says. "And I don't think I'm pointing out anything that isn't blatantly obvious to anybody who's known more than just the country music you hear on the radio today, which I would argue really is not country music. There isn't even a connecting tissue. There's no line that you can draw. It's a different planet. So, I'm making and writing country music that is reminiscent of the country music that I was force-fed as a kid."

For Lewis, who remains on the road year-round, new songs are the most exciting way to spice up the live set and, as he puts it, "Hit the refresh button." So, he's been playing several songs off STATE I’M IN and has been very excited by the response.

Maybe it is fitting in the dark times that led to this record, Lewis finds his salvation and hope in playing the new material live. As he says, in his powerful honesty, music is the one thing that has kept him going all these years.

"It's absolutely been my saving grace. I don't know how I made it through high school. I don't know how many times I should've died in high school. I don't know how I could've channeled that self-destructive energy away from me in any other way than to have writing as an outlet," he says.