Staind frontman Aaron Lewis has taken aim at a practice that’s become common on modern concert stages — the use of backing tracks to bolster live performances — arguing that fans are being shortchanged when the music they hear isn’t fully being played in front of them.
Speaking on the latest episode of “The Anchormen” podcast with Dan Ball and Riley Lewis, Lewis didn’t hold back on artists who lean on pre-recorded instrumental and vocal tracks to fill out or replicate their studio sound live. “I honestly feel like what I’m about to talk about, it’s robbing the person that is going to see a live show. What tends to happen more often than not these days is that there’s full tracks running underneath what is getting played on stage. The band themselves could put their instruments down and walk off stage and the listener in the crowd would barely even notice if they weren’t looking at the stage to see everybody walk off. And that’s real. It’s real. The last three or four tours that we’ve done, we were the only person that wasn’t running tracks,” he said.
The remarks land at a moment when the topic is very much in the air. Just weeks ago, fellow veterans Mötley Crüe faced a fresh round of lip-syncing accusations from fans over recent concert footage — allegations the band has repeatedly denied and which an arbitrator rejected in former guitarist Mick Mars‘ lawsuit earlier this year.
Lewis‘ comments arrive alongside a busy stretch in his solo career. He released his sixth solo country album, Give My Country Back, on July 17 via Big Machine Label Group. Produced by Sol Philcox-Littlefield, the record blends rough-hewn honky-tonk roots with modern country muscle for a project that feels both deeply personal and defiantly bold. Lewis co-wrote five of its songs with longtime collaborators including Jeffrey Steele and Bobby Pinson, while additional contributions from Casey Bethard, Travis Meadows and others helped shape its reflective yet fiery spirit.
Since launching his solo country career, Lewis has racked up two No. 1 Billboard Country Album debuts with Town Line and Sinner, released the platinum-certified collaboration “Country Boy” featuring George Jones and Charlie Daniels, and scored a gold-certified No. 1 hit with 2021’s “Am I The Only One“. His catalog has now passed 5.7 billion career streams worldwide.
Lewis is currently out on his “2026 American Tour” with his band The Stateliners. Raised in Springfield, Vermont on his grandparents’ country 8-tracks, the multi-platinum Staind founder drew on those roots for his chart-topping country debuts Town Line and Sinner, as well as the No. 1 Hot Country song debut “Am I The Only One” — only the ninth song to pull off that feat since 1958. Having recorded with George Jones, Willie Nelson, Charlie Daniels, Alison Krauss and Vince Gill, Lewis has stamped a traditionalist brand on his outlier country. In 2024, he was awarded Pandora’s Billionaires Plaque, recognizing over one billion streams on the platform.
