The Toadies keep on truckin’

“To see myself drawn in an X-Men comic was one of the coolest things,” Blair says. “My dad would’ve freaked out. It was one of the coolest things.”

On Tuesday, Oct. 11, the Toadies will visit the Hi-Fi Annex as part of a tour celebrating the 25th anniversary of their debut album Rubberneck. Ahead of the show, NUVO’s Seth Johnson caught up with Blair for a quick phone interview, discussing the longstanding legacy of Rubberneck and much more. Read their conversation below.

SETH JOHNSON: You joined the band in 2008. Can you give me the backstory on how that happened?

DONI BLAIR: I’ve known Clark forever — since he was in Funland. My first band, Hagfish, used to open up for Funland. Along with The Reverend Horton Heat and Tripping Daisy, they were one of the bands that kind of gave us our start. So we were always friends, but then Clark joined the Toadies and we were stoked for him.

I had done other bands, including one called Only Crime. My brother was in the band, but then he left that band and joined Rise Against. So I kind of didn’t want to be in the band anymore without my brother and just went home. I was tired of not making any money from tour. I was done for like eight or nine months, but then I heard from a friend that the Toadies were looking for a new bass player. So I emailed them through their Myspace account. They were like, “Yeah. Come on down for an audition. It’s a pick gig with all down strokes.” And I was like, “That’s great. I’ve got this.” But I didn’t have it. [laughs] I’d never played a pick before, so I was screwed.

So I worked on it all day every day for three months until I went in for the audition. I was in and out in like 30 minutes. [laughs] I had called my wife before the audition, and I called her back immediately after. She was like, “That’s not good…that you called me this fast.” But they’d been working on No Deliverance all day long. Vaden, our singer, had been singing, and his throat was killing him. But I made the cut. So I just came in as a fan and already knew the songs that existed up to that point. I knew Rubberneck and Hell Below Stars Above like the back of my hand.

JOHNSON: When did you first hear the Toadies for the first time, and what was your initial reaction to their music?

BLAIR: We [Hagfish] saw them in ’91. They were opening up for the Rollins Band. They came out and just destroyed it. After that, we just kept playing together. One time, we saw them with the band Wool, which used to be Scream (a band Dave Grohl was in). My brother and I drove from Sherman, Texas all the way over to Fort Worth to go see them open up for Wool, and it was just insane. Both bands killed it. That was when we became fans. Our singer had his own t-shirt printing company, and we even made up our own Toadies shirts to wear around. We were nerds, but they were amazing.

JOHNSON: The Toadies are now touring in celebration of the 25th anniversary of Rubberneck. What would you attribute to the album’s decades-long legacy?

BLAIR: It’s just a truthful, honest record. Being from Texas, like the band, I know where it comes from in terms of the musical side. In Texas, we’re all very honest with each other, but there’s also a lot of weird, nefarious stuff that happens, which is represented in songs like “Possum Kingdom” and “Away.” So when I read about the subject matter of the songs when they came out, it just made sense.

There’s also a certain ZZ Top influence, which we all admit. They’re one of our favorite bands. There’s so much hard rock but also a punk aesthetic. That’s why I think people latched onto it. The songs are also amazing, and so is Vaden’s voice. He’s still killing it to this day too.

I bought the record the same way everyone else did. When Hagfish was touring for three or four years straight, that record was constantly in the van. They were our friends, so we were listening to our friends’ great music. And that inspired us to go make great music. There were all these other bands like the Pixies that were great. But listening to your friends make an amazing record? That’s way more inspiring than listening to someone you don’t know.

JOHNSON: The Toadies released an EP this year titled Damn You All to Hell, which features a cover of David Bowie’s “Sound and Vision.”  Can you share the backstory on why you guys chose to cover that song?

BLAIR: That song specifically was pushed by our drummer Mark Reznicek. He’s a humongous Bowie fan. We did all those songs during sessions for the last record, and we’d been talking forever about taking some of the songs we didn’t use and releasing them.

Rez was just like, “Hey. Let’s try ‘Sound and Vision.’” We had done it at soundchecks and at some live shows here and there, but we really just wanted to try it then in there in the studio. If I remember right, that was done in one track. Not Vaden’s vocals but the guitars and stuff.

It has a lot of meaning to individual guys in the band, so I’m not going to speak on what it means to them. But to me, it’s just such a great Bowie song. It’s not a normal verse/chorus-type thing. It’s really out there and doesn’t make sense, kind of like the Toadies. We don’t make sense, yet people love us just the same.

JOHNSON: You guys are doing this 25th-anniversary Rubberneck tour with The Reverend Horton Heat — a band the Toadies seem to have a longstanding relationship with. What’s it been like being out on the road with them?

BLAIR: It’s easy. We’ve all toured with them so much. One of my first tours in Hagfish was with Reverend. So I’ve been playing with those guys for 30 years. In ’96, the guys [the original Toadies members] went out with Reverend and Butthole Surfers.

So it just makes sense. We all get along great. They kill it every night. It basically fits like a glove. We’ve all been doing it so long together that we just know how everyone operates, and there’s a lot of respect on both sides.

JOHNSON: After having this tour postponed a few times, what’s it been like to finally be out on the road doing the damn thing?

BLAIR: It’s been amazing. We’ve been stoked from the first date on, like, “Wow. ‘It’s actually happening.” The first time it was postponed was right when COVID hit, so we were thinking, “Okay. The second time, it’s going to be fine.” But then, Omicron hit, and it just made more sense to postpone again.

We were hoping that people were going to stick with us, and thankfully they have. We got lucky that the fans really, really wanted to see us play, and it’s been so nice to see these houses packed and sold out.

Even more so, we’re seeing parents bringing their teenagers to their first shows ever, and they already know every lyric. They’re like, “Hey. Why didn’t you guys play ‘Doll Skin’ tonight?” I got that from a 13-year-old. They’re picking up old stuff. They’re listening to all the new records. That right there is amazing. Not every band can say they’ve got parents bringing their kids out to their shows. The music means so much to them that they want to get their children into it. You can’t have a more rewarding feeling than that.