Why Toad the Wet Sprocket’s frontman loves coming to Maine

The News Guy

3 months ago

Songwriter and guitarist Glen Phillips is one of the founding members of the rock band Toad the Wet Sprocket, which formed while he was still in high school in Southern California. In the early ’90s, the band scored several radio hits, including “All I Want,” “Walk on the Ocean” and “Something’s Always Wrong.”

Toad the Wet Sprocket will play Thompson’s Point in Portland on Saturday as an opener for Guster, during that band’s annual Guster on the Ocean weekend of shows. Phillips, 53, took a few minutes to answer our questions ahead of the gig.

Do you have any specific things you like to do when you come to Maine?

My middle daughter lives there, so I’ll get to see her, and I’m terribly happy about that. She’s a chef on Deer Isle. It’s going to be great being there in the summer and getting to see the coast. I love coming up there. One of Toad’s very first tours was opening for the B-52s, and we came through Portland. I often find myself in Brownfield (at Stone Mountain Arts Center). They are such wonderful people and that is such a build-it-and-they-will-come venue, beautiful and in the middle of nowhere. Absolutely the best back stage I have encountered in my life.

What makes it the best back stage?

Because it was designed by a touring musician (co-owner Carol Noonan), where she sat down and thought “What are the things I wished I had backstage in all my years of touring?” So it’s everything from cotton swabs to a bowl full of guitar picks to some spare strings. There are instruments to play, and books, a record collection and foosball. And she bakes you a cake! She’s saying, “Maine loves you, thank you for being here!”

How did you guys pick Toad the Wet Sprocket for a name?

It was specifically a band name in a skit (on a comedy album by Monty Python) that listed terrible band names. We had a gig, we needed a name, and we didn’t have a name. Dean (Dinning) and I both had that record and decided we should call the band Toad the Wet Sprocket, just because it would be funny to see it in print. It was a stand-in name. We were gonna come up with something really cool, but could never agree on a name. So, by the end of the year, it was like, “We’ve got 10 people coming to see us, we can’t change our name now.”

Are you happy with how the name worked out?

It kind of just stuck by default. It’s a good lesson in avoiding place holders, because the place holder will often become the permanent version. It is memorable and has the appearance of being unique, even though it was stolen, whole cloth, from somewhere else.

After more than 35 years in the music business, is there something you haven’t done yet that you’d really like to do? Maybe write a musical?

At some point, I’d like to figure out how to live at home more. I’m doing 100 shows (as a solo act) this year; Toad’s doing 60. I want to try that whole living at home thing, but I also love the road. The pandemic was amazing because I got to spend all this time at home. But I just love making music. I have tried my hand at musicals; nothing much came of it. I seem to be good at writing songs about sadness, so I’m just kind of sticking to my guns.

Copy the Story Link

« Previous

See the work of more than 100 exhibitors at the Portland Fine Craft Show on Aug. 24

Hewnoaks is throwing a big (free) party in Lovell