The past year has been an array of ups and downs for Puddle Of Mudd. According to frontman Wes Scantlin, the very release of their second major label album, Life On Display, was, at times, in jeopardy.
“When I thought the record was done, some idiot came back in and said that he wanted to re-edit the shit. We had been in the studio for a year! The best thing that happened was someone saying, ‘Hey, your record is done. We’re happy with it now!’ Well, I was happy with it two months ago, asshole!”
Their sophomore album’s first single “Away From Me,” has been accosting the radio waves for some months now. It’s a bitter lament about past relationships and the resulting anger and paranoia.
“When you’re a songwriter, you think, ‘What the hell am I gonna write about?'” Scantlin begins. “As a songwriter, all I’m doing is telling a story. Sometimes people don’t know what I’m talking about – sometimes I don’t even know what I’m talking about! I don’t! And then I’ll write a song and I won’t even know what the hell it’s about and then months later, I’ll be like sitting there listening to it and I’ll figure out, ‘Wow, that’s what I’m talking about. I’m talking about this part of my life where I got burnt or someone stabbed me in the back.’ You know, just all kinds of weird shit.”
All that “weird shit” has taken Puddle Of Mudd on rapid North American tour which saw them playing back to back shows from Toronto to California to Denver and Kansas City.
“In between shows I just sit up in the hotel and watch CNN a lot,” says bassist Doug Ardito. “But I haven’t learned anything new from it because everything’s a bunch of bullshit. Everything that’s really going on, they won’t report on.”
“I’ve been told to watch the BBC because they don’t bullshit you,” Scantlin chimes in. “I heard that CNN bullshits you and BBC doesn’t bullshit you. The Brits will really stick it in your face. That’s kinda like the record, you know. No bullshit. All the lyrics and stuff are about, you know, my life, and what I’m dealing with on a personal level. The first record was the same way. Just telling stories of my life in an abstract way. It’s like my life’s on display.”
