Howard came back and said that he was watching a Bruce Springsteen special called ''Promises'' and he'd like Aaron Lewis to clear this up for him. He said that Bruce keeps a notebook with notes for songs in it. He wondered if Aaron does that. Aaron said he can't do that. Aaron said he has to force himself to not think about lyrics. Howard asked him what his biggest song has been. He said ''It's Been Awhile'' was the biggest one for them. He said he just started playing it one night and threw in some lyrics he was making up. Howard asked him to play some of that for him. Aaron played a little bit of it but his guitar wasn't tuned for the song.
Howard asked Aaron how he learned guitar. Aaron said he just learned how to do it on his own and it came to him. Howard asked how he comes up with that stuff and how it call comes about. Aaron said it just comes flying out. Aaron said if it's good then it sticks with him. He said he does have to write stuff down eventually but he may do it after the song has come to him.
Howard said that the Bruce Springsteen special was very poorly done. He said he has to tell the director that they didn't show stuff that people want to see. Howard said they had some really interesting footage but they didn't show enough of it. Howard said they showed Bruce writing down everything he thinks and he tries millions of different lyrics. Howard said they had Eminem on 60 Minutes last night and that was interesting too. He said he walks around with pieces of paper too. Howard asked Aaron if he's a slacker. Aaron said he can be a little unmotivated at times. Howard asked if it's from smoking too much weed. Aaron said that may have something do with it. He said he was baked now. Howard asked if he smoked on the way there. He said he did it before they came over. He said he had to take the edge off. Howard asked if it makes him paranoid. Aaron said it doesn't make him paranoid. Aaron said he didn't smoke a ton of it. It was just enough to take the edge off.
Howard said he doesn't get that from weed. He said he gets really paranoid and he'd be afraid that it would ruin his song writing if he was Aaron.
Howard asked Aaron if he gets nervous coming in there. Aaron said he does even though Howard is like his bro now. Aaron said that Howard has always been very good to them and he's very lucky. He said he's afraid that he's going to get all jammed up by being high and that leads to him getting higher.
Howard asked Aaron about tattoos and if he has more than last time. He said he's sure he does. He said he hasn't gotten any on his face but he was thinking about getting a tear drop. Howard said he's never going to get a regular job with those tattoos. Aaron said he knows that he'll end up doing construction or something like that if the music career doesn't work out.
Howard asked Aaron about his ''Don't Tread On Me'' tattoo. He said that he didn't get it done because he's a Tea Party guy but he is a patriot. He said that government isn't supposed to stick its nose into everything you do. Robin asked what they're doing to him. Aaron said that they're not supposed to be operating the way they are and they are making the country sink even deeper into a deficit. Howard asked if he's a Glenn Beck fan. Aaron said he likes some of the stuff he says but he wishes that he wouldn't bring the religion thing into it so much. He said that mixing the two isn't a good thing.
Howard told Aaron about these new ''green'' toilets that they make and how the government forced people to make them. Howard said they don't flush. He said that's what the government is forcing these companies to make. Aaron said that they shouldn't be doing things like that. Howard brought up this Paladino guy and spoke to Aaron about that. Aaron said he's trying not to be political but he can't help it. He said he's angry even when he's on pot. Howard said he's never seen him so angry before. Aaron said he's sorry about that.
Howard asked what his ''Proudly Made In the USA'' tattoo meant. He said he's just proud that he was born there and that his family came there to the country and became citizens. He said that people need to travel around the world to see how good we have it here.
Aaron said he doesn't think that our own President is proud to be an American and neither is his wife. Howard said he had no idea that he was so political. Robin had just looked up the toilet thing and found out it is a federal law thing.
Howard asked Aaron about the band Staind and if they're breaking up. Aaron said he's not going anywhere. He said he's just branching out a little bit. He said he told them that he was doing a solo album and they didn't give him a hard time about it. He said that he started doing solo shows 8 years ago and they were concerned about that but he's still in the band.
Howard said he thinks Aaron is breaking out on his own. He wants to take all of the money for himself. Aaron said that's not it at all and Howard is just shit talking. Aaron said he's doing acoustic stuff. Howard asked if he owns the publishing on all of the songs. Aaron said he's not sure because they break it down song by song. He said he has to split the profits with the guys in the band. He said he wrote ''outside'' and he didn't make a cent off of the first album it came out on. He said the song wasn't supposed to be on the ''Family Values'' CD so he didn't get paid to do to. Other people made money from it though.
Howard said if you want to find out about Aaron's tour dates you can go to Staind.com.
Howard also asked about Aaron starting this school up. Aaron said they closed down a school and he opened it back up. He said they opened it up on September 1st and now they have more kids in the school than they did when it was public. He said that it's a private school and a locally funded school. He said he's highly responsible for helping get it back open. Aaron said that it can cost $250,000 a year or so to run. He said they have 60 kids or so in there. Aaron said he didn't name it after himself or anything. He said it's the RH Conwell Community Education Center. Howard said he should have named it after himself. Aaron said he wouldn't do that.
Howard said Aaron is out doing a solo tour and he's got an album coming out next year. It has a bit of a country flavor to it. Howard asked him to do some stuff for him. Aaron said that he can't do it by himself.
Howard asked him to do a cover of ''Rooster'' by Alice in Chains but he wanted to do something else. Howard said that's what they wrote down for him. Aaron said he didn't write any of that. He said he sent him a Kermit the Frog song. He said he'd rather do ''Country Boy'' instead of the other stuff he had on that list. Howard told him to go for it then. Gary said that he had that list from an IM he got from Aaron. Aaron said ''Whatever Benedict Arnold...''
Aaron said that this song is going to be on his solo album. He said he had to do a stripped down version for rock radio but he has George Jones singing on the country version. Howard said he didn't know he liked country music. Aaron said that this song is about himself because he did grow up a country boy. Howard had him play the song after that. Howard asked if he had ever eaten squirrel. He said he has tried it but not road kill like Richard Christy's dad. Aaron said he goes on hunting shows and he has gone out hunting too. Aaron said he shot a deer that weighed almost 300 pounds. Howard said he could never kill something like that. He said they're goo beautiful. Aaron said that it was gorgeous. It was delicious too. Howard said he ate chicken this weekend too so he's not going to come down on him for killing the deer.
Aaron said that he has chickens that he raises. He said that his wife doesn't want to eat the chicken but one day he had a rooster that was becoming too aggressive so he just grabbed it and twisted it. He said that he ate it and it tasted like chicken.
Howard asked Aaron about how he was raised and he said he was raised in a single wide trailer up in Vermont. He said they had a driveway that was a mile and a half long. He said his dad was a dental technician and he was a musician. He said that his dad was a bit of a hippie too. He had pot plants growing in the front yard. Aaron said his dad taught him how to hunt and all of that stuff too. Howard asked Aaron if he has knives and stuff. Aaron said he actually got a knife past his security. Howard said that's some great security they have there.
Howard played Richard Christy's dad's voice mail about the road kill squirrel and asked if that turns him on. Aaron said he knows some people like that. He said he has killed squirrels and he has eaten them. He said he used a BB gun to shoot it. Howard said he couldn't do that but he still eats tons of that kind of shit. He said he doesn't eat squirrel but other animals.
Howard had Aaron get back into the song he had interrupted. Aaron performed his song ''Country Boy'' and it was basically a song about his life growing up.
After the song Howard and Robin said that the Tea Party may be looking for a song like that. Howard said it was very autobiographical. Howard said the real hero of the song is Aaron's wife. Howard said she's living out in the woods with him. Howard asked if the record company guys are really devils. Aaron said that's what it's like when you sign a record deal. He said it is like signing your life away. Howard asked if the record company is the enemy. Aaron said they're not the enemy but there are many times when they seem to be in the way. Howard quoted some of the lyrics he had and said that he was singing about the record company telling him to get rid of his wife. Howard said she's up in the woods somewhere while Aaron is out doing his thing. Aaron said his wife has acclimated very well to the country life. He said that she spends a lot of time at the school.
Howard asked Aaron about going to Hebrew school and how he got kicked out of that. Aaron said he didn't get along with one of the kids and he was asked not to come back. He said he's really not a religious person. He said that his dad is Roman Catholic and his mom is Jewish so he's technically Jewish by birth. Howard said he could talk to him about this stuff all day long but it was very complicated.
Howard gave Aaron some more plugs and said that he's got this charity thing going too. He has the school thing and more. Aaron said a few more words about the way the government is working and how people have to go out and start working and stop waiting for hand outs. Howard said you can go to Facebook.com/ItTakesACommunity to find out more about the charity.
Aaron said they were going to go over to Afghanistan to perform but they put a stop to it because of how heated things are. He said he did get to go over and perform in Iraq instead though. He said he did that for the troops and he will do it again and again until everyone is home. Howard thanked him for that and for coming in. He wrapped up with him a short time later.
WORTHINGTON - Aaron Lewis, frontman of the rock group , has Staind been quietly living in Worthington for years. But when the Gateway Regional School District decided to close three of the district's five elementary schools, including the Russell H. Conwell School in Worthington where his children attended school, Lewis decided the time to be quiet was over.
Lewis and his wife, Vanessa, were among the many parents, teachers and other residents who supported creation of a new, privately-funded school in the R. H. Conwell building on Huntington Road. When the district approved the school, called the R. H. Conwell Community Education Center, Lewis and his wife started the It Takes A Community Foundation to raise money for the school and other projects.
Today, Lewis will play an acoustic benefit concert for the foundation at the Pines Theater in Look Park, joined by a few musician friends who flew in to support his cause.
The Gazette talked with Lewis about the show and his work in support of the new school.
Q: What was your reaction when you heard about the consolidation and that the Conwell School was going to close?
A: To be honest, the overwhelming thought was that it was unacceptable. We had spent over a year giving them all sorts of outside-the-box ideas and alternative ways of dealing with the situation at hand, which was the lack of funding on behalf of the state, and they chose to take the easy way out, which was to close the school.
Q: What factors influenced your decision to keep your children at R. H. Conwell?
A: It's an amazing school. I don't know if you've been there, but it's adorable. It's one of the last wooden structure schools in the state and it's just the most amazing, perfect, small town school that you could ever want. And it's really part of the glue that binds the community together. We don't have any business or commerce, and the one thing we've got is the school.
Q: And your kids would have had a long bus ride to the Littleville Elementary School in Huntington, right?
A: Yes, it's about 20 minutes by car to the school, but by bus, being one of the first stops in the morning, it's at least an hour in each direction. Add snow into the mix, which you can for four or five months out of the year, and who knows how long it will take.
So my 5- and 8-year-old would have been put on a bus at six in the morning. My 5-year-old can't go half an hour in the car without having to pee.
That and the concept of piling the kids on top of each other in two schools when they used to have five schools, it's a vicious circle. That's why they have to add all these new positions like curriculum coordinator and math coach, because there's so many kids, the kids get lost in the shuffle. You wouldn't need a math coach if you had 10 kids in the class because you'd have all the one-on-one time in the world from your teacher.
So the whole concept doesn't make any sense.
Q: Tell me about your decision to start the It Takes a Community Foundation.
A: It was all from this whole experience. The foundation was a way to help other communities that might be going through the same thing or need assistance in some way that the small amount of tax dollars that's created with the small number of people living in town can't support. They could get assistance and do the things they wouldn't otherwise be able to do; anything that brings the community closer together.
This is just the first project. It's the launching platform.
Q: What are the main costs that you are fundraising to cover?
A: It's everything. The school district completely gutted the school. We had to buy back all the furniture, lease the building from the town and put an entire curriculum together. We had to put the school back together.
Q: Are you worried that the tuition at the school will deter people?
A: The deal is there is tuition, but no one will be turned away for not being about to afford it. The tuition is $1,500 a kid, with a family cap at $3,000, and that's for a private school education, and one that won't be hampered by governmental rules and regulations that don't help the education of our children at all.
Q: What kind of interest have you seen in the new school?
A: We have 47 students attending already, and I think for the first year we were planning on capping it at 50.
Q: Do you think you're in a good position to bring attention to the problem you see in Worthington?
A: I think attention needs to be brought to all sorts of problems that we have right now, and I'm just trying to do what I can do to get around those problems. I try to do good things with what I've been so lucky to be handed in life.
Q: Are you surprised at all by the help and support that you've received from the community?
A: Not at all. I live in an amazing town and we're doing the right thing.
Q: What about help from outside the community? You have a few friends from out of town playing at the concert with you.
A: They're just friends of mine and I talked to them about what I was doing and they wanted to lend a hand, too. We've got two guys from Three Doors Down coming, the singer from Seether, a band that I signed called Lo Pro and a gentleman by the name of Brendan Kelly will be opening.
Q: What should people expect to hear at the show?
A: It will be an eclectic mix of everything. I'll be playing some Staind songs, some solo songs, I'll be playing songs that were written and recorded but never made it to the record, I'll be playing covers. You never know what I'll play. I don't even know what I'm going to play.
Q: Are you hoping to see and Worthington families at the show?
A: I know they'll be there
_______________________________________________________________________________Gibson.com and Aaron give us a personal tour of his guitar collection.
Click here for Masslive's photo coverage from the benefit show. They have reviews and articles from the show as well.
MyMassAppeal has video and photos from the show as well, including this short video clip Aaron gave at a radio station prior.
Here is part one of Aaron on WAAF's Hill-Man morning show, others are available too.
Click here to listen to Aaron on Studio Sessions promoting the benefit and performing "Country Boy".
Finally, continue to watch Aaron on Dream Season: Celebrity as only a few more episodes remain. and if you're in Iraq next month look out to see him (Thank our armed forces too) and enjoy an awesome show.
