If the Toadies Have a Second New Album, It's Not a Comeback Anymore Less than 30 days before his band's new album was set to hit stores, Vaden Todd Lewis of the Toadies was holed up in his Fort Worth living room listening closely to the most recent version for imperfections. With his stamp of approval, the album will be manufactured and shipped just in time for a July 31 release. "There was a lot of pressure to listen to the masters, but I was bummed for a bit because I was working while my daughter was in the other room playing," said Mr. Lewis, who has been the Toadies" singer and bandleader since they began in Fort Worth in 1989. At the same time, I'm sitting at home listening to loud music. That's me working. Every time I realize I get to do this for a living, I just grin. Mr. Lewis has not always been known for smiling. In fact, if you watched MTV in the mid-"90s, you probably remember the intensity with which he asked "Do you wanna die?" in the video for the band's biggest hit, "Possum Kingdom." The Toadies are not a particularly prolific band - in 23 years together, this will be only their fifth studio album. This latest set - called "Play. Rock. Music." - was not even supposed to be made. Recording in Austin last spring for what the group thought would be a three- or four-song EP, Mr. Lewis enjoyed the process so much he decided they would keep going until they had a full record. "Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, we'd already announced a release date for the EP and decided to keep the date for the full album," Mr. Lewis said. We had two songs for sale on iTunes before I'd even finished writing the record. Who does that? But it wound up forcing us to get in there and make something happen. He said he had felt a sense of freedom recording "Play. Music." that he had not had since recording the band's major-label debut, the platinum-selling "Rubberneck" (1994). At the time they recorded that album, Mr. Lewis was working as a clerk at a Sound Warehouse in Fort Worth. "Our expectations were low," he said of the deal. I looked at the whole scenario like I'd tricked them into letting me make a record. I figured we'd do what we could get away with, and then they'll drop me and I'll get to go back to work in the store. The downside was that after touring for a year and seeing our crowds grow into thousands of people, I wasn't really sure how to handle that. The commercial success of "Possum Kingdom" from that album was not part of the band's "long-term plan," according to Mr. Lewis. A murder ballad named for the North Texas lake, the song is still a modern rock radio staple nationwide and earned a second life in 2007 when it became a playable track in the Guitar Hero II game for Xbox. "In retrospect, I did everything I could do to not make that a radio song," Mr. Lewis said. I wrote it without a chorus. I never say the name of the song. To me, that's a very self-defeatist approach to a hit song. Although the success of "Possum Kingdom" threatened to make the Toadies a one-hit wonder, the band quickly found itself facing bigger problems. Its label, Interscope Records, rejected its second record, and it took seven years to release a new set, "Hell Below/Stars Above." Five months after that record's release, the band announced its split. "It seemed like negativity was swirling all around us," Mr. Lewis said. And ultimately we decided it wasn't worth dealing with. Less than six months after the Toadies broke up, Mr. Lewis formed the Burden Brothers with Taz Bentley, the Reverend Horton Heat drummer, and released two records. But in 2006 a Toadies reunion show in Dallas sparked the notion that the band had unfinished business, even if Mr. Lewis, once again, had low expectations. "I figured the ship had sailed," Mr. Lewis said. I just wanted to hang with my buddies again and make a record. In 2008 the band released a set of new material, "No Deliverance," for Kirtland Records, based in Dallas, and followed it with an album of newly recorded versions of the sophomore-album tracks that Interscope had rejected. To Mr. Lewis, "Play. Music." signifies the end of the band's comeback period and a new beginning, a chance to create the group's most forward-thinking set yet - an album that broadens the Toadies" trademark fusion of loud guitars, Texas boogie beats and anguished vocals. "I wanted to throw some curveballs, whether it's an odd time signature or a really poppy hook," Mr. Lewis said. Later this month, the Toadies will support the new record by embarking on a summerlong tour as co-headliners with Helmet, their former label mates. Although the bands share fans from their parallel ascent during the "90s, Mr. Lewis is adamant that this is not a nostalgia tour. "I feel a responsibility not to let this band drown in the past," he said. I hope making new music is the way to do that. Andy Langer is the music columnist for Esquire and the afternoon D.J. at KGSR in Austin.