Puddle Of Mudd Lead Singer Wes Scantlin Takes a Veiled Swipe at His Collaboration With Max And Tony of Eve 6

Loyal Eve6'ers might remember back to 2007, when Max and Tony co-wrote Puddle Of Mudd's "We Don't Have To Look Back Now." At the time, we privately thought it was an odd combination (Puddle Of Mudd seem to be a bit "mad at your dad" for Max and Tony to be involved with). We kept out mouths shut, and simply requested that the Eve 6 community supported the single, requested it on whatever form of radio still exists these days and that was that. Until Today.

We were browsing the always-great Alternative Addiction, and came across these quotes from Puddle Of Mudd frontman, Wes Scantlin:

"The last record was a weird record," said Scantlin. "There was a lot of co-writes and stuff, people were brought in that probably shouldn't have been brought in for co-writes, it was kind of a weird situation for me."

::snip

"This album is definitely a lot edgier this time. I try to keep everything as rocking as possible, I'm not looking to get any Top 40 AC play."

If you listen to "We Don't Have To Look Back Now," it isn't too huge of an assumption that these quotes are directed toward the collaboration with the guys of Eve 6. This is especially apparent when you consider that Christian Stone was Eve 6's connection to Puddle Of Mudd (Stone was formerly in the band Campfire Girls, which toured with Eve 6), and has since departed the band. Strangely, Scantlin only had nice things to say about the co-writes, and specifically the co-write with Max and Tony back when "Famous" was released:

We had many different situations with many different producers and a few different writers on this record, which I think pulled a lot of really amazing inspirational types of emotional performances out of myself and Doug. We have Ryan Yerdon and Christian Stone in the band now, and they’re really talented guys and really positive guys.

I had to really open my mind up and just soak it all up and learn from it. I tried to improve upon the situations that were handed to me. So there you go. It got pushed back and pushed back, and it’s very aggravating to me. I think I learned a lot from it and I’m actually happier that I had to go through all of that. Fortunately, I think the record turned out really, really great.

::Snip

There are a lot of positive messages in the songs. “We Don’t Have To Look Back Now” has got a really positive message in there about a relationship. You get through it and it’s really painful because love is heartbreaking. It doesn’t always work out, and it’s a pain in the ass to get through. It’s a break-up situation with a person that you really have feelings for.

It seems petty that Scantlin is ripping "Famous" in preparation for the band's new album. Perhaps their label forced co-writes and guest producers, but if that is the case, it happened because band re-shuffling led to a 4-year gap from the time that "Life On Display" was released until "Famous." Further, the album sold fairly well, with over 400,000 units sold - not bad with the current state of the music industry. All of the singles garnered major radio play, and while "We Don't Have To Look Back Now" was seemingly their least successful single, it was well-received by their fans (as proven by comments on this Myspace blog post from the band back in '08, asking for suggestions on the next single.

So there you have it - according to the lead singer of Puddle Of Mudd, talented musicians such as Max Collins and Tony Fagenson won't be brought in to collaborate with them anymore, because it is "too weird for him." They don't want their music to be on top 40 radio (we assume they'd rather write the same old "Blurry" over and over and over again).

It felt wrong to endorse Puddle Of Mudd back in '07, but we did it to help support Eve 6. We can happily inform the 7 readers of Eve 6 Media HQ that after these comments, we'll never ask you to listen to Puddle Of Mudd again. We can feel the relief from here.