Toad’s years of experience make a hard job a lot easier

• By JOHN WIRT
• Music writer
• Published: Jun 26, 2009

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In Toad the Wet Sprocket’s 23 years of existence, the Santa Barbara rock band famous for such smoothly polished hits as “Walk On the Ocean,” “Something’s Always Wrong” and “All I Want” broke up just to make up multiple times.

Breakup No. 1 occurred in 1998 while the band was in preproduction for a follow-up record to its 1997 album, Coil.

“It was clear that the album was not going to happen,” bassist Dean Dinning said from Los Angeles. “So rather than make a bad record, we broke up.”

It wasn’t one of those big, bad, furniture-smashing breakups. Creative differences sent the band members on their separate ways. Singer Glen Phillips wanted to pursue a softer sound while Dinnnig and guitarist Todd Nichols preferred a louder direction. Phillips went on to record solo records. Dinning and Nichols tried to form a new band, but their project never got off the ground.

The first Toad the Wet Sprocket reunion happened in 2002 thanks to one of the band’s fans, Counting Crows singer Adam Duritz. Counting Crows asked Toad to reunite and open a series of Crows shows in that band’s hometown, San Francisco.

“The Crows said, ‘We really miss you,’ ” Dinning said. “It was a great opportunity and the perfect thing for us to do.”

Toad played the Crows dates as well as a month of shows on its own in February 2003.

“And then we broke up again,” Dinning said. “Over a manager. He started to see dollar signs, as usual.”

The band reunited for a few more performances in 2006.

“That was the last straw with managers,” Dinning said. “That was when we had the discussion where we said, ‘We don’t have to break up. If we wanna play, we’ll play. If we don’t wanna play, we won’t play, but there’s no more of this we’re broken, we’re together, we’re broken.”

The band kept its agent and, when a good offer reached the agent’s desk, Toad accepted. The group also reinvented its method of touring. It now flies to a starting-point show and makes short tours from there.

“You get better at doing things after awhile,” Dinning said. “We gradually increased the number of shows we do and now we’ve got it to a nice level. We’re really happy with the way it’s going.”

The three shows Toad is playing during its latest mini tour — Houston on June 30, New Orleans on July 1 and Lakes Charles on July 2 — are a far cry from the more than 300 dates the band played upon the release of its 1991 breakthrough album, Fear.