Acoustic Songs & Stories

Friday, February 14, 2020 – 8pm

Throughout his more than two-decade career, whether topping the charts as front man of hard Rock heroes Staind, or his second act as a No. 1 artist on the Country charts as a solo artist, Aaron Lewis has always been painfully honest in his music.

"That's all I've ever done. My songs have always been me wearing my heart on my sleeve, and my emotions on my sleeve, and my misfortunes on my sleeve, my sins on my sleeve," Lewis says. "I don't feel like it would be genuine nor worthy of this crazy ride I've been on if it wasn't."

He is 100 percent open, as he has to be, about his stunning new collection, STATE I’M IN.

"The songs I wrote on this record, they were some dark times," he says. "The state I'm in is not Mississippi, or Texas, or Massachusetts, it's more about the emotional state I'm in and everything I've surprisingly talked about in this interview. I'm always surprised by what comes out of me. I'm always surprised by the overall content of a record. It is a flow of consciousness."

That consciousness led Lewis to the most vulnerable record of his career.

"I'm gonna be 47 in April and the Country music that was the soundtrack of my childhood is the Country music of the '70s," he says. "And I don't think I'm pointing out anything that isn't blatantly obvious to anybody who's known more than just the country music you hear on the radio today, which I would argue really is not country music. There isn't even a connecting tissue. There's no line that you can draw. It's a different planet. So, I'm making and writing country music that is reminiscent of the country music that I was force-fed as a kid."

For Lewis, who remains on the road year-round, new songs are the most exciting way to spice up the live set and, as he puts it, "Hit the refresh button." So, he's been playing several songs off STATE I’M IN and has been very excited by the response.

Maybe it is fitting in the dark times that led to this record, Lewis finds his salvation and hope in playing the new material live. As he says, in his powerful honesty, music is the one thing that has kept him going all these years.

"It's absolutely been my saving grace. I don't know how I made it through high school. I don't know how many times I should've died in high school. I don't know how I could've channeled that self-destructive energy away from me in any other way than to have writing as an outlet," he says.

Tickets are $70, $55 and $35 plus tax and an online/phone ticketing fee (this fee is waived when tickets are purchased in the Gift Shop). Tickets in the ADA section are for patrons with mobility disabilities and up to three companions. If companion seating is not available because the ADA section is sold out, RCGR will offer other seats as close as possible to the accessible seat, if available, at the purchase price of the other section.  Tickets are on sale in the Gift Shop, by calling 877-677-3456 or online.

Doors open at 7pm for the 8pm show.