Having played shows with Incubus, System Of A Down, and Linkin Park while in their infancy, Hoobastank certainly have some stories to tell. The question remains, though – is their ridiculous band name a blessing or a curse? You would have to ask them – but then again, most aspiring musicians would love to end up “suffering from success” like Hoobastank has. It’s particularly hard to argue with over 10 million albums sold worldwide, a handful of pretty big hits, and of course, one song that arguably overshadows their entire discography.
That song is “The Reason”, culled from their 2003 sophomore album of the same name. A song that’s far different from their alternative rock // nu-metal sound of their first couple records, the song was this close to being the number one song in the USA at one point. It’s true that huge power ballads like this were able to sell millions of copies around this time. It’s really not that much different than a modern-day example like “Just Pretend” by Bad Omens.
In fact, the song remains such a popular hit that it recently hit 1 billion streams on Spotify. To give you an idea of how this song changed the band’s lives forever, it was due to their sophomore album and this song’s success that they were able to tour with Linkin Park on their Meteora World Tour the next year. The song was, of course, not the first acoustic song or ballad by a nu-metal band to gain such success. “Drive” certainly did the same for Incubus.
