Leading the charge for 21st century rock, multi-platinum, record-breaking band Shinedown has sold more than 10 million albums worldwide, has 11 US platinum and gold singles and four US platinum and gold albums, and averages more than 3.3 million monthly listeners on Spotify as one of the most-listened-to rock bands on the platform with over 600 million streams, contributing to their more than 1 billion total overall streams to date.
Attention Attention is the follow-up to 2015’s Threat To Survival LP which marked Shinedown’s third straight Top 10 debut on the Billboard Top 200, arriving at #5 while also debuting at #1 on Billboard‘s Top Rock Albums Chart and bringing Shinedown‘s total count of US number one rock singles to 12 thanks to hits like Cut the Cord and State of My Head. Every one of the singles released over Shinedown‘s nearly two-decade career has ascended to the Top 10 on the US rock charts – a feat unmatched by any other rock band.
The 14-track album, Shinedown’s most raw and personal to date, is a mental, emotional and physical journey that follows an individual from life’s lowest lows to the highest highs as anxieties dissipate and demons disappear.We speak to vocalist Brent Smith about the new songs and their massive world tour that will also see them team up once again with rock legends Godsmack in the US in July.
Andrew: So I understand you guys have been busy being on the road on tour so how has it been going so far?
Brent: Yeah mainly we started the world tour for the new album “Attention Attention”, we put it all together at the beginning of the year but we didn’t actually get out on to the road until about March. But we’re kind of working it all out right now because we did so much lead time for the actual release of the album from a global standpoint so even though we started in Canada, we did 9 shows and then we came back into the States so we’ve been primarily doing the States right now but we’re getting ready to go to Europe for the entire month of June and then back to the US and then again to the UK in the back half of the year. Overall because it’s such a global record, we look at it like this, this album is not a sprint, it’s more about having the mentality of a marathon if you will. The album is different for us because it’s not a traditional record because it’s a story album and there’s a lot of depth to what’s going on here but it was one of the first albums where we were probably 10 months out with our label in America and thus far through Warner Music because that’s the umbrella that we stand with in regards to the international side of how our music is distributed. Bu this record was where everybody was on the same page from a very early stage in every department so once we had all that taken care of and getting it released on May 4th, really the touring had already been out there.
We’re known for our touring schedule, I mean we go pretty past the idea of what touring hard is. We look at everything with a very big picture, it’s not so much about the painter, it’s more about the painting if you know what I mean.
Andrew: Yeah exactly. So you have a whole string of shows coming up as you mentioned, I was talking to Shannon (Larkin) from Godsmack just last week and he mentioned you guys were touring together later this year as well which he seemed to be pretty excited about. I think you guys had toured together years ago right?
Brent: Yeah it’s kind of interesting because with Godsmack and our relationship with them, it started around 2006 [and] we were the first of 3 bands when Godsmack was touring for I think on The Oracle record and we were on our second album which was called “Us and Them” back in 2006. But it was us and Rob Zombie and Godsmack and then fast forward to 2012, we were headlining a festival in the summer called Uproar and they were on that as well but we were the headliner and they were right before us and now to do a co- headline if you fast forward to 2018. But this was strategic with both bands, us and what we do in Shinedown and what Godsmack do, there’s a similarity there that we take very seriously and that is both bands are very serious about how they tour and the production is a big deal for both bands and at the end of the day we only have one boss and the boss is the audience, it just happens to be everyone in the audience. So we take it super serious in regards to just the show that we give the public. I was finishing up a tour with my boy Zach (Myers, guitar), we do this thing where every once in a while we go out and do an acoustic run together. We hadn’t done it in about 4 years so we did it at the end of December of last year and so he gave me a call before the beginning of 2018 and was asking what our schedule was like and I said I wasn’t 100 percent sure but I was looking to see what opportunities were there. Honestly man, between both bands he was such a gentleman and he’s a professional and we’ve known each other a long time and we just wanted to put something together this summer that would be really extraordinary for the fanbase. So I think we’re going to be able to attack that and give everybody what they want which is the greatest rock n’ roll show they have ever seen.
Andrew: Yeah I’m sure it’s going to be a fun time definitely. Now you mentioned before about the new album being a little different as far as concept is concerned, talk us through the record and what inspired the concept and how the process was this time around.
Brent: Well this is the band’s sixth record and a lot of it had to do with a tour that we were co- headlining with Five Finger Death Punch at the end of 2016 and our bass player who’s name is Eric Bass just did not want to be bored during the day because you wait 22 hours of the day to play the show and then the rest of the time you kind of have to find stuff to occupy yourself with. Because this was at the end of a cycle for us in 2016, our fifth record had already been out since 2014 so bottom line was is he took a smaller pro-tools rig out on those 2 months when we were out on that tour with FFDP and he would just go into a room everyday in the arena and would just write a composition and then record it. He didn’t have any lyrics or any melodies, had a lot of music but he wanted to get a jump start if you will and the interesting thing was that by the time we were done with that tour, he had 22 compositions. So fast forward to January-February of 2017, I flew to Charleston, South Carolina where he lives and where his studio is and we started to listen to those songs and what inspired the idea of doing a conceptual record is first and foremost, we had never done it before but when I was listening to those tracks I was like, ‘They sound like they were kind of threaded together, like they belonged to the same story’. Even though there werent any melodies or any lyrics yet, it was just the way the material was kind of hitting me. The interesting thing though was we didn’t use any of those compositions except for one synth part in one of the songs, we used it as the intro to what became the finale of “Attention Attention” which was the song “Brilliant”.
But that was kind of what sparked the idea of doing a conceptual album but we don’t really call it a conceptual record in the traditional sense because it’s not specifically character based. If you think of a traditional concept record you might think of Pink Floyd’s The Wall or even Operation: Mindcrime by Queensryche or even The Who when they did Tommy, this is what we call a story album. “Attention Attention” takes place inside of a room and the idea behind the record is for the listener to put themselves into the room and into the chair, inside of why I say inside the room and the chair, if you’ve seen the Devil video and The Human Radio video, those coincide with each other because all of the songs on the album are going to be accompanied by a video. So the record will visually tell the story just as much as the audio does and so with all that, there’s symbolism inside of everything but “Attention Attention” is really about not being afraid to fail. We’ve been asked to kind of summarise the idea of this album and the idea is that I think people will sometimes find themselves pigeonholed into a corner because maybe they want to achieve something that seems outside their realm or outside the box for them. A lot of times they will second guess themselves and the reality is I don’t think you’ll be defined by your failures, I think you’ll be defined by the fact that you didn’t give up and that’s a lot of what “Attention Attention” represents.
Andrew: It’s an interesting concept for sure and obviously something that’s relatable to a lot of people out there but I guess from what I understand just from what you said then, it seems you could also relate that idea to the band as well. Could you relate that certainly when you were first starting out?
Brent: Well I mean with when you’re starting out, I had a really good friend of mine once tell me, and he’s still a friend of mine to this day, he said you will get your whole life to make your first album and you’re going to get 6 months to do your second one, and he was right. Once again, real quick, when I make that statement, here we are into our sixth album and when I look at the trajectory of the band from the first two albums with the original members and then myself and Barry Kerch (drums) who had been there from day one, when we had to let go of the original bassist and the original guitar player, I look at it now because once Zach Myers came into the fold on the third album which was “The Sound Of Madness”, it completely transformed who this band was. Because in a lot of ways the universe I think had not put all 4 of us together yet for a reason, no disrespect to the two other gentlemen who were there in the beginning for the first two albums but had it not been for myself and Barry meeting Zach and Eric, I probably wouldn’t be talking to you right now. So there’s a lot of art, not imitating life but life becomes art, especially when you’re with people that are just as artistically driven as you are, I’ve always said the universe will put you with the people that you’re meant to gravitate towards. But go full circle now with “Attention Attention” it had to start from a very real place with the 4 of us, a lot of this record is about the 4 of us but it’s also an understanding of the people that we’ve met over the years, the situations that we put ourselves in or the situation that we’ve been in. Different scenarios and looking at the world not through a microscope but more through a telescope. Those aren’t oxymorons or even those little clever riddles or what have you, there’s a reason that Shinedown writes what we write. I’m the main lyricist in the band and I can only write about what I know, I’ve also told people that I write songs because it’s cheaper than therapy and the fact of the matter is that I can’t keep it inside like from a personal point of view and from an emotional standpoint and I know a lot of people in the last 20 years have expressed to me that for whatever reason that there’s something about the way that I put things out in a song form that help them to relate to different situations. I just tell people I’m just being honest with myself more than anything but that’s the beauty of being an artist.
Andrew: Yeah certainly the best way to go about it I believe. Quickly before I let you go, how are the new songs playing out live? Are they going well with the fans so far?
Brent: We started to kind of test a few of them in the last few weeks, just playing a new song nightly and just changing it up going through the whole record. Definitely “Kill Your Conscience” gets a big reaction, “Get Up” gets a big reaction. “Pyro” we played the other night and it was a little pancake for us, pancake is what we call a song when you play it – I don’t know if you like pancakes or not but there’s a reason we call songs pancakes live – it’s where pancakes sound really good right out of the gate when you first hit them and then about 5 minutes in you’re like, ‘I’m bored, this has turned into cake’. So “Pyro” is a little bit like that where people are like, ‘OK it rocks but I’m not sure’. “Brilliant” is the finale and it’s just really intense right out of the gate, the two times that we’ve played that the audience was kind of like hit really hard in the face and they were trying to get their bearings with it because it’s very intense. Like with anything, when an album is brand new you’re trying to kind of get used to all of the material but for the most part the new material is going off really well. Of course “Devil” being the first single, whatever area we are in or whatever venue or field we are playing, that just causes an eruption so that’s always good when they still love what you do. “The Human Radio” was the grat track and people know that one, so far everything has been pretty good.
Andrew: Awesome well it’s been great chatting to you today, really appreciate your time. Congratulations on the new album and enjoy the rest of the year and have fun on tour! Hopefully we will see you down under at some point.
Brent: Yeah working on it sooner than later. Not 100 percent sure that we’re able to get there in 2018 but it’s been 8 years and next year we will be going on 9 years since we’ve been back so believe me it’s kind of all hands on deck right now making sure that we get there sooner than later. We appreciate all the Australian fans being patient with us but believe me, when we get there I promise it will be worth the wait.
Complete tour dates can be found at www.shinedown.com/shows
