Shinedown Delivering a 'Proactive' New Album, Brent Smith Says

Shinedown Delivering a ‘Proactive’ New Album, Brent Smith Says

2021-12-20

Brent Smith of Shinedown performing live at DTE Energy Music Theatre.

Brent Smith of Shinedown – Story and photo by Anne Erickson

Brent Smith of Shinedown says the band’s new album is unlike any of their previous releases

Shinedown have been hard at work on a new album, and according to lead vocalist Brent Smith, it’s not going to be your typical Shinedown album. In fact, Smith calls the new album “proactive” and “controversial,” two words not often associated with the longstanding Florida rock band.

“We wanted to push everything to the front,” Smith said in a new interview with Smith explained to New Jersey’s 95.9 The Rat. “And what I mean by that is, we’ve proven that we can make these records that there’s a lot of musicianship involved in it, and we have layered our records over the years because we love music and we love sound and we love big, epic… we try to make really cinematic records.”

Shinedown are known for those big-sounding, grandiose albums, but that’s not the sound they were going for with the new music. “So the majority of this record is authentically drums, bass, guitar. There are piano songs — there’s two really, really very intense-subject-matter piano songs that are gonna be in Shinedown seven,” Smith said.

“But we wanted to make a real rock record, we wanted to make a real record where we focus on just making sure that the band is being heard the way the band needs to be heard. So, not a lot of layering,” he added. “It doesn’t mean it’s any less powerful, it’s just we’re not dealing with a lot of stacks.”

Smith went on to call the record a “very humanitarian record,” since the majority of it was written during the COVID-19 2020 and 2021. He added that the band is “opening up the conversation into different subject matters that Shinedown has never addressed.”

“But it’s a record that I think some people will consider controversial, I think some people will consider to be very provocative, especially for Shinedown, but it’s also something that we feel that it is very important and that it is necessary,” he continued.

Shinedown are expected to drop the first single off their new album in January 2022. View the full interview with Smith below. Find Shinedown’s 2022 tour dates with The Pretty Reckless here.

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Anne Erickson

Meet the expert - Author, writer and editor Anne Erickson is a Detroit-based music reporter and radio host. She has written for the USA Today Network, Consequence.net, Blabbermouth.net, Loudwire.com and many more. Anne holds a master's degree from Michigan State University. Contact Anne at anne@audioinkradio.com.