INTERVIEW WITH BRENT SMITH OF SHINEDOWN

Ah, it’s great when you get a breath of fresh air in this stagnant, polluted music industry. The artists at the top of even the Metal scene are like giant smokestacks spewing their garbage and choking us with their unoriginal songs and hardly talented musicians. SHINEDOWN came to our attention a few months ago, but they released their first album, Leave A Whisper in 2004. We should’ve known about them sooner! Now they’ve got a new album out entitled Us And Them, plus a DVD that is a must-see. If your lungs are tired of being smothered by the exhaust of the lackluster bands saturating this industry, take a much-needed deep inhale of this group of extremely talented, good-natured men who are doing something different that’s worth listening to.

Paragon Rob:: I first heard about you guys from a friend of mine who told me to check you out and I’ve been a fan ever since. After I found out about you I kept hearing “45” on my XM Satellite Radio and I always end up humming it for hours after I hear it. That song is a very emotionally powerful one, can you shed some light onto the inspiration for that song?

Brent Smith: The inspiration from the song really came from – I think a lot of people kinda take a literal sense because of the lyrics – but the song is basically about the day that you wake up and you look at yourself in the mirror and you finally decide that you want to try to become comfortable in your own skin, and realize that you’re gonna have to make yourself happy before you’re going to make anyone else happy. And basically, the 45 isn’t an actual literal term for a gun, I used it as a metaphor for the world, the 45 is actually the world and what it hands you every day of your life. When you get up, it’s a gift to be alive to begin with. A lot of different people, when I’ve talked about it, they said, “Do you really honestly mean that?” And I’m like, “Well, yeah.” Because I’ve been in that situation where I didn’t know if I wanted to continue going on and I didn’t know how to necessarily make myself comfortable with who I was, trying to find a way of learning more about myself. And you come from a dark place sometimes, and that’s really the reality of the song. It’s about overcoming and about moving forward. And it’s basically about understanding that it’s not always going to be good, but you really have no one to blame for yourself if you don’t move forward. That’s where the whole, “Nobody knows what I believe,” [comes from] because we’re all individuals. So that’s really where it comes from, it’s about moving on, really.

Paragon Rob:: You guys made an awesome video for “45” but it was banned from MTV because of the chorus line. You refused to change the words and so they refused to play the video. What exactly did they expect you to change it to without totally changing the feel of the song?

Brent Smith:Yeah, they sent a treatment over, and this was how it went: “And I’m [long pause], swimming through the [long pause]” and I said, “No. That’s retarded.” I just said, “You don’t want to play it because of the words, don’t play it, I don’t care.” At that time, I had a hard time with the company, meaning the network, about that, because I said, “If you can show,” – and this has nothing to do with my feelings toward Rap music, Hip/Hop, R&B, things like that, but it seems like those individuals and those artists could get away with whatever they wanted to, but I’m sitting here talking about a subject matter that I felt needed to be heard, and they were like, “It’s too literal, you’re being too blunt about it – and I said, “Jay-Z has 99 problems and you don’t have a problem showing him getting shot on your network, I don’t see why you have a problem with me saying I’m staring down the barrel of a 45, even though the fact is I’m not even talking about an actual gun.”

Paragon Rob:: Yeah, that was actually my next question, because they do, they get away with playing Rap videos that depict nothing but violence, drugs, and really explicit stuff, and sexuality, and they talk about killing cops all the time, and yet, a Rock video with a positive message doesn’t get played.

Brent Smith:No, it didn’t get played. I mean, Fuse played it, and actually, Target and Best Buy would loop it and play it through there. Hard Rock Live ended up being really supportive of us, playing the video a tremendous amount. I don’t know what the network is, but when you go on the big cruises and stuff, it loops in your room, I forgot what the channel was, and the “Simple Man” video, which never got played on any station. We didn’t really have much luck on the first record as far as face time, as far as press was concerned, so we really built everything out of touring, and relationships with radio. I don’t take that personally, but it’s just that, as far as face time for the first record, there really was virtually none.

Paragon Rob:: What is your take on censorship in music? It seems that the rules are getting more and more uptight every day, how does an artist try to express himself if he has to second-guess every lyric and every song title?

Brent Smith:Well, it kind of goes back to the Constitution. We do have freedom of speech, that’s one of the greatest things about being an American, you can speak your mind. But, censorship is really, in my opinion, and ugly thing, and sometimes people will be like, “Well, you say that, but what if it was depicting violence and rape or murder, and it was depicted in some form of a light that was acceptable?” And I say, “Censorship upon that level to me -- I don’t know necessarily what that artist or what that person is trying to depict -- but they should, at least from the Constitution, have a right to say whatever it is they wanna say about it.” And I really felt strongly about censorship from day 1, just in everything, because I don’t cuss. As far as what the languages are, as far as the top 5 big words, I just don’t use them, but somehow I found a way to say something that was, in their eyes, just so wrong that they wanted it banned. What can I say?

Paragon Rob:: I know you said you didn’t get that much press time for the first album, but I have to tell you man, I haven’t been this excited or interested in a new band in a long time, you guys really bring something new and fresh to the scene. You really stand on your own, but of course comparisons are inevitable. Who would you say you guys get compared to the most?

Brent Smith:As far as the style of the music, I think when it first came out, it started to kinda get lumped into the STAIND, TOOL, NICKELBACK, GODSMACK, bands like that. As it progressed, a lot of the music on Leave A Whisper, aside from “45” – and the “Simple Man” thing was never planned, that actually just happened; we actually re-released our record with it on it, it wasn’t a planned thing, it just happened at a radio station and we ended up going in and recording it and doing some other stuff to re-release the record – and then “Fly From the Inside” was the first single, but it got lumped into that I think because that was what was going on at the time, but then when we started going out on the road and it started becoming our show, we didn’t really act like those bands, we didn’t really perform like them, and we just really wanted to become what we are, and we wanted to be known as original. A lot of people these days are like, “There’s nothing original anymore,” and I’m like, “That’s a pretty lame statement to come up with.” It’s just like, [they] tell me that all kinds of music has already been written and you can’t reinvent anything, and there’s only 12 notes on a guitar, and that’s true, but you can play them many different ways.

Paragon Rob:: I think that that stems from the fact that a lot of people aren’t doing original things. There are plenty of things that can be done, but a lot people seem to stick to a certain formula, or a specific outline within a genre. But your sound is very eclectic on Leave A Whisper, and a lot of people don’t do that. A lot of these newer heavy acts sound like each other. They have their own distinct signatures, but one a whole, at least as far as the mainstream goes, it’s getting boring. For somebody to just sit down and listen to something on the radio, somebody who just puts on MTV, half the time, you can’t tell one song from another.

Brent Smith:Right, well I take it as a huge compliment, to say that the album is eclectic. That’s what we were trying to do with Leave A Whisper. But if you think that it was eclectic on that record, wait ‘til you hear the new one. ::laughs::

Paragon Rob:: I can’t wait! It’s coming out in September, right?

Brent Smith:No, it’s going to come out October 4, I believe. Our first single goes to radio all over the United States, to all active Rock and Alternative stations, this Monday. So the first single actually goes this Monday [August 8, 2005] to radio.

Paragon Rob:: A lot of guys out there just yell into a mic full force and they try to call it singing, but you’re not like that at all; you can actually hold a note and carry a melody very well.

Brent Smith:Well thank you so very much, I appreciate that compliment.

Paragon Rob:: There aren’t all that many modern vocalists that you could have studied. How did you learn to sing?

Brent Smith:A guy by the name of Otis Redding. That was the day the light bulb kind of appeared above my head. I knew I wanted to be a song writer and I wanted to sing and I wanted to write my own stuff at about the age of 10, but when I was about 14, I was listening to a lot of Rock music, like Deep Purple and JEFFERSON AIRPLANE, of course LED ZEPPELIN, AC/DC, BLACK SABBATH a lot, The DOORS were a big influence. But the day that my dad gave me an anthology of Otis Redding was probably the day that changed my life, because I had actually never seen a stereo speaker bleed. I could actually hear this man’s soul come out of him, and to this day, I’ve never heard a man sing like him. And he really just taught me a lot about the passion, which led me to go deeper into R&B and Soul and even Gospel music. I became a huge Billy Holiday fan; Etta James was a big influence; Al Green and Sam Cook, Percy Sledge, Marvin Gaye. I just started to engulf myself in MoTown and just Rhythm & Blues, and really learn how they sing. And I would like to consider myself almost a Soul singer, so that’s really kind of who taught me. I’ve never been trained or anything. The other thing was that, that was the Soul part of it, but what I also try to do, like from Robert Plant, and even Brian Johnson from AC/DC, the high registers that they would hit, and Axl Rose, like when I was 14, I could practically sing all of Appetite For Destruction note for note. So that was the other thing. I wanted to learn the gut part from the Soul, and the grit in the voice, I could have the growl in the voice where it was really passionate, but I wanted to hit the growl with a high note also. And I also wanted to know how to hit a clean high note, too, like Robert Plant would. So, basically, I just started mimicking them all. And then somehow along the way here, I think this next record, our second record – and I just finished it three days ago, it’s being mixed right now in Miami – I think I actually found my voice on this record.

Paragon Rob:: You’ve told many people that your parent’s weren’t completely supportive of your goal to be a rock star. What would they have rather seen you do with your life?

Brent Smith:Well, I appreciate the title of a rock star, but I don’t consider myself that, but I’m very flattered that you would say that. I was so engulfed by music, it just hit me right away, probably straight out of the womb; I just engulfed my life in it. And I think my parents weren’t very musical, and they didn’t really listen to music ever in their lives. My mom was a stay-at-home-mother, and my dad was a P.E. teacher. His whole life he taught sports and he was very athletic and very into that whole thing. And I tried to do it as best I could up until a certain point in my life, around the age of 13, [when] I just quit doing all sports because a.) I wasn’t any good at them, and b.) I didn’t want to do them; I was just kinda doing them for my dad. And he respected it when I quit because it’s not what I wanted to do, but I just started early on, listening to music all the time and I think my parents got a little concerned by it, because I wouldn’t do anything else but listen to music. And I wasn’t necessarily just listening to it for pleasure; I was studying it. I think they’re very Christian-oriented people, and I think they felt as if there was an underlining level in the music, and I think they thought it was kind of warping me when really it was allowing me to be more creative. And I think they just got a little nervous by it, because they’d never seen anything like that before, because as far as my family is concerned, I’m the only one who’s done anything musical. My grandmother, before she passed away, was tracing back our family history, our tree and everything, and there are no musicians at all anywhere. I’m like the first one, and it’s really odd. My parents to this day are like, “We don’t have any idea where you got this from.” But, you know what, I think people have a hard time. My parents are wonderful people, I love them dearly, they’re the greatest people in the world, they’re very supportive of me and everything that has to do with Shinedown; they know more about Shinedown than I do. ::laughs:: It’s one of those things where, it’s not like a forgive and forget thing, it’s just that I never got mad at them. There were times when I was frustrated with them about it, but when they don’t see it happening, they get concerned that it’s a foolish dream. They’re like, “It’s wonderful to have a dream and it’s wonderful to be driven,” but I think it seemed very unrealistic to them. And I just never gave up on it and I never considered myself to do anything else, and I never wanna do anything else, and I think once they saw it kind of going, I think they understood it more, and now we have a really great relationship and they’re very supportive. My entire family is very supportive of what I’m doing. They’ve definitely been an inspiration in the past two or three years that I’ve been on the road and doing this record. They really, really are a blessing.

Paragon Rob:: When you are on the road it must be hard to get your favorite foods. What’s the one meal that you miss the most when you are away? It doesn’t have to be a homemade meal; it could even be something from your favorite restaurant.

Brent Smith:You know what, it’s not from a restaurant, it actually is a home thing. My granny, who is my mother’s mother -- we’re from the South so soul food is the most incredible thing to us, we just love it ::laughs:: -- so probably my granny’s fried chicken is what I miss the most. Because you can go into KFC, or you can go into some Southern places and get fried chicken, but it’s just not the same. So that’s probably the one meal I miss.

Paragon Rob:: Yeah, I totally understand. I’m Italian, so when I go out to Italian restaurants, I can tell the difference. Some of them do it kind of well, but it’s not like when your family makes it.

Brent Smith:Yeah, Brad, the bass player in the band, is full Italian, and I won’t even go to an Italian restaurant with him because he gets mad! ::laughs:: He’s like, “You didn’t do it right!” ::laughs:: You’re trying to make stuff and he’s like, “It’s wrong!” ::laughs:: I won’t even go to an Italian restaurant with him. He just thinks everything’s egg noodles and ketchup, ::laughs:: so I don’t even go.

Paragon Rob:: As I mentioned earlier, the album is very eclectic, and that’s one of the things I love about it. I’m the kinda guy who will want to hear some Skynyrd right after a Metallica track or after some Black Sabbath. How did you guys manage to write so many diverse songs? I mean, I know that question could almost sound fake, but the fact is that most people these days put out 10 track CDs where every song is the same with different lyrics.

Brent Smith:The easiest way I can kind of explain how the songs became, was we had a lot of time to write the record. Because I was in development with Atlantic Records for almost three years, and during that time, you write a lot of songs. I probably wrote close to 300 songs in those three years. Of course, not all the songs were good. I always say the same thing, and it kind of goes to what you’re asking about how you come up with the songs, well, I’ve always kind of lived by the same idea: if you write 100 songs, you hope you’ve written 10 good ones, but you pray you wrote the one phenomenal one. But on this, we tried to make every single song special. We look at them like children; not one of them is necessarily better than the other, you just love them differently. But I think a lot of the reason why they are different is we had a lot of time because I was on another band on Atlantic and we were signed for like 9 months, and it was dropped. And Steve Robertson who was A&R resigned me to a development deal and it lasted like three years and during that time, I met Jason and Brad and Barry and we put this band together and we became Shinedown in the last two years of being on the road. When we finally left the road we’d become Shinedown. We just wrote a lot together, and there were some outside writers before I’d even met the guys in the band. And it’s just a lot of material. But I think that’s a lot of the reason why -- we all have different personalities and we all have different ways of looking at things. Not only that, but Barry and Brad and Jason, I don’t think had ever met anyone like me before nor had I ever met anyone like them, but for some reason, when we all four got into a room together, it just clicked. It was like we were always meant to be with one another. I think that’s where a lot of the differentiation between the songs comes from, the different personalities, but for some reason it all just makes sense, and I think that’s why they all do sound different.

Paragon Rob:: You guys have done some headline shows as well as opening slots. When the new album comes out are you guys planning a full on U.S. tour? I’d love to see you guys if you come to Jersey.

Brent Smith:Well we’ve been in Jersey quite a bit, actually. We’ve been there three or four times. Once with 3 Doors Down, and then we played a headlining show at The Stone Pony at one point, and I think the Starland Ballroom. The last time we were in Jersey, we sold that out. We actually hit the road September 26 with 3 Doors Down, so we’re starting on that tour and then we’ll go probably right into headlining. But a full-on U.S. tour and Canada, and hopefully, in the middle, go overseas because we didn’t get a chance to do that with the first record. We are a touring band. We did over 410 shows in 23 months on the last record. When we left the tour, in March, our last show at Myrtle Beach, we said we were going to take a month off, and one guy went this way, the other guy went that way, you know, and then in a month we found each other again. We wrote this second record in three months basically. Wrote it and recorded it all. Basically because we wanted to get back on the road as soon as possible, and I didn’t want the record to come out next year, I wanted it to come out this year and go. We just missed being out there, so yeah, we’ll be on the road ASAP.

Paragon Rob:: You guys are from Florida, I was recently in Ft. Lauderdale for vacation. People keep asking me if I’d move down there but I have a problem with moving my working life down to a place that would constantly feel like vacation. I’d imagine it would be nice but I’d have a real hard time concentrating on work with all those palm trees around. My question for you is, since you live in a state that is one giant vacation area, how do you concentrate on work in a place like that?

Brent Smith:The thing with me, though, is I’m not actually from Florida. I was born and raised in Knoxville, Tennessee, and I met everyone in FL, and I live in Orlando now with my girl, but as far as the atmosphere and everything, I think you kind of get used to it, but you also, as far as writing and working and doing what you do, you have to remember what you’ve been blessed to be able to do in your life now and I think that overtakes the scenery sometimes.

Paragon Rob:: Any plugs or special message to our readers?

Brent Smith:Just let them know this, and I’ve said it before and I’ll continue to say it until they put me in the ground: without them, we would be absolutely nothing. They are truly the real honest-to-God reason we do this, and we’re honored to be able to play, and we truly, truly do love the fans so much. They are an absolute gift to us. And we do it all for them. That’s all they need to know; without them we wouldn’t be up there.

Shinedown's new disc, Us And Them will be released on October 4th.

Check out Shinedown on the web: Shinedown.com

This interview will also be featured in print in Paragon Music Magazine. To get your copy of Paragon Music Magazine, email your name and address to ParagonMM@hotmail.com and include $1 per copy by cash, money order, or Paypal (email them for payment info)