- 7 weeks ago
Brent Smith of Shinedown joins us for an Audacy Check In to talk about the band's upcoming album, 'EI8HT,' and touring plans for this year and beyond.
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00:02it's an odyssey check-in so exciting new shinedown album comes out on may 29th it's called
00:07eight it's the eighth album and this is already the fifth song that you've put out the new song
00:14is called safe and sound and here's what's awesome about safe and sound okay this is the fifth song
00:20you've put out on this album but you still have an entire album of songs because there's another
00:2613 songs that you haven't put out yet so essentially you put out a five song ep and then on
00:32may 29th you
00:34have a full 13 song album that we haven't even heard yet i know are we are we out of
00:40our minds
00:41are we just trying to have fun we're just trying to have fun it's exciting like another another 13
00:47shinedown songs is there was out of these 13 that we haven't heard yet the first five you're five for
00:53five i mean they're all great so out of these 13 we haven't heard yet what what's the song you're
00:59most excited for us to hear i mean listen i'm excited for everybody to hear the entire record
01:05you know one of the things about this album um that is different than the last two is that this
01:09isn't a conceptual piece so it's more of a traditional record where all of these songs belong on the same
01:14body of work but every song is its own story so it was good to go back in we had
01:20the idea though of
01:21doing it is considered you know an album but it's essentially a double record um but the thing was
01:27is that this album took about a year and a half to make when i'm looking at like when we
01:31started it and
01:32how we were putting everything together and obviously last year releasing four singles then
01:37doing the dance kid dance tour that's now parlaying into this year with act two that was all by design
01:43but the thing about the record is that there's not one ounce of filler on this particular project
01:50not that we ever look at making a record and we put filler on the other albums in our catalog
01:54but uh
01:56you can hear it in the the way that we've structured this and that it is very much a an
02:01emotional ride the
02:04sequence is quite unique it's an hour and four minutes long of an album in its entirety um but
02:09there's a song called dizzy there's a song called imposter there's a song called young again i won't go
02:15through all of them but uh i'm really excited for dizzy i'm excited for imposter i'm really excited
02:20for young again but overall the whole record i'm pumped about have you considered because you guys
02:25are the number one band in history with the most number one singles in rock radio and rock history
02:30so have you ever considered making every single song a single because i think you could do that
02:35so far you've done five and they're all great like why not just make all 18 songs singles
02:41and put each one out one at a time i mean you know uh you said it
02:50you could tour on it for four years i mean you just no i mean i'll i'll be straight up
02:55with you too
02:56like there there's a level of understanding that there is something called oversaturation
03:02and there is something where it's like you have to go away for
03:07for people to miss you you know but the one thing that i've looked at especially like in the last
03:12four years and this kind of started like not to bring up the pandemic but there was a lot of
03:16things
03:17that kind of came into kind of came into focus with the touring industry and just the music industry in
03:23general from you know and thankfully we're out of that and the way that i see it though is and
03:29i've
03:29said this before we really want to focus on making sure that with this album and now this being our
03:37eighth studio record safe and sound is the 37th single we've released as a band which is insane
03:45to even say out loud um but you know making sure like this year specifically like we're going to
03:51australia for the first time in 16 years we've never been to new zealand so that's a first last year
03:56we did new mexico or we did mexico for the very first time we're working on south america and asia
04:01for next year we're doing the uk and europe later on this year we've got two legs obviously in the
04:06us and canada but we didn't do canada for the last couple of years um so the broadening out of
04:12everything we always look at you know there's other you know territories on this planet that we
04:17haven't had a chance to get to but as far as like the singles and and how we look at
04:22things
04:22you know we spend a lot of time in the studio making these records and writing these songs again
04:28um this album in its entirety took about a year by the time the record comes out on may 29th
04:34it will
04:35be a year and a half process um of to create this record but again you know when it comes
04:41to singles
04:42and it comes to radio support i've said this very very often um as long as radio will continue to
04:48play us we're always going to be there for terrestrial radio and broadcast radio look
04:52streaming gets your music played and it gets it out there but radio will give you a career
04:57so uh you know if we can release every single off the record we would yeah and then there's no
05:02band
05:03that appreciates radio more than you like you go to a shinedown show you have like a radio room for
05:07like i've never i've never heard of that in my life i've been in radio for 25 years you're the
05:13only
05:13band that has ever done that you have a room for radio stations like come hang out here then come
05:18in and say
05:18hi i mean it's it's unbelievable what you do so you guys are awesome you guys have always supported
05:22radio um when you put out 18 new songs do you mentally like have to say goodbye to some of
05:28your
05:28old material because it's like we we're never gonna you have seven albums plus this new one with 18 songs
05:34you have so much material there's songs that you'll never be able to play again because you have you
05:39know there's just so much like how do you how do you in your head you have to say god
05:42i have to say
05:43goodbye to this album or this these songs like i'm only gonna play one song now off this album
05:48forever this old album yeah i mean that's interesting the one thing about us and also
05:53with the radio aspect when you're talking about north america and canada one thing about us as a band
06:00because we have so much affection towards radio and we understand the big picture we're also one of the
06:07only bands that technically is on six different formats so when we look at that i mean don't get me
06:13wrong we're rock and roll to the bone um but you know we have a pretty broad fan base and
06:19it is very
06:19kind of eight eight to eighty you know um so with the question that you ask you know this tour
06:26that
06:26we're getting ready to do we're obviously having to kind of you know put some songs to the side have
06:32enough room for some of the newer material but you can't play an entire show of just new material
06:37um because you got people coming to the shows that maybe they've seen you 200 times but a lot of
06:42times
06:42man it's the first time people are seeing you so what we try to do is we also will critique
06:48how we
06:49tour at certain times of the year and certain projects that we have you know before um a few years
06:57ago we had this tour all set up which we're going to eventually do but it was going to be
07:00called and it
07:01is called the deep dive tour but it was all the b-sides stuff that was never a single or
07:05whatever
07:06and that's what it was going to be like you'd play like maybe one or two like big singles but
07:10it was
07:11a specific very shine down fan centric because it was more the deep cuts so yeah you can do things
07:18like that you can parlay that into different categories but i can tell you right now like
07:23we're working on five different set lists for this new tour um but we're really trying to focus
07:28on all killer and no filler on this next one so you just kind of go into it knowing like
07:33okay
07:33we know everybody's going to want to hear this bulk of songs so there's usually we always have
07:40the 10 songs in the set list where we're like we got to make sure we play these on this
07:45run
07:46and then because normally we do anywhere between 18 to 20 songs live it's about a two hour show um
07:54so you're always making sure that you're hitting on the ones that we just know the audience has to hear
07:59that you're not going to get out of there if you don't play these yeah um but again man 37
08:04singles
08:05you're not going to be able to do that in one shot unless you're doing a tour where it's like
08:08an
08:09evening with where you can you know play for like three hours yeah um but you just do the best
08:14that
08:14you can yeah i i went to the uh dance kid dance tour in an arena the golden one center
08:20that setup guys
08:22have is so odd like i've never seen that setup it was so awesome like you were in the round
08:26but it was just i it was i've never seen that kind of setup for a concert it was so
08:31cool the way
08:32you guys set that up yeah you're still you're you're you know you're upended to the back of the stage
08:40still but that was the dynamic was have enough of a threshold forward that you were in the centerpiece
08:46of the arena so you're about 40 feet from front of house but i was like i was on top
08:51of you i was on
08:55on top of you it was awesome yeah and then you make sure that the pillars are also going out
09:00to
09:01the side so you have the left you have the right and then you have the forefront you know and
09:06then
09:06having the b stage kind of be right there in the middle where we throw the drum set up and
09:10it kind
09:10of changes the whole vibe of the show almost feels like you're in someone's living room all of a sudden
09:15and then you kind of transition back to the other parts of the stage where you're like oh now we're
09:19back
09:19again with this you know so uh you just want to make it really interactive with the audience and so
09:25the the closer we can get to everybody the better is is the b-side thing would that be something
09:31that
09:31you would play in smaller clubs and stuff or would you just play in bigger big places i think there's
09:36something like that you would want to do it kind of a bit more um intimate but you know theater
09:41size
09:42you know large theater size i would think but again too man like we're not opposed like if it works
09:48for us you know we do it because we want to do it but i mean even going in and
09:54doing some surprise
09:55shows or like you know you i've always thought it would be really really fun uh and i'm not saying
09:59we won't do this one day because i think we will but like put a show on sale and people
10:03realize like
10:04oh like these are like in clubs that only hold like 800 to a thousand people it's like you put
10:10it on
10:10it kind of makes it like a really really hard you got to get the ticket quick yeah yeah because
10:15it's
10:15not super big so you you kind of also know that you know some of the people that would be
10:20coming
10:20to those shows like those are like diehard fans you know you know would be cool too if you did
10:25like
10:26an arena tour or a theater tour and just a regular shinedown show but then the second night you're in
10:31that small club so you get shined down in the arena where you get to hear all the hits whatever
10:36else
10:37then the next night you go to the small 800 seat club and you get to hear all the b
10:41-sides
10:42that to me would be you know what i'm i'm gonna hire you to be the tour consultant that's that's
10:48what we need to do here i'm gonna i'm gonna i'm gonna steal you from radio or at least you're
10:53gonna
10:53have to split up your time i'm gonna bring you on board as a touring consultant well thank you
10:58because i've never heard that being done that's actually a really cool idea i think it would be
11:03so awesome like you you play a full shot then that way you get the best of both worlds you
11:07get to
11:07now do you say that like you go to a city and the first night you play the arena and
11:11then the next
11:11night in that city you play like a club yeah i've never seen that done i've actually never seen
11:17that done i just thought of it that's a great idea yeah then that way you could do that tour
11:22but then
11:23also you know i mean you have to make money let's be real like the shinedown is a very it's
11:28expensive
11:28like you're gonna you're not gonna make money on these club shows so you have to play the theaters
11:33and arenas you're gonna you're gonna sell a lot of tickets but then those hardcore fans even for
11:38your like shinedown fan club or something give them first dibs on that second show like you guys
11:44could buy tickets the shinedown fan club could buy tickets to the arena and the small club then that
11:49way you know your hardcore fan i mean i i think it would be so cool to do that no
11:53i love the idea don't
11:54think that i'm not gonna uh bring it up to my people we're gonna need to give you a percentage
11:58though but it was your idea but it's a good idea well i'm very excited new shinedown album it's the
12:03eighth album it's called eight uh new song safe and sound and uh thank you so much for the way
12:09you
12:09support radio and you're just one of the great guys in rock so thank you so much and uh get
12:15the
12:15new album hey i appreciate you thank you so much for always being there man you have been from day
12:19one
12:19and uh me and the guys we're just so appreciative of you and you know everybody at 98 rock so
12:24thank you
12:25again and thank you to all the listeners thank you so much this is awesome all right partner i'll talk
12:30to
12:30you later
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