There have been many great bands that have been formed in Florida and Shinedown is no exception. Formed in Jacksonville, Florida by singer Brent Smith in 2001, Shinedown has done very well and has had 11 number one singles and is releasing their sixth album, “ATTENTION ATTENTION.” I had the pleasure of talking with Brent about their new album, their current tour and what’s in store for Shinedown in the future.

Their new album “ATTENTION ATTENTION” is going to be released on May 4th and the first single, “DEVIL” was released on March 7th, and it is globally worldwide right now. Brent tells me, “We released a video at the same time, and we just had a very, very clear view and focus of what we were gonna do with this album. There’s a lot of differences on this one as opposed to the other five. One of those being that Eric Bass, which is our bass player, took the role of sitting in the captain’s chair with the production of the album. So, he actually produced the record, and on top of that, he also mixed the album. It was really a family affair. I think, in the modern day with recording, when a band says that they’re going to self-produce something, I think a lot of people kind of go, ‘Oh boy, what is this gonna sound like?’ But the fact of the matter is that we’ve had some really extraordinary teachers. Over the years, we’ve worked with a lot of different engineers, male and female, and some just incredible producers. And with that being said, just by keeping our eyes and our ears open, we’ve learned a lot from them. This record is definitely built around a statement, a lot of different statements. It’s also a story album. It’s not necessarily a quintessential what you would call concept record. Because when I think of concept record, I think a little bit more literal. Kind of like if you’re looking at Pink Floyd’s “The Wall” or even Queensryche’s, “Operation: Mindcrime.” This is more of a broad story, and we want the listener to put themselves inside the album. The whole record takes place inside of a room, and that’s a very specific part of the record. But it’s really an album about not being afraid to fail. I think that a lot of times, people will put themselves in a corner and they’ll paralyze themselves by what they want to achieve or what they wanna go after that’s maybe not the norm for them, but they already, kind of, second-guess themselves before they even attempt it. And I don’t that think people will necessarily 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” is about!”

With the band having all the control of the album, it’s easy to see that this album will be special to them and to all their fans. Brent says, “The fact that we are in a band together, that was actually a big positive for us because you can’t offend us. We can’t offend each other and it’s because we actually do have egos. I think when I see people talk about how there’s not an ego in their band, I’m not talking about necessarily like a solo artist, but if you’re in a band and you’ve got that band thing, ‘There’s no egos in this band,’ you’re lying. You’re straight up lying because, if you don’t have an ego, then you’re not gonna have the same stance on everything. And because each of us have a very strong personality individually, when you put us all four together, it turns into something pretty extraordinary. But you know, with Eric, he’s really freaking talented. It wasn’t a difficult record to make.”

I asked Brent how hard was it choosing what songs go on the album and he responded, “This was a very intense and very under a microscope and really focusing on telling the story. So there wasn’t as many songs written because we knew what we were doing. As one song was written, we knew what the next one needed to be. But in the same breath of that, they’re still laid out very much like individual songs, if that makes sense, from like, a single mentality. Even though everything is tied together, we had a very strong hold into what we needed to do and what we needed to convey. We knew what the story was, so that really was imperative in the songwriting. It’s an album that’s not like any other Shinedown album, and it’s unlike any video that Shinedown has ever done.”

Brent also tells me that, “DEVIL” is the beginning of the story, so it was very imperative that the video had some very specific things. Because we’re putting a lot of information in that video, because the goal of the album “ATTENTION ATTENTION” is to also do a video for every single song, because we’re going to tell the story. If you pre-order the record, you can get a great track. We’re only gonna give one great track before May 4th, but it’s a song called, ‘THE HUMAN RADIO.’ And the video for that is gonna come out the same day that the song is released. But going back to ‘DEVIL,’ it’s a very visual video. It’s a very intense video and what I’ve seen so far from people is that, it’s everything that they wanted us to do. Because we listen to the audience. When we’re on the road, we do a lot to be in front of our audience and do a lot of meet and greets, and really meet the fans. To just talk to the public about what Shinedown is and who Shinedown is, and a lot of that is a representative of our fan base that continuously grows. I think what they wanted us to let them know that we had not lost a step in regards to, we are rock ‘n roll. And to be honest with you, we are rock ‘n roll to the bone. We don’t make the same record twice, we’re not gonna phone anything in, and we’re also not gonna do something because it might be for whatever reason the new thing is in music at the time. That’s not the way we are. We have a pretty good hold on exactly who we are, and how we present ourselves. But we’re very eclectic. We’ve got pretty broad talent. We’ve been very, very fortunate that our fan base, as it continues to grow, they’ve given us a platform. And they’ve always allowed us to be ourselves. With that being said, we’re always gonna be truthful to who we are when we’re writing an album. I tell people this all the time. When you wake up in the morning, you’ll be the first person you’ll see every single day. You gotta make that person happy before you’ll be able to make somebody else happy. So, that’s kind of how we look at it.

Shinedown will be performing at 98RockFest at Amalie Arena in Tampa on April 20th, at WJRR’s Earthday Birthday at the Central Florida Fairgrounds on April 21st and at Fort Rock at Markham Park in Sunrise on April 28th.  I asked Brent what should fans expect to see on this tour and he responded, “I’m not trying to take anything away from the circus or anything like that, but the circus closed their doors and we are not very appreciative of anyone that beats up animals, so we’ll take the slogan from them. Shinedown is the Greatest Show On Earth! It’s a very theatrical show and we want people to be transported into a different world for an hour and a half, two hours. And we take that very seriously, the visual side of of what we do, we wanna make it an experience for everybody in the room. I’ve kind of always told people that I’m forever in the third grade when it comes to production and to music. My inner kid is always there and I just want to bring that out of everybody in the audience. At the end of the day, we all have one boss. It just happens to be everyone in the audience. So, we wanna make them happy!”

Don’t miss Shinedown at 98RockFest at Amalie Arena in Tampa, WJRR’s Earthday Birthday at the Central Florida Fairgrounds in Orlando, and at Fort Rock at Markham Park in Sunrise.  And definitely don’t forget to pre-order their new album, “ATTENTION ATTENTION.”