Shinedown frontman Brent Smith recently spoke to Metal Hammer for an interview and remembered when he made the hard decision to change the band’s lineup.
Brent Smith formed Shinedown in 2001 after the split of his previous band Dreve. He then recruited others, and the band’s original lineup featured Jasin Todd, Brad Stewart, and Barry Kerch.
This lineup of Shinedown continued making music for the first two albums. However, the band went under several lineup changes in the late 2000s due to internal issues among band members.
During the recordings of ‘The Sound Of Madness,’ Smith fired both Stewart and Todd. Stewart was fired due to disagreement with the creative direction of Shinedown, while Todd departed as a result of significant personal and drug-related issues with Smith.
Throughout 2007, Smith focused on writing new material and recruited several studio musicians to record ‘The Sound Of Madness.’ The album came out on June 24, 2008, and Smith recruited Eric Bass while the touring guitarist Zach Myers became a permanent member.
Speaking to Metal Hammer, Brent Smith remembered the time he made this tough decision of firing Stewart and Todd. He stated that making those changes wasn’t easy, and many thought Shinedown was over, but this decision made the band what it is today.
In the interview with Metal Hammer, Brent Smith said the following:
“Before the third album, ‘The Sound Of Madness,’ we knew we needed to make some really hard decisions and change a couple of members. That’s when we got Zach Myers and Eric Bass in.
It wasn’t easy to make those changes, and many people were like, ‘This band is over, this band is done.’ We could have failed, but that’s what made this band what it is today.”
In February 2021, Smith announced working on a seventh studio album. On January 26, 2022, Shinedown released its lead single, ‘Planet Zero.’ Although the album was expected to be released on April 12, 2022, it will come out on July 1, 2022, per new announcements.
