In a recent chat with Sirius XM, Shinedown frontman Brent Smith was asked to recollect some of his favorite memories from his years with the band. What he came up with, however, is not what you would typically expect—even by rock and roll standards, and furthermore, even by Eddie Van Halen standards.
"On the first record, we got an opportunity of a lifetime to do two months with Van Halen. And overtime, in this tour, me and Eddie just developed a friendship; [he was] one of the sweetest and most amazing human beings on the planet. But, if I’m gonna be honest about what I remember from this tour – which is probably one of the most incendiary rock and roll moments of all time.
“Eddie would always come in everyday around five o’clock; [the band] flew private everywhere, so they would come in around five o’clock. Eddie never wore a shirt, he was always wearing camo pants and combat boots, he always had his guitar around him, and he was always smoking a cigarette; he would drink Yellow Tail wine, so he would always have purple around his lips. It’s everything you want him to be.
“There’s this one day he comes into the dressing room, and I hear him come in – I’m in the bathroom and I’m washing my hands. He’s like, ‘Hey where’s Brent?’ And [someone goes] ‘He’s in the bathroom.’ So I come out of the bathroom, I’m like ‘Eddie, what’s up?’ I didn’t dry my hands all the way, so I gave him a high-five, and he’s like ‘Oh dude, what?!’
“And I said, ‘Oh, I was just having to handle my business in there.’ So he walks over to the deli area, like craft services in the room, he then proceeds to – on the deli tray – urinate on the deli tray and take a rolled up piece of turkey, and rolled it up and put it in the center; [he then] took his cigarette, stuck it in the top of the turkey, handed me the deli tray with urine and said, ‘Here, give this to your tour manager. It’s called a Smoking Gun.’ And then walked out of the room.”
Um… that's different—and gross, too! And Smith maintains its one hundred percent true. I'd hate to be that tour manager, that is for sure! You can watch the full clip with Smith below.
