We're always thrilled to get the chance to talk to Shinedown's Brent Smith. The charismatic frontman is a compelling storyteller so we were especially happy when he agreed to dig into the data for an episode of Setlist Insider. The day we filmed happened to be 15 years to the date when the band live debuted the title track from their 3rd studio album, "Sound of Madness." We started off by talking about that enduring album cycle, got into their connection to Lynryd Skynyrd and the short setlist hiatus for "Simple Man," then rounded it off by talking about the complexity of adding new material to the set. Take a look:
15 Years since Sound of Madness:
"15 years since we live debuted the song, "Sound of Madness.” "Sound of Madness" over the years has become the closer. So that does kind of make sense that we would have performed it a lot. The interesting thing about the Sound of Madness album cycle is that it was 37 months, and it was over 440 something shows. We lost count. And we had not one, not two, not three, not four, not five, but six singles off of that record. It was pretty wild."
The "Simple Man" stories:
"So I didn't know this, but check this out. It says that we have actually played "Simple Man" more than Lynyrd Skynryd. I definitely don't know if that's true. A couple of years ago, Welcome to Rockville, which is a huge festival in Jacksonville, Florida, Skynyrd was the headliner, and we were right before them. So we did our set. When they went on stage, Johnny goes, "We're gonna do something a little different. We're gonna play a Shinedown song". And they played "Simple Man" And I was just like, you've got to be kidding me right now."
"When Sound and Madness came out, there was a lineup change in the band. We didn't play it for a year. We were in Boston, sold out show at the House of Blues. After the show, the tour manager came in and was like, "Brent, Sully from Godsmack's here". I just hear, "Yo, mother", you know what I mean? You could hear him, very Boston accent.
And he 's like, "Why didn't you play Simple Man?" And I go, "We're just taking a break from it right now. We want to focus on our music". And he goes, "No, no, no, no, you don't get it. It doesn't belong to you, it belongs to them. It is your responsibility to give the audience what they came for".
The next night, we put it back in the set, and it's not left the set since."
Adding new songs to the setlist:
"There's a lot of complexity to our set list, because you are dealing with a band that once again, has seven albums, 29 singles. Let's look at the newest record. I'm curious. We're not 1000% sure how we're gonna incorporate it. The first single off of Planet Zero was the title track, which is "Planet Zero" And then we had a grat track called "The Saints of Violence and Innuendo" which actually has been the song opener for us. So when you're looking at a set list, you have to remember, this is the newest piece of material that you have, and you're excited about it, and you want to express it, but you also can't lose sight of what your audience wants to be a part of. You may have walked into a Shinedown show, but our goal is to have you float out."
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Shinedown are currently out on the Planet Zero tour and have included four songs from that album in the setlist so far (though not on every date). The average setlist is 17 songs and they're playing nearly two hours every night. See more tour stats here.
The US tour dates extend through October and then the band heads overseas with dates scheduled through December. Get dates and details via their official site.
