How do you spend the down time between the culmination of a nearly three-year tour behind the best-selling disc of your career and entering the studio to record the next? If you’re the Florida-based foursome Shinedown, you offer your fans “Anything and Everything,” apparently. The fan-friendly, acoustically driven mini-tour of same name is slated to stop at Noho’s Calvin on Saturday, Nov. 13—and your friendly neighborhood Crawler caught up with frontman Brent Smith to discuss its origins and logistics.
Here’s some of what went down.
Nightcrawler: So, Brent, one would assume you’d be thinking about resting after the mammoth Sound of Madness tour… but here you are, ready to hop right back out there on the road.
Brent Smith: Well, first of all, I can honestly say that I love making music. It makes me happy, and saved my life. So I never tire of it. But in this case, yes, we were looking to do something different. The big rock shows are great, but we’ve been longing to really tear the walls down and do something more intimate.
Thus the decision to go acoustic?
Exactly. But it doesn’t end there. We’re going to tell the stories behind songs, mix up the set list. Hell, I may ask even ask people to yell up what songs they want or pull people up to come sing with us.
So this doesn’t sound like a bunch of guys sitting on stools with acoustics while the drummer shakes a tambourine.
Hell, no! It’s acoustic, but this is a full-blown rock show with full drums, special guests.
Good! Because as far as I’m concerned, the sitting on a stool thing has really been done to death. That said, some of the best in the business when it comes to acoustic rock are Massachusetts’ very own Staind, and singer Aaron Lewis in particular.
I actually owe your boy Aaron a big thanks for this. We’ve toured with Staind, and they make great records… but live, they are just ridiculously good, and good-sounding. So when we were throwing around ideas for Anything and Everything, the concern was how our tunes, particularly the heavier ones, would come across acoustically. And we agreed, if there was one person who could ensure such quality, it was Staind’s front-of-house soundman Jeff Gilmer [formerly of Westfield’s Rock Shop studio]. Problem was, Jeff is currently in Iraq with Aaron entertaining the troops and wouldn’t be back until two days after our tour started. So I called Aaron myself and asked permission for Gilmer’s early release—and he granted it, making the whole thing possible.
He’s good like that. And, yes, if anyone can ensure the faithful transition from electric to acoustic, it is Gilmer. But, I can also say, you need solidly constructed songs to do that, too, which of course you have. One of my very first interviews was with Great White, who really opened the doors to the “unplugged” thing with their Zeppelin covers—then MTV ran with it. It was with Michael Lardie, and I remember him telling me that if a song works well acoustically, it’s usually a good signpost that it was well crafted.
I would agree with that, and most people are amazed to know that I wrote “Devour” on acoustic, but for us, it’s all about melody and lyrics first. And we do add bells and whistles later sometimes, but never to cover things up… that’s when you get into trouble, yes.
Advance tickets for Shinedown are sold out, but a limited of number tickets will be available at the door. Nashville’s rising roots rocker star, Will Hoge, gets the opening nod on this one.
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