Mad Season:

An Interview with

Shinedown's Barry Kerch

August 15, 2008

Shinedown has had a lot of success since bursting onto the national music scene in 2003 with their debut album Leave a Whisper and following it up with Us and Them two years later. Hit singles and sold-out concerts have been the norm. But all was not well in the band’s camp. Internal and personal struggles led to the departure of guitarist Jasin Todd and bassist Brad Stewart prior to the recording of album No. 3, The Sound of Madness. Now, with three new members on board, Shinedown is as strong as ever and plans to spend the next two and a half years on the road supporting their superb new record. Drummer Barry Kerch recently checked in with Live-Metal.net’s Greg Maki to discuss the state of the band, The Sound of Madness and more.

Live-Metal.net: First of all, I want to say congratulations on the new album. It sounds great and had a top 10 debut on Billboard. How did that feel?

Barry Kerch: Oh, it was the first time for us and it makes us really proud because we spent so much time on the record, the 18 months making it and everything, that we’re very proud of it.

Eighteen months, wow. I know the last album, Us and Them, you kinda had to do in a real short period of time. Did you enjoy having the freedom to just take your time on this one?

Definitely, definitely. I mean, last time, doing Us and Them, we had six months to turn and burn and get back out on the road. This time, the label, we went to them and they said, “We’d really like to do six months again.” And we said, “We can’t do it. We just can’t give you a record in that time that’s gonna be worth anything to us.” And we said, “You’re gonna have to give us more time.” And they said, “How much do you need?” And we said, “We don’t know.” And they said, “OK. Take what you need.” And to give us that opportunity really allowed us to write the songs that we have for this record and also give us time to get healthy and feel good and get the right recording done, get with the right producer and all that. So it’s definitely worth all the time we took.

And you also had the lineup changes during that time. What led to those? The new guys are people you’ve known for a while, right?

Yeah, the new guys are people we’ve known for a while. Unfortunately, Shinedown in its previous incarnation and the other two guys who were with us, it just wasn’t working out anymore and Shinedown was starting to decline for many, many different reasons. I don’t want to go into detail and throw either of them under the bus ‘cause I’m still friends with them on some level. But in Shinedown it just wasn’t working anymore. And in that, we turned to our friends to keep this thing going. The last thing that Brent and I were ever gonna do is let Shinedown die or go on stage as a dying band and embarrass ourselves and our fans by not doing the best that we can.

So we called up Nick Perri from Silvertide, who toured with us for about three years when he was in Silvertide, and said, “Hey, man, would you be willing to do it?” And he said, “Absolutely,” ‘cause at the time he had just finished up doing the Perry Farrell Satellite Party thing, and he was like, “Man, my schedule’s open. You guys are my bros, so of course.” So we brought him in. Zach [Myers] had been with us for about three years, on and off, filling in on bass when our old bass player was having a baby and he also played rhythm guitar a little bit on Us and Them tours. So that was an easy fit; he was already here. And then Eric Bass, the new bass player, is from Charleston, South Carolina, and he has a studio there where we did some of the demoing stuff for this latest record, Sound of Madness. We became really fast friends and he’s an extremely talented musician.

Now, having the lineup that we do, I think Shinedown live is stronger than it’s ever sounded. These guys are really talented and it’s that fun feeling again back in the day when we first started. Brent and I, we always keep saying that we haven’t smiled this much in four years, and it really holds true. We really haven’t, and now it’s a very enjoyable and healthy environment to be in.

When in the process of making this new album did the changes occur? How involved were the new guys in the writing and recording and all that?

The new guys weren’t into the writing and recording. The record was done basically by Brent and myself. Brent has always been the main songwriter for Shinedown, so it wasn’t a hard stretch for him to really take the reins anyway. He’s always written all the lyrics and the majority of the music, so he partnered up with a guy named Dave Bassett, who is a singer-songwriter out of L.A., and really just started collaborating with him and doing these songs. And, of course, he’d bring me into the fold to do drum stuff and also add my opinion of things. Before we knew it we had 40 or 50 songs to choose from, went into the studio, laid down our parts and then we had a couple session cats to do the guitars and bass for the record. It wasn’t until after that—‘cause at that same time we were trying to fix and help the issues that were going on with the old band members, with Jason especially; Brad had already left and moved on to another band by that time before we even got into the studio. So, really, we were trying to help our boy out, help our brother out and unfortunately the record process had to keep moving forward. So, yeah, that’s how it went down.

When you have so many songs like that, 40 or 50, is it hard to pick out the ones to actually record?

No, it really isn’t. They kind of just stick up and raise their hands. When you go through and demo them out and you get that final demo done, they really just start to show up. Then when you get down to, let’s say you’ve got 20 of ‘em that you think are really, really [good], then you look at ‘em and say, oh cool, we’ve got an album here. We’re not making here are the hit songs with a bunch of fluff around it; we really wanted to make an album that flows together in a 12, 13, 11 song range.

“Sound of Madness,” obviously, is one of the songs on the album, but aside from that, why did you choose that as the title for the album?

It fit everything going on in our lives at that point, making that record. I mean, really, madness can be anything. You wake up to that alarm clock and you want to throw it across the room, to your best friend calling you in the middle of the night needing help, he needs to be bailed out of jail—it’s all madness. Madness is us. It’s both good and bad. Sometimes it’s really good. Like right now, we’re riding a wave and we’re riding a high, and it’s great madness. But sometimes it’s a dark place, and I think the album really reflects that. That’s why that song title, that song itself became the title track for the record.

A lot of the material on the album sounds darker and heavier than the stuff you’ve done in the past. Is that a reflection of that same sort of thing?

Yeah, but there were some dark times. But, also, there are some lighter tunes on the record, as well. Like “If You Only Knew” is a love song, which we never thought we’d write, but Brent never really had a reason to write a love song. But now that he’s got a fiancée and a baby boy, he had a reason. So it comes from both ends of the spectrum.

Your producer on this one, Rob Cavallo [Green Day, Kid Rock], what was it like working with him?

He’s one bad mother. He’s just great. I learned so much from him in the, I guess it was four months we were actually sitting down recording the record. He’s just a genius. His track record proves that, but actually getting to meet the man—you look at him, he’s about 6 foot 2, 6 foot 3. He looks like he should be an accountant until he starts talking and you realize his musical mind is unbelievable, but at the same time his music business mind and business mind in general is unbelievable. And he really doesn’t go into a record going, “OK, I’m gonna make you guys sound like this.” He goes, “OK, you guys sound like this. How do we make it the best we can make it, from what you do?” And a lot of producers don’t do that. He’s not one to come in and try to “I’m gonna write these songs with you and take my 50 percent, and let you guys go.” He’s still involved with us now, even after making the record, just idea-wise and music business-wise and things like that. When he does something, he puts his whole heart and soul into it, and he’s doing it for the right reasons, and that’s to be a great producer. It’s what he’s good at, and it was an amazing experience to work with him.

Did you know him before you worked with him?

No. We met him then. In fact, we didn’t even know who he was until after the fact of meeting him the first time. We don’t really pay attention to who produced what; we just pay attention to music, really. The head of our label had gone to Miami and played a stack of records for him and said, “Hey, do any of these pique your interest? Would you wanna work with any of these bands?” It’s typical of what a label does. They do a stack of records to a producer and see if he’s into anything. He said, “Well, not really, but what was that one band you played?” And it happened to be us. He says, “I’d like to work with them.” So they had a meeting with Brent and the rest is history. It just worked.

You’re out on tour right now with Theory of a Deadman and one of my favorite new bands, Black Stone Cherry.

Love them boys.

Yeah. How’s it going out there?

It’s going great. I mean, two great bands. Both bands we’ve known for a long time. In fact, we found Black Stone Cherry and helped them get going, I don’t know, like five, six years ago. We were playing on a golf course and they were the local opening band on the golf course, and they were 16 at the time and blew our minds. So, yeah, the tour’s going great. Going great, we’re very excited about it. Really have no complaints.

You guys are known for touring and just touring and touring and touring. How long do you plan to be out on this album?

Uh, I would love to do two and a half, three years.

Wow.

I want to top our last record of two years, two months. So, yeah, I’d like to get to two and a half, and I think we’ll be able to do that this time. We’re also gonna hit the European markets, which we’ve never done before.

When you’re out there for so long, do you ever get tired or bored with playing some of the songs that you’ve been playing for a long time now, songs like “.45” and “Simple Man” and things like that?

No, I’m not tired of it at all. Every time you look out and see an audience singing it back to you, it reinvigorates you. I think it becomes comfortable to where you don’t have to think about playing the songs anymore as much as performing the songs because, face it, we’re in the entertainment business and there’s nothing worse than going and seeing your favorite band and they all stand there looking at each other, looking at their shoes, playing their instruments. We like to put on a show and jump around and have a good time, and I think the more and more you play it, it becomes muscle memory to where you’re able to actually do your show more instead of concentrating on the imperfections and/or perfections of the song. And, yeah, that’s the way we do it. And when it comes to “Simple Man,” we just don’t play that song anymore. It’s run its course. It did a lot for us. I’m very proud of that. It’s not our tune.

From the beginning, Shinedown has seemed to have a special relationship with the fans, even more than other bands. How has that sort of evolved over the years and what does that mean to you?

The fans mean everything to us as a band because they’re the ones that keep us going. Early on, we made a promise to ourselves to never forget that. So we make an effort to go out after shows by the buses and see everybody there and go sign autographs and listen to their stories or whatever it is, or maybe go hit the local bar afterwards and hang out. We’re not afraid to be around our fans. We love them. If it wasn’t for them, we don’t get to play shows and keep doing what we’re doing. And that hasn’t changed. I think, if anything, it’s evolved and now I’m trying to remember names a lot more because I meet so many now and it’s awesome, but now I can’t remember their names as much as I used to. Yeah, we’ll continue doing that as long as we are absolutely able to because the fans are what keep us going.