 | Interview by Alex Stojanovic Godsmack is a band that needs no introduction. Ever since 1998, the band established themselves as one of the biggest and best mainstream heavy rock acts of the late 90s and 2000s, with worldwide records sales of 20 million, and a string of really strong records like the self-titled debut album, Awake, Faceless and The Oracle. Over the years, the band have toured and shared the stage with Metallica, Disturbed, Megadeth, Judas Priest, Motley Crue and Staind just to name a few. Most recently, Godsmack released their seventh studio album When Legends Rise to a lot of great response. At the same time, there were some hardcore fans that were skeptical about the band's shift to a more melodic sound, but the record contains some great tracks like "When Legends Rise", "Take It To The Edge", "Unforgettable" and my favourite track "Eye Of The Storm". You can see our review of the record here. We had the great pleasure of speaking to Godsmack drummer Shannon Larkin on the phone about the new record, the band's upcoming tour with Shinedown, whether the band plans on playing the first record in its entirety in celebration of its 20th anniversary, and a couple other things as well. You can read the entire interview below. |
Shannon: Hello?
Alex: Hi, is this Shannon Larkin?
Shannon: Hi, it is!
Alex: Hi, this is Alex from Metal Master Kingdom. Calling from Toronto, how are you doing?
Shannon: I'm doing good man, thanks! How are you?
Alex: Very good! Thank you so much for taking the time to chat with me for a few minutes.
Shannon: My pleasure!
Alex: The first thing I wanted to get into is I wanted to congratulate you on the new album When Legends Rise. It's been out for a few weeks now. The response has been great and it's a great record. Direction-wise, you went in a bit of a different direction on this one, with bringing a slightly more melodic sound, but still having that edge that Godsmack have been known for for all these years. Did you feel that changing the sound for this new record, it reinvigorated the band?
Shannon: Yeah. We put out records every four years. It's been that for the last 15 or 16 years. It just worked out that way because we'll write a record and record it in about a year. We're blessed to have that kind of time. Then we'll go on tour for a year and a half to two years, and then we'll take a year off usually. The reason I mention that is because the thing we're most proud about at this point in our career is 20 years of the band. It's hard enough just to get signed in this business, let alone to have a career of 20 years. I attribute that to that year we take apart from each other. We all like to go do other things. Sully does solo work, Tony and I have the Apocalypse Blues Revue, a blues band we do on the side. That takes us away from Godsmack for a year, and it makes us appreciate the band so much more when we get back together. Furthermore, Sully is the vision behind this band, he started the band, he hand-picked all of us, and each time we make a record, he always has a different plan of a sound for us. On the IV record, he wanted to do a more bluesy album, and the one before that {Faceless} was a more metallic album, and we used different producers. He doesn't like to make the same record over and over again. He came to us this time with the idea of being more melodic and trying to mature our sound as we've all turned 50. He used outside writers for the first time with the band, which he's been talking about for years. Obviously we have no problems writing songs as a band, but it is a different direction for us. When he came to us with that, at first we were like "Wow, okay." He then brought us a batch of songs that he had written with other people, that we all sat down and listened to together, and we were like "Okay, this is really great." He brought a bunch of great songs to the table. That's kind of where we have this newer sound, more modern sound.
Alex: Cool. How many songs did Sully bring in to the table at the end?
Shannon: I think there were six songs he had written with other people that were pretty much done, that he brought to us. After we all listened and liked what he had, then we just went to work together and started writing as many songs as we could. We usually come up with 15-20 songs for every record. We can obviously only pick so many for the final release, but it was all smooth, man. We're in such a good place as people. We've had our drama, it's like a marriage. After 20 years, there's been so many ups and downs, it's like a roller coaster ride. We're on an upswing right now, everyone's getting along better than we ever have in our whole career.
Alex: That's awesome to hear. You'll be starting off this album cycle with a U.S. tour with Shinedown, which begins in July. Talk about how this tour came together. Did you and Shinedown do shows in the past?
Shannon: Well, a lot of it is scheduling. When we're going to put a new record out, we always look at who else is coming out, who do we like, who's going to be competition at radio, and stuff like that. It's a business like that. We saw that Shinedown was real close to us, their record probably came out only a week after us. We took those guys out on their very first record, which was like 12-13 years ago. We kind of watched them rise over the last decade and watched them become this band nobody even knew opening for us on tour, and then all this time later, they're co-headliners with us. We feel like their older brothers. We're so proud of them, and they're extremely cool dudes, as well as a great band. Obviously when we saw that they were coming out near us, Sully, who is friends with Brent {Smith}, called him up and said: "Hey man, what would you think about doing a co-headliner, and we can share production?", which means we can bring out all the bells and whistles, like video, pyro and moving stages. That stuff is really expensive, and if you get somebody who's a co-headliner that you can share all the production and make a great big show happen for the fans, they're getting their money's worth for the ticket price. This tour, we're really excited about it. The fans are getting two headlining shows for the price of one. It's going to be really great.
Alex: Absolutely. Two great bands for the price of one is always amazing for any fan. This year is also the 20th anniversary of the first record, even though you weren't in the band when it first came out. Are there plans to do a special tour maybe next year where you will play the album in its entirety?
Shannon: We've talked about it. It was an idea for sure. Like I said, 20 years is a big one. What happened is that when the 20 year mark hit, we talked about doing the tour where we do the whole first record as well, we got so excited about the new record. We were like "How are we going to do the first record and sneak in the new songs at the end?" It ended up being a nightmare, logistically. We were wasting too much energy on trying to do that. We kind of put the emphasis on the new record. Obviously a lot of our early fans want to see that. What we decided is that we're going to tour the hell out of this record, and next year at the end of the cycle for When Legends Rise, we hope to get back out there and do a final tour at the end of 2019, and by that point, the Awake record will have its 20th anniversary. Our thought is to pick all the best songs off the first two records, and do a tour and just play the best of the Godsmack and Awake records and celebrate the 20-year thing like that.
Alex: That definitely sounds like a good plan. One of the things you've done in the past that I wanted to ask you about, is that you played on Glenn Tipton's solo album Baptizm Of Fire on a few tracks. How was that experience for you and have you stayed in touch with Glenn over the years?
Shannon: Yeah, I played on four tracks on that record. That was an amazing thing because the first band I ever saw in concert when I was like 12, was Judas Priest and they had Iron Maiden opening for them. It was my proper show, like arena show. It obviously changed my life and Judas Priest is such a huge influence. All those years later, I was in a band called Ugly Kid Joe out in California. The singer, Whitfield Crane met Glenn Tipton and became friendly with him, and that's how that happened. He called and said "Hey, I'm coming to L.A., I'm doing a solo record. How's your drummer?", and Whitfield was like "Oh my god, he loves you, he's rad." It was as simple as that. I then met Glenn, and he sent me four songs from that record with just guitars, vocals and click tracks, and said "Write your drums." There was no direction there, he just let me write the drums for the four songs. I remember being so nervous at first, then meeting him, he was such a down-to-earth cool dude. We went right to the bar, had a couple of beers, and he discussed what he expected, then headed to the studio, it was a one day thing. As I was leaving, I met Stephen Perkins from Jane's Addiction for the first time, who was coming in to do some tracks. It was a dream to me. All of a sudden it was done, and I didn't see Glenn again for 10 years after I did that record. He was in Australia with Godsmack. I walked up to Glenn and I said "Hey Glenn, I'm Shannon, I played on your record." and I saw the recognition in his face. It was such a moment in my life to have this legend that I looked up to for so long know who I was or even remember my name. It was the coolest thing.
Alex: That sounds amazing. We also wish our best to Glenn with what he's going through right now.
Shannon: Yeah, it's so sad. We get older and we watch these things happen to so many greats. I'm not even talking about the suicides and these kinds of things. It's just getting older. It's one of the facts of life we have to deal with. We start to lose our family, parents, we've all started to go through these things as we get older. It's harsh, but we got their legacy, like Judas Priest, Glenn's going to move on, but his music's going to stay forever.
Alex: Yeah. Just one last question, then I'll let you go. Speaking for all the fans up here in Toronto, it's been quite a while since you guys played here. Can we expect to see you guys back up here in 2019?
Shannon: Oh yes, we love playing Canada, it's odd that we don't play there more because we're so close, being sister countries. We're coming up to play the Montebello Rockfest. We're super excited, we played that one about eight years ago. It was a huge festival and the crowd was so awesome and we had such a great time. We got that coming up on the schedule. We will definitely come up and tour in Canada sometime next year. I know the schedule with Shinedown right now is going to go until about October, then we have a European run after that. Then we'll probably take November and December off, because January, we're going to start ripping right back out there and do Australia. We hope to hit South America, so I think Canada might be around April, but don't quote me on that (laughs).
Alex: Awesome! Well Shannon, thank you so much for chatting with me for a bit. On behalf of all the fans up here, we love the new record and we hope to see you guys up here soon. Have a great year!
Shannon: Awesome man! Thank you for taking the time to interview me. I'll talk to you soon.
Alex: No problem. See you soon!
Shannon: Take care!
Alex: Bye!
Alex: Hi, is this Shannon Larkin?
Shannon: Hi, it is!
Alex: Hi, this is Alex from Metal Master Kingdom. Calling from Toronto, how are you doing?
Shannon: I'm doing good man, thanks! How are you?
Alex: Very good! Thank you so much for taking the time to chat with me for a few minutes.
Shannon: My pleasure!
Alex: The first thing I wanted to get into is I wanted to congratulate you on the new album When Legends Rise. It's been out for a few weeks now. The response has been great and it's a great record. Direction-wise, you went in a bit of a different direction on this one, with bringing a slightly more melodic sound, but still having that edge that Godsmack have been known for for all these years. Did you feel that changing the sound for this new record, it reinvigorated the band?
Shannon: Yeah. We put out records every four years. It's been that for the last 15 or 16 years. It just worked out that way because we'll write a record and record it in about a year. We're blessed to have that kind of time. Then we'll go on tour for a year and a half to two years, and then we'll take a year off usually. The reason I mention that is because the thing we're most proud about at this point in our career is 20 years of the band. It's hard enough just to get signed in this business, let alone to have a career of 20 years. I attribute that to that year we take apart from each other. We all like to go do other things. Sully does solo work, Tony and I have the Apocalypse Blues Revue, a blues band we do on the side. That takes us away from Godsmack for a year, and it makes us appreciate the band so much more when we get back together. Furthermore, Sully is the vision behind this band, he started the band, he hand-picked all of us, and each time we make a record, he always has a different plan of a sound for us. On the IV record, he wanted to do a more bluesy album, and the one before that {Faceless} was a more metallic album, and we used different producers. He doesn't like to make the same record over and over again. He came to us this time with the idea of being more melodic and trying to mature our sound as we've all turned 50. He used outside writers for the first time with the band, which he's been talking about for years. Obviously we have no problems writing songs as a band, but it is a different direction for us. When he came to us with that, at first we were like "Wow, okay." He then brought us a batch of songs that he had written with other people, that we all sat down and listened to together, and we were like "Okay, this is really great." He brought a bunch of great songs to the table. That's kind of where we have this newer sound, more modern sound.
Alex: Cool. How many songs did Sully bring in to the table at the end?
Shannon: I think there were six songs he had written with other people that were pretty much done, that he brought to us. After we all listened and liked what he had, then we just went to work together and started writing as many songs as we could. We usually come up with 15-20 songs for every record. We can obviously only pick so many for the final release, but it was all smooth, man. We're in such a good place as people. We've had our drama, it's like a marriage. After 20 years, there's been so many ups and downs, it's like a roller coaster ride. We're on an upswing right now, everyone's getting along better than we ever have in our whole career.
Alex: That's awesome to hear. You'll be starting off this album cycle with a U.S. tour with Shinedown, which begins in July. Talk about how this tour came together. Did you and Shinedown do shows in the past?
Shannon: Well, a lot of it is scheduling. When we're going to put a new record out, we always look at who else is coming out, who do we like, who's going to be competition at radio, and stuff like that. It's a business like that. We saw that Shinedown was real close to us, their record probably came out only a week after us. We took those guys out on their very first record, which was like 12-13 years ago. We kind of watched them rise over the last decade and watched them become this band nobody even knew opening for us on tour, and then all this time later, they're co-headliners with us. We feel like their older brothers. We're so proud of them, and they're extremely cool dudes, as well as a great band. Obviously when we saw that they were coming out near us, Sully, who is friends with Brent {Smith}, called him up and said: "Hey man, what would you think about doing a co-headliner, and we can share production?", which means we can bring out all the bells and whistles, like video, pyro and moving stages. That stuff is really expensive, and if you get somebody who's a co-headliner that you can share all the production and make a great big show happen for the fans, they're getting their money's worth for the ticket price. This tour, we're really excited about it. The fans are getting two headlining shows for the price of one. It's going to be really great.
Alex: Absolutely. Two great bands for the price of one is always amazing for any fan. This year is also the 20th anniversary of the first record, even though you weren't in the band when it first came out. Are there plans to do a special tour maybe next year where you will play the album in its entirety?
Shannon: We've talked about it. It was an idea for sure. Like I said, 20 years is a big one. What happened is that when the 20 year mark hit, we talked about doing the tour where we do the whole first record as well, we got so excited about the new record. We were like "How are we going to do the first record and sneak in the new songs at the end?" It ended up being a nightmare, logistically. We were wasting too much energy on trying to do that. We kind of put the emphasis on the new record. Obviously a lot of our early fans want to see that. What we decided is that we're going to tour the hell out of this record, and next year at the end of the cycle for When Legends Rise, we hope to get back out there and do a final tour at the end of 2019, and by that point, the Awake record will have its 20th anniversary. Our thought is to pick all the best songs off the first two records, and do a tour and just play the best of the Godsmack and Awake records and celebrate the 20-year thing like that.
Alex: That definitely sounds like a good plan. One of the things you've done in the past that I wanted to ask you about, is that you played on Glenn Tipton's solo album Baptizm Of Fire on a few tracks. How was that experience for you and have you stayed in touch with Glenn over the years?
Shannon: Yeah, I played on four tracks on that record. That was an amazing thing because the first band I ever saw in concert when I was like 12, was Judas Priest and they had Iron Maiden opening for them. It was my proper show, like arena show. It obviously changed my life and Judas Priest is such a huge influence. All those years later, I was in a band called Ugly Kid Joe out in California. The singer, Whitfield Crane met Glenn Tipton and became friendly with him, and that's how that happened. He called and said "Hey, I'm coming to L.A., I'm doing a solo record. How's your drummer?", and Whitfield was like "Oh my god, he loves you, he's rad." It was as simple as that. I then met Glenn, and he sent me four songs from that record with just guitars, vocals and click tracks, and said "Write your drums." There was no direction there, he just let me write the drums for the four songs. I remember being so nervous at first, then meeting him, he was such a down-to-earth cool dude. We went right to the bar, had a couple of beers, and he discussed what he expected, then headed to the studio, it was a one day thing. As I was leaving, I met Stephen Perkins from Jane's Addiction for the first time, who was coming in to do some tracks. It was a dream to me. All of a sudden it was done, and I didn't see Glenn again for 10 years after I did that record. He was in Australia with Godsmack. I walked up to Glenn and I said "Hey Glenn, I'm Shannon, I played on your record." and I saw the recognition in his face. It was such a moment in my life to have this legend that I looked up to for so long know who I was or even remember my name. It was the coolest thing.
Alex: That sounds amazing. We also wish our best to Glenn with what he's going through right now.
Shannon: Yeah, it's so sad. We get older and we watch these things happen to so many greats. I'm not even talking about the suicides and these kinds of things. It's just getting older. It's one of the facts of life we have to deal with. We start to lose our family, parents, we've all started to go through these things as we get older. It's harsh, but we got their legacy, like Judas Priest, Glenn's going to move on, but his music's going to stay forever.
Alex: Yeah. Just one last question, then I'll let you go. Speaking for all the fans up here in Toronto, it's been quite a while since you guys played here. Can we expect to see you guys back up here in 2019?
Shannon: Oh yes, we love playing Canada, it's odd that we don't play there more because we're so close, being sister countries. We're coming up to play the Montebello Rockfest. We're super excited, we played that one about eight years ago. It was a huge festival and the crowd was so awesome and we had such a great time. We got that coming up on the schedule. We will definitely come up and tour in Canada sometime next year. I know the schedule with Shinedown right now is going to go until about October, then we have a European run after that. Then we'll probably take November and December off, because January, we're going to start ripping right back out there and do Australia. We hope to hit South America, so I think Canada might be around April, but don't quote me on that (laughs).
Alex: Awesome! Well Shannon, thank you so much for chatting with me for a bit. On behalf of all the fans up here, we love the new record and we hope to see you guys up here soon. Have a great year!
Shannon: Awesome man! Thank you for taking the time to interview me. I'll talk to you soon.
Alex: No problem. See you soon!
Shannon: Take care!
Alex: Bye!
Thank you so much to Shannon for taking the time to chat with us. It was a great pleasure. Godsmack's new album When Legends Rise is available now, which you can purchase online or at your local music store. The band's upcoming U.S. co-headline tour with Shinedown begins on July 22nd in Clarkston, Michigan, and the tour will continue through September 2nd in Wantagh, New York. Tickets are available now. The band will then tour Europe to round out the year. Look for dates and tickets in your area.
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