Shinedown is an impeccable rock band that's based out of Jacksonville, Florida. Though the members come from many different locations. The band formed in 2001, and have released five studio albums over the years, selling over six million albums worldwide.
The band consists of Brent Smith, Barry Kerch, and Eric Bass. Brent, Zach and Barry have all been there since the beginning but they've also had Nick Perri, Jasin Todd and Brad Stewart over the years as well. Jasin and Brad however, left just after Us And Them was released. Nick Perri joined in 2008, and stayed through 2009 as a touring member. Zach Myers joined right around this time as well. Shinedown released their debut album, Leave A Whisper on May 27, 2003 and it features a couple of the most iconic Shinedown songs to date. Namely "45", and their cover of Lynrd Skynrd's "Simple Man." Some say that cover is really what got Shinedown known, and we could see why. If anyone has seen Shinedown live, and have heard them perform the song, they will understand why. There's something extremely spiritual about hearing them perform that cover live that we can't explain. They released a DVD that consisted of the majority of this album's track listing being performed live. The DVD was called Live From The Inside and included a documentary about the band and the recording of the album. They recorded the live footage at the final date of their Leave A Whisper tour back in the day. Leave a Whisper was certified gold in 2004, for having sold 500,000 copies and then went platinum in 2005 for selling a million copies. This platinum certification was recieved just after the release of their second album, Us And Them. Two of the three singles on this album were actually used by the WWE for their Pay Per View events Wrestlemania 22, and No Mercy 2005. Those singles were, "Save Me" and "I Dare You", which just so happen to be the first songs we here at Immortal Music had ever heard from Shinedown. That being said, we found them through YouTube, just before the release of their 3rd studio album, Sound Of Madness,was released. But we will get into that in a moment. Us And Them has a gold certification for selling 500,000 in the US, and 800,000 internationally. There's actually a couple different versions of this album, featuring a few acoustic tracks, and a couple different ones as well. A deluxe edition was released, which feautred a stripped down U2 cover, two live songs, three acoustics, a live stripped down version of "I Dare You", four demos and a remix. That version appeared to only be available through iTunes or Amazon. If you bought the album through Best Buy, you received "Carried Away" as a bonus track, or "Break" if you got it through Walmart. There's also an alternative version of "Shed Some Light" that can be found on the internet, though it was never properly released. This version festures Halestorm's Lzzy Hale, and can easily be found on YouTube. Fun fact, the album version of this song is actually one of guitarist, Zach Myers' favorite songs from the band's discography. They don't perform this song very often now, but they have in the past, and Zach has perfomed it on acoustic tours. We personally saw this in 2014, and recorded it. if anyone wishes to see that footage, please feel free to watch it right here. In promotion for this album is when Shinedown did their first over seas performance. They supported Alter Bridge at London Astonia on June 6, 2006. They also did tours opening up for Godsmack and Rob Zombie around North America over the summer. If you ask us, Shinedown has just gotten better and better with every album. Sound Of Madness was a turning point for them. At this point they already had a solid fanbase, and the release of "Second Chance" made some heads turn. The first single was actually "Devour", and that one did actually reach number one on the Active Rock chart here in the US, but the title track is one of the tracks most associated with this album. The album came out on June 24, 2008, and we actually remember when this album came out. You couldn't go anywhere without hearing Shinedown's name, or faintly hearing "Devour", "Second Chance", or "Sound Of Madness" somewhere. They were growing already, but this album is what made them become nearly a household name. The album was ceritifed as platinum in 2010, after surpassing a million copies sold. They actually had six different singles from this album, all very different from the next. Two of those singles have certifications of their own. "Second Chance" is multi-platinum and is about Brent's parents and the day he said goodbye to them. He was quoted saying, "This song was difficult for me to write the lyrics to because it's about my mother and my father, and about the day I said goodbye to them, because I had to go try, and I'm still trying, every day, to become a man. So, this song is about that. It's about the moment that you wake up and you decide you want to go for every single dream you ever want." Another really massive success on this album is "If You Only Knew", which is actually a beautiful ballad that's a letter to his at the time, unborn son. He went on to name his son Lyric Santana. This song was the fourth single from the album and is easily one of our favorite tracks on the album. This entire album is so filled with meaning and beauty, its no wonder it was a turning point in Shinedown's career. It made so much of an impact that it spent 120 consecutive weeks on the Billboard 200 charts and spurred several maasive tours. Including an acoustic tour, where they took requests even. The band, and Zach and Brent on their own still do acoustic tours similar to this to this day, and its one of the most pure things we've ever seen. Every band should do it like they have. They also started the Carnival Of Madness, which has not happened every year but almost has. The first year was 2010, and it was actually on the July 20 date in Estero, FL that they premiered their last single for this album, "Diamond Eyes." They had been asked to contribute a song to the soundtrack for The Expendables, and they were so excited to play it live for the first time in their home state. We were actually there the night they played it, and Brent made it a point to tell everyone that they were the first ones to be hearing it. Then in 2012, they released their fourth studio album, Amaryllis. The album was released on March 27, 2012, and has a Gold certification. It also charted number one on three different US charts, and did fairly well world wide. This album is thought to be a vision of what Shinedown is, and where they're going. "Amaryllis is the manifestation of that vision, the centerpiece of what Shinedown is. It reflects on everything we've done and where we're heading. It's a message of empowerment, perseverance, and inspiration that I think speaks to fans that have been with us since the beginning as well as those who are just learning about who we are and what we're about." -Brent Smith. The second track on this song is easily one of our favorite songs by them. "Unity" was named a single on May 15, 2012, along with its music video, which we highly recommend you watch. You see the band, but you also see a little girl taking pictures of people and then admiring her work. It just goes with the song very well, and is simply beautiful. Now we are to their latest release, Threat To Surivival. Fans had known for quite some time that the band was working on a new album, but we had no release date or anything for a while. Then they released "Cut The Cord" in late June 2015, which is extremely different from a lot of the band's other work. Obviously, that made everyone wonder what the new album would be like. It was finally announced on August 7, and released on September 18. It has now sold over 153,000 copies in the US alone, but has yet to receive a certification yet. While the entire album is awesome, and just like all of Shinedown's work, each track is very, very different from the next. Take the two singles so far, "Cut The Cord" and "State of My Head." "Cut The Cord" is extremely fast paced, and is basically saying enough is enough, while "State Of My Head" speaks of insanity and working your way through that. They go together well, but style wise they are very different. The band actually did commentary videos for the entire album, and the first one in particular really caught our attention. "Asking For It" is the first track on the album, and in it Zach says he's just glad the song isn't about him, which baffles Brent. He goes onto say he was interviewed by two girls and he was asked if a song was about him. He didn't know at the time of the interview, but did now know that no, that was not the case. We interviewed Zach back in April of 2014 and asked him that same question, and it did come from another girl. So, while we have no proof, we speculate that there's a chance he's talking about Immortal Music there. Which would be incredible, because they actually have done a lot for us. Obviously this is all about Shinedown, not us, so we will not get into it too much, but we really thank Shinedown for some of the growth of Immortal Music. After the interview we just mentioned, we wrote a recap blog of the night, which Shinedown shared two days later. Ever since we have gotten consistent views every single day on this website. That never happened before they did that for us, and while it was a minor thing to them, it meant the world to us. The fact that it came from a band we already greatly enjoyed just made it even better. We will continue to support Shinedown through all future endeavours. One of those things actually is the Fort Rock festival coming up on May 1. This will hopefully be our fourth time seeing them live and first time having a photo pass for their performance. Fingers crossed! Along with Fort Rock, they will also be performing at Welcome To Rockville, Northern Invasion, Rock On The Range, and Rock'n Derby. For further information, head on over to theShinedown website or the websites for each festival. So tell us -what do you think of Shinedown? And what are your favorite songs by them? Be sure to let us know in the comments below, or over on Facebook or Twitter! Clearly, we're a fan, and our favorite songs are below in absolutely no order at all. "Save Me", "I Dare You", "Unity", "Dangerous", "Asking For it", "If You Only Knew", "Second Chance", "Sin With A Grin", "Bully", "Breaking Inside", "Shed Some Light", "Some Day", and "Enemies." (All the pictures featured in this biography were taken by Ariel May at Germain Arena in Estero, FL on March 11, 2013)
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