Metal Anarchy

During a recent interview with Meltdown of Detroit’s WRIF, Shinedown drummer Barry Kerch offered an update on the band’s new album plans. The effort is tentatively expected to be released in spring 2025, but fans may get a taste of the new material this year.

Kerch said the following:

“We’re currently writing whatever the next record is gonna be. I’d say we’re roughly halfway through. I’ve recorded, I think, six [or] seven songs for it. I know there’s active writing going on right now. I think Brent [Smith, SHINEDOWN singer] actually might be up in Charleston [South Carolina] right now [at bassist/producer Eric Bass’s studio]. I can’t keep track of him. He’s always bouncing around from hotel room to hotel room. But we’re actively writing. I expect to, and the plan is to release some music this year, some new music this year, and then [full] record probably early spring of next year or springtime of next year and start touring March of next year. I mean, we’re not slowing down.

I think with the awesome success of [the] [‘A’] Symptom [Of Being Human]’ [single] and how broad that new audience got, it would be a shame to go away and not let them experience a live show. I personally think with SHINEDOWN, yes, I’m very proud of our records and I think our records are great, but you don’t really become a superfan until you see us live and get that whole vibe and really see it. ‘Cause Brent’s so good at interacting with the crowd and bringing them into the show, you go to the concert going, ‘I really wanna hear that ‘Symptom’ song. And then you go, ‘Oh, they’re that band. This is fun.’ And then they’re hooked.”

He continued when asked if he works on his drum parts to the band’s demo tracks:

“For me, a lot of times, Eric will send the demos over to me with just basic drum machine tracks, just placeholder tracks, and I’ll listen to it. Sometimes, depending on the song, I’ll make a small cliff-notes chart of, ‘Okay, verse, chorus, how many beats per fill here,’ that kind of thing, and write out my little Nashville chart. Sometimes I just wing it, and sometimes when we go in, we have the song, but we might wanna make a change or we accidentally stumble across something. So then we’ll take it piece by piece. ‘Okay, let’s get some really good verses. Let’s get the choruses, and then let’s work on this new section that we’re thinking about and just vibe back and forth on it till we make that transition,’ maybe a pre-chorus or something like that. So, it varies, but I’m usually sent some sort of a demo form of the song to listen to ’cause I like to come in prepared. Can I play it right then? Yeah. But I wanna be prepared so I’ve thought about the vibe of the song and drum tones and, ‘Hey, maybe this snare would sound good. Maybe these symbols would be the symbols I’d wanna bring and use. And this fill might be cool. This fill might be better.’ And then Eric and I fight over it for hours. And then we come up with what we come up with.”

He also added that Brent Smith is “pretty early on the game” when it comes to lyrics and melodies:

“The lyrics are usually 98 percent done, if not fully done. And sometimes in the demo, they’re completely done. Those vocals you hear on the final products were the demo vocals. He’s just kind of prolific that way. And he really wants to get the vibe out.

The way I’ve always played drums with SHINEDOWN is to the vocals more than anything. So I’m trying to really support what the vocals are and give lead-ins and lead-outs to whatever — I don’t wanna step on those vocals. And you can hear it when singers put their lyrics on after the music’s been written, that sometimes there can be this battle between drum fills and lyrics and maybe where it should have gone. And I think it steps on it sometimes. Sometimes it makes it cool. Like you listen to a band like TOOL. Most of the music is written, then it’s handed to Maynard [James Keenan], and then he writes his vocals over that. So that’s how they get that cool… It’s just different. And it’s, like, only Maynard would have thought to sing that because the music’s already there. We’re the polar opposite. I wanna support what vocals are already there.”

[via Blabbermouth]