SHINEDOWN Can’t Work On New Music Remotely: ‘We Have To Be Together,’ Says BRENT SMITH

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SHINEDOWN singer Brent Smith spoke to the "Talk Is Jericho" podcast about the progress of the songwriting sessions for the band's follow-up to 2018's "Attention Attention" album. Asked if he and the other members of SHINEDOWN are working on music remotely, Smith said: "[We're] definitely not doing the Zoom thing. At the moment, Zach [Myers, guitarist] will kind of send some stuff periodically. On the last record, it started with me and Eric [Bass, bassist and producer] — we'd kind of get in there and start kind of figuring some things out, seeing what the sounds are, and then we'd start bringing people in. But this time around, obviously, Zach's gonna be coming in sooner than later. Barry [Kerch, drums], he kind of comes in in the back half. I know for the very first time we're gonna bring our kind of the fifth member of the band in the studio; [Grammy-nominated songwriter and producer] Dave Bassett's gonna come to Charleston [South Carolina, where Eric has a studio] for a couple of weeks here in the next month or so. We're kind of figuring that out right now. "We have to be together," Brent explained. "We've still gotta get in the same room with one another. And it's a collective… There's not an agenda. It's just, 'Let's get in here when it's time to go,' and right now it's time to go." Last week, SHINEDOWN broke the record for the most No. 1s ever in the 39-year history of the Billboard Mainstream Rock Songs chart, scoring its 16th No. 1 hit with "Atlas Falls". This also marked the band's 17th No. 1 on the Mediabase Active Rock chart and its sixth consecutive No. 1, following "How Did You Love", "Devil", "Get Up", "Monsters" and "Attention Attention". Originally written in 2013, "Atlas Falls" was first made available from SHINEDOWN's vault in March as part of an exclusive song and T-shirt bundle for the band's COVID-19 fundraising effort. SHINEDOWN also recently released its "Live In London" full concert video on YouTube. This past Friday (August 21), SMITH & MYERS — the musical duo comprised of Smith and Myers — released dual singles, an original song "Not Mad Enough" and a re-imagining of "Rockin' In The Free World", followed by an album in October on Atlantic Records.