SHINEDOWN Will 'Definitely' Release More New Music 'Before The End Of The Year'

In a new interview with Anne Erickson of Audio Ink Radio, SHINEDOWN bassist and producer Eric Bass spoke about the progress of the songwriting and recording sessions for the band’s follow-up to 2022’s “Planet Zero” album. “Two tracks are out now,” he said, referencing the band’s recently released two singles, “Three Six Five” and “Dance, Kid, Dance”. “So, we will probably release — we’re definitely gonna release more music before the end of the year.”

He continued: “Look, we’re assessing where we’re at with the [next] SHINEDOWN record. When it’s time, it’s time. That’s what we always say. And we wanna make sure that we have our best material for a record rather than just getting something done to hurry up and get it done. I know we’ve mentioned July, we’ve mentioned August, we’ve mentioned these kind of arbitrary months for a SHINEDOWN record to drop, but I don’t have a definite date right now. But here’s the thing: when it’s done and it’s out, it will be our best work, and that’s what’s important to us. But we are actively working on it. I was mixing yesterday. I’ll be mixing some more today. So, we are definitely working on it right now.”

Bass also discussed his duties as SHINEDOWN‘s producer, having previously helmed “Planet Zero” and 2018’s “Attention Attention” album. Speaking specifically about the mixing process, he said: “Yeah, it’s maddening, man. It’ll make you feel like a fraud sometimes, ’cause you think you have it dialed in, and then you realize you don’t have it as dialed in as you think you do. And it’s a lot of work, man. A lot more goes into making a song than people think it. It’s why if I hear something I don’t like, I don’t say that it sucks — I’ll just say it’s not for me — because there’s a lot of work that goes into something that you think sucks that other people don’t. And mixing is one of those things that’s very time consuming and takes an awful lot of brain power and heart power to do. But I enjoy it at the end of the day. Sometimes, like I said, it is maddening, and sometimes it causes you to question yourself. But, man, when you land on something great, it’s a lot of fun.”

“Three Six Five” and “Dance, Kid, Dance” were made available on January 24 via Atlantic Records.

Bass and SHINEDOWN singer Brent Smith co-wrote “Three Six Five”, and “Dance, Kid, Dance” was co-written by Smith, Bass and Dave Bassett. The songs were produced by Bass at his own Big Animal Studio in Charleston, South Carolina.

In February, “Dance, Kid, Dance” reached the No. 1 slot at Active Rock radio. The song was SHINEDOWN‘s 20th No. 1 on the Billboard Mainstream Rock chart and their 22nd song to reach No. 1 on Mediabase‘s Active Rock chart. When the song entered the Top 5 on the Billboard Mainstream Rock chart, SHINEDOWN tied with the FOO FIGHTERS for the artist with the most top ten songs in the chart’s history at 32 total songs.

Recently, SHINEDOWN announced it has added the historic Kia Forum in Los Angeles to the band’s already massive headline tour. The “Dance, Kid, Dance” tour kicks off on April 25, and the 36-date run is one of the largest run of shows (and venues) the band has ever put on. It will be the first time the band has ever headlined some of the country’s most legendary venues, including Madison Square Garden (July 20),Bridgestone Arena (May 10),Boston’s TD Garden (July 19) and more. Joining them on the tour are BEARTOOTH and BUSH (on select dates) and Morgan Wade for all shows.

Regarding the lyrical inspiration for “Three Six Five”, Smith told the Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada rock radio station 104.9 The Wolf: “‘Three Six Five’ kind of has two different heartbeats in a lot of ways. I think the point of what ‘Three Six Five’ is representing is that time is precious, but it’s not promised. And last year, in our band, on a personal level, we lost some family members last year that it was unexpected and it was deeply emotional for all of us. And that song was really born out of the sense of loss that we had during that time. I mean, I’ll be very honest with you about it — Eric, our bass player, and also the producer, engineer and the mixer of the last two SHINEDOWN records, the producer, engineer and the mixer of the current one that’s getting ready to be released, he lost his dad suddenly last year, and then he lost his father and he lost his aunt a couple of months later after that. His wife Kelly, she lost her sister. I lost my granny last year, towards the back half of the year. But in a lot of ways, I think that ‘Three Six Five’ was born from… You grow up with that impression that when a family member, especially a grandmother or a mother or a father, the patriarchs, if you will, when they pass away that they’re gone, and that’s not the case. They may be physically gone, but everything that they taught you and everything that they gave you and the time that they spent with you and how you pay it forward and who you are as an individual, you carry them with you. So they’re never really gone; they’re everywhere. But it is a song about that reflection of just saying, ‘Man, I wish I had one more day with this person or even if I just had one more hour just to tell them what they meant to you and how much they mean to you. But you know what? You’ll see ’em again. But while you’re here, that song is such a deep meaning. And it doesn’t even have to be somebody that you’ve necessarily lost. It could be somebody that you kind of fall out of touch with and what have you, but what they taught you, you keep that in your spirit every single day. And the other side about the dynamic of time is precious and it’s not promised is it’s a roll of the dice. And if you’ve been second-guessing what you want for your life or who you are or what you think you can and will be and what you can accomplish, don’t have the mindset that you’re not capable of going after what you really want for your life. Whatever your dreams may be, and don’t focus so much on the plan B. Whatever your A plan is, go after that. It can change at any given moment. And that’s the point in the song where it says a lot can happen in a year. So, quit wasting time and go after it.”

As for “Dance, Kid, Dance”, Brent said: “‘Dance, Kid, Dance’, man, we literally just wanted to write a song that you could dance to. It’s a little bit more in depth from that. But it’s a social commentary song about all of the things that are going on. It’s a song sung from a lot of different points of views. But at the end of the day, it’s met with this over… We wanted it to just be unabashed, we wanted it to be something that had an attitude, but just made you wanna move. So, that’s why we chose to do the drops after the pre-chorus and then the chorus and then the solo section and all those different aspects of it. It was a four on the floor. We wanted it to be punk rock, but, again, we wanted it to have an attitude. It got the seal of approval from my son early on, which is always a good thing, ’cause he’s 17 years old and he’ll let me know if something’s corny. So, once he gave us the approval, we were, like, ‘All right, let’s go.'”

This past January, Brent addressed the fact that “Three Six Five” and “Dance, Kid, Dance” are musically completely different from each other, telling Audacy Check In: “I think it definitely had a bit more tempo than maybe the last song that people were familiar with on maybe the more mainstream-leaning, pop-leaning-type songs. So we kind of bumped up the BPMs a little bit on that. And ‘Dance, Kid, Dance’, we just went to the wall with that.”

He continued: “It’s interesting. I had a friend of mine the other day say to me, ‘Are you a rock band? Are you a metal band? Are you an alternative band? Are you a pop [band]? What are you?’ And I’m, like, ‘We’re just SHINEDOWN.’ We play in a big sandbox.

“We’ve always been a genre-bending band because we’re inspired by a lot of different styles and we’re constantly evolving,” Brent said. “So we felt like the right move, with the first new material that people would hear from us, that we gave them kind of two sides of us.”

Elaborating on SHINEDOWN‘s need to explore a variety of different styles on each album, Brent said: “I think along the way, people started to get pigeonholed or they started using boxes or ‘stay in your lane’ or ‘you’re only this genre’.

“When you expand your palette sonically or what have you, you’re just trying to reach as much of the audience as you can. Some days you feel like you wanna throw down and rock, some days you’re a little bit more emotional. But that’s the beauty of music, man. It constantly evolves. And the only thing that we’ve ever done in this band is anybody from anywhere at any time, we wanted them to be able to know that SHINEDOWN has a lot of peaks and valleys, kind of like a rollercoaster ride. But there’s something for everyone.”

Photo credit: Ebru Yildiz