Brent Smith and Barry Kerch of Shinedown Video Interview

Prior to taking the stage at Montreal's Club Soda, Brent Smith and Barry Kerch, two of the founding members of Shinedown, took the time to chat with us. Out on tour in support of their recent release, Amaryllis, we spoke about their writing process, their upcoming video for their single, Enemies, and what the future holds for the band.

The full interview can be found below along with some of the highlights from our chat. Also, don't forget to check out our review and photos from the show.

About a week ago, you filmed the music video for Enemies. what can you tell Us about it?

Barry - It was fun. It's going to be a great video, I don't want to give anything away.

Brent - It's a concept that has been used before, but not the way that we presented it. Actually, it's more of a concept that has been toyed around with videos; what we did is we kind of took it to the edge. So that's the best way of putting it.

Barry - It's actually getting released in the UK first; I don't even know when it's going to make it to this side of the pond. It was probably the most fun that we've had making a video - at least for me, personally. I had a blast making the video because it's not a performance video, it's not us behind our instruments.

Brent - No instruments involved, it's just us four.

Barry - It's just us four, and it's the first time we had to "act" in a way.

Brent - That's the thing, we weren't acting.

Barry - It's our true nature in that video - it's pretty intense.

Brent - Yeah, and it's also extremely funny at the best possible time. It has a satire to it that is quite comical. It's a good balance.

What advice would you pass on to younger bands that you received when you were just starting out?

Barry - I think one of the major things is humility and staying humble in the art, and trying to be a good person at all times because people rise, baseball bats come out on the way down, treat everyone with respect, even the local opening band. When we first started, one of our major tours, the two major tours that we started with were Powerman 5000 and 3 Doors Down, and that was 3 Doors Down in their heyday. We were green at touring and made every single stupid mistake an opening band could make, like going to catering and eating all the food before the headlining band gets there - every mistake. And instead of getting mad at us and kicking us off the tour, you know, they might get a little perturbed, but they taught us a lesson and said, "Hey, you can't act like that, you gotta do this." And so we try to pass that along to the other opening bands and say, "Hey man, don't do that, or great job" and give them the opportunity to put on the best show that they can possible put on because we want everybody to succeed, you know, from the opening band to the headlining band; we want the kids to have a great show. That's the most important thing.

Brent - The other thing too is that you have to understand, not everybody is going to have a great day, but like he said it really really great, he made a very good comment - great comment, your humility is very important. You don't want to be desensitized to peoples feelings. You wanna always try to get up on the right side of the bed, but one thing for the band that's just starting out: what we tried to do, is we always tried to watch all the bands. Like I made it a point to myself, I always, going back 10 years ago, I always watched the headliner like every night, or the main support if I was the opener. I continued to watch every night and see what does the headliner do when they're there. We've had the privilege of actually opening for a lot of fantastic artists over the years and being main support for those artists and becoming the headliner ourselves. Always remember something though, you can always become the opening act again, or, even a worse case scenario, you could not be booked for the shows. Always keep that in mind. Be respectful of everybody. If you're having a rough day, remove yourself from the situation and don't say anything because at the end of the day, my mother always taught me, if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all. In certain situations, that kind of advice can go a long way.

Barry - And nothing good happens after midnight.

Brent - And nothing good happens after midnight. And we're not being facetious, it's true. Nothing good happens after midnight. Go to bed!

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