It’s a Friday morning in Los Angeles, and Shinedown’s Brent Smith has just dropped his phone in a flower pot. “I’m sorry I’m late,” he says in his gentle Knoxville twang as he hops onto our Zoom call, a mere 60 seconds tardy. “I’ve been looking for my phone outside my hotel for the last ten minutes and ended up finding it in a flower pot.” Amused by this apparent kindred spirit in misplacing essentials, I tell Smith I lost my car keys the other day, only to find them, of all places, sitting in my car.
“How are you, and where are you at currently?” Smith asks before I do. He sports a black zippered hoodie and a lively glint in his gaze, comfortably garbed for a gym session or a stroll beneath LA’s palms. Of course, leisure time probably feels illusory for the frontman of one of modern rock’s biggest bands, especially ahead of a prodigious tour and the release of Shinedown‘s eighth studio album, EI8HT (2026).
Despite his many obligations, Smith remains, as ever, exuberant. “There were no restrictions on subject matter or what we were going to do on this album,” he shares. “If the songs came to us that day when we were writing, we would focus on them or look at what we needed to do next sonically, but I think more than anything, when I listen to the album, sequence is really important.” Equally important was EI8HT‘s identity as a traditional record—Shinedown’s previous efforts, Attention Attention (2018) and Planet Zero (2022), honed in on mental health and identity issues as well as censorship and mid-pandemic political strife.
“I think everyone thought there’d be ten songs, maybe 12, on EI8HT, so when they saw that it has 18 songs, they were surprised. It’s essentially a double album; it asked to be a double album.”
Describing EI8HT‘s rousing retrospective number “Young Again”, Smith says, “There are songs on this record that are heavily about nostalgia. There’s also a very unique song called “Dizzy” that’s really just about your ride-or-die. I wanted to create this kind of anthemic song.”
“Anthemic” may as well be woven into Shinedown’s sonic DNA after 25 years of number one rock singles and sold-out shows. EI8HT, in particular, seems crafted for moshpit catharsis.
In the trudging but hope-tinged “Impostor”, Shinedown grapples with a favorite topic: emotional well-being. “There’s always been a level of me being very approachable,” says Smith. “Over the years, when you have young people talk to you about how your music saved their life, or that they never really felt understood until they found your band, it allows them to realize that they’re not alone in the way that they feel. ‘Impostor’ is a lot about looking at that person in the mirror sometimes and feeling like you’re not yourself. How do you get back to yourself and not give up on yourself? I’ve never been shy lyrically with things and how I present them.”
Indeed, “shy” and “Brent Smith” together might be oxymoronic. There’s an earnest ease to his songwriting and his movement through the world, a kind of ambiverted aplomb honed over decades of unflinching self-honesty.
In classic Shinedown fashion, EI8HT also traces resilience in the face of existential threats, but with a historical twist. On one of the band’s most interesting and personally revealing pieces, “Machine Gun”, Smith shifts his gaze backwards 80-odd years to World War II.
“[Producer/bassist] Eric Bass and I both had grandfathers who were overseas in the war. They were trying to get back to the love of their lives, their wives. I remember my dad talking to me about my grandfather and that whole experience, because my grandfather’s battalion was wounded. There were five other guys with him, and he wasn’t able to get everybody back to base, but he was able to get most of them back. He told my dad that he prayed, ‘Listen, if You get me out of this position I’m in right now, I will be a good man. I will take care of my family. I will try to put as much out into the world as I can that’s good and positive, and give as much love as I can. I just want to get back to the person I love.’ Eric had a similar story with his grandfather.”
Shinedown’s reverence for the human experience expands beyond storytelling on EI8HT into its songcraft. Smith shares, “There’s another statement in this record that’s really important for people to understand. There’s actually a symbol and a stamp on it that says, ‘100% human,’ with a statement inside that clarifies, ‘No AI was used in the making of this record.’ We use software and plug-ins, but everything is man or woman-made. The instinct is coming from a person with a heartbeat.”
Shinedown’s AI-aversion isn’t something some of their contemporaries share. For many listeners, EI8HT‘s forthright flesh-and-blood approach comes as a relief and a refreshment in an era of artificiality. Also refreshing is Brent Smith’s perspective on the sinister side effects of a culture engineered for cynicism and outrage, a topic he embraces personally and professionally.
“Listen… we don’t have to sugarcoat anything, you know? We’re in a world right now where social media isn’t getting healthier for people.” A gravity fills Smith’s gaze, his words gathering weight. “I just don’t think that human beings are meant to take on every single problem that’s going on in the world every single minute of the day.”
He continues, “I know there’s people who want to help everyone, be a part of change, and are all about the ‘Down with the man!’ mentality, you know? It’s like, well, okay, but who’s ‘the man,’ first of all? Who are you mad at? Why are you mad? Are you mad because a group of people are mad or because you see an injustice? Why are you fixating on things that are mean-spirited and cynical?” Smith’s tone conveys wearied concern more than exasperation. “Some people don’t want to be happy.” Pain touches his smile. “You can’t… you can’t fix the world. There’s no fixing the world. Focus on what you can affect in a positive way.”
“Your sphere of influence,” I suggest.
“Right. And here’s the other thing about that: When you decide to be in the public eye, you have to understand that there’s going to be scrutiny. There are going to be opinions. The most famous people I know will tell you, ‘Man, when it’s good, it is awesome. But when it’s bad, it is brutal.'” Smith no doubt speaks from recent experience. “They tell you that the bats come out on the way down. Even if you didn’t do anything wrong, it’s subjective, and if you’re on the wrong headline, your goodwill doesn’t matter; it becomes a pile-on of cynicism and people wanting to see you fail.”
“People will go from really liking a person to suddenly being unable to stand them. Why? ‘Well, it’s because of this, this, and this.’ But why would you take that much real estate in your life to hate someone? You could use that energy to do something positive. If you don’t like them anymore, then just don’t like them.”
Smith speaks without bitterness, his eyes widening at intervals as he processes, in real time, the occasional heaviness of life in the spotlight. “My dad has always been a very reserved individual. Very stoic. He told me, ‘I know there’s a lot going on in your world right now. I know you think I don’t look at it, but I do.’ I always tell him, ‘Dad, don’t look at that stuff, don’t go to the comments section.’ He said, ‘Hey, son, just remember something: They don’t come to watch you race. They come because you might crash.'”
Few statements sum up modern media culture better.
“Dad told me, ‘Brent, in 20 years, what I have watched you do, and what I continue to watch you and the guys do… son, if it was easy, everybody would do it.'” Smith laughs. “Dad also referenced Kevin Hart: ‘Everybody wants to be famous, but nobody wants to put the work in.'”
I share a few of my own anxieties about being in the public eye and observing society’s responses to journalism. Smith empathizes. “I saw the public’s distrust of journalism coming about five years ago, during the pandemic. I was like, ‘We are at the precipice of the age in society where no one trusts any journalist at all.’ Disruptors will go into the system and take an organization that’s trusted, revered, award-winning, even, and say, ‘Everything you print is fake.’ All of a sudden, you got derailed. It’s all bullshit. At the end of the day, though, you’re either honest or you’re not.”
Our freewheeling candor circles us back to social media. “If you get off social media for a week, guess what? When you come back, people are still gonna be pissed off. Instead, you can change your mentality. Go find real positivity and influence and surround yourself with people who aren’t cynical or mean-spirited. That doesn’t mean they’re corny or cheesy. It means they choose not to live their life in fight-or-flight every day.”
“My granny, who was my mother’s mother and passed away a couple of years ago, had a saying: ‘When all else fails, just remember to love, love, love.’ It was simple but really, really true. She’s like, ‘There’s going to be an enormous amount of hatred no matter what. You have to wear it out.’ The only way to wear out hate is to love it. You’ve got to love it until it has no choice but to submit.”
“That’s great,” I say. “I’m curious what you would say if you could offer one piece of encouragement to a struggling young Shinedown fan—maybe a teenager or young adult—and if you could speak to an older one who’s also going through a hard time?”
Smith pauses, chin propped on hand. “What I would say to both of them is ‘Keep going.’ Keep going, and don’t stop being curious, either. Don’t settle.” Echoing Shinedown’s resilient spirit, he adds, “You don’t want life to be posh all the time, and perfect. You want to see that it had to go through shit.” He smiles cheekily. “I tell people that my job starts when someone tells me ‘No,’ or that there’s no way I’m gonna make something happen. That is the quickest way for me to achieve something.”
When it comes to achievements, Smith wants to share the glory. “All the accolades and accomplishments Shinedown has are only because of the audience. The flowers on the cover of EI8HT are for our listeners. Some of them are beat up and dried out, and some are nice and pretty and blooming, but they’re all different kinds because that’s all different walks of life. We want to give everything back to the fans.”
I tell Smith that my 16th birthday present was seeing Shinedown in concert. “What year?” he asks. “2018, in Salem, Virginia.” “Get out of here!” he cries. “I totally remember that show! I totally remember it.” He glances sideways with a grin. “We had a lot of pyro on that show.” I laugh, astonished by his steel trap memory. After everything we’ve discussed, though, it doesn’t seem that surprising at all.