It takes more than a pandemic to stop Shinedown. When studio time became problematic, they built their own. Situated on bassist/producer/mixer Eric Bass’s property on Kiawah Island, South Carolina, Big Animal Studios birthed the band’s seventh album, Planet Zero. A ferocious marriage of raw, heavy chops and dystopian atmosphere (much of it stemming from the wrath of social media), it’s an aural sucker punch that befits the stadium-straddling, Chuck Norris-rivalling manner of their shows. Powerhouse singer Brent Smith takes stock of the past two years.
Prior to the pandemic you lived in hotels, didn’t you?
I live in hotels pretty much exclusively. I had a house in