Mark: That’s right! You’ve already kicked off the “Rockstar Uproar Tour” over in the States as well, playing with some great bands there, how’s that going so far?
Shannon: It’s going brilliant; I mean the crowds have been amazing! We’re in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania tonight; I go on stage in about an hour and a half, and the crowd looks “sick” out there, man!! It’s a beautiful day, about 75 degrees, and sunny right now, perfect weather for outdoor concerts, most of the concerts are outdoors, in amphitheatres, which are my personal favourite venues to play. The first three shows were amazing, Detroit is one of the best cities, one of my favourites, in the whole world to play, the crowd’s energy is amazing, and they go mental!
Mark: We are actually reviewing your show in Detroit, so it should be good!
Mark: What’s the best thing about getting back on the road, after a period of recording? What do you look forward to most?
Shannon: Playing every night! We play constantly, anyway, like even if the band takes time off, like we took a year off before making the “1000hp” record, to get out of each other’s faces for a little bit. We toured extensively on the “Oracle” tour, and four dudes, living on a bus, after a while we just needed some time apart. But the best thing about it is being able to play with great equipment, and we have video monitors, so I can hear everything perfectly mixed, sounds like the record that I’m playing, which isn’t like that in the garage, or in the club with other music, so that’s the best part! There’s also the really nice tour buses over here, in Australia the cities are so far apart, so last time I toured there, we would fly to each city, but in America everything’s so close together that you live on this bus, but they’re very comfortable, it has all the amenities of a hotel, you’ve got your PlayStation and whatever, so it’s like you’re pampered out here! At home, I’ve got a dog and a sixteen year old, a wife and a house! I have way more responsibility at home than when I’m out here being a Rockstar!!
Mark: The new album sounds great, it’s very “punky”, full of energy, you really get the feeling of the power of rock music when you put the album on, and of course you save the slow one until the end. Is that something you wanted to capture, that power and energy of Godsmack?
Shannon: Yeah, each record we do, we try to add some kind of different element to it. From the “Faceless” record, we had David Bottrill produce, and he went with a very metal sounding record, and then after that with the “IV” record we kind of wanted to be more “bluesy” on that one. So, our classic rock roots, that we all grew up worshipping, Led Zeppelin, early Black Sabbath; we tried to go with more of that on the “IV” record, and be a little different from “Faceless”. Then of course we went and made an acoustic DVD, which was completely different to anything we had ever done, that led us then to “The Oracle” which we tried to make our heaviest record. So, this one we tried to go with that Punk Rock energy, it’s not Punk Rock, but has the energy. Our favourite band is AC/DC, and when they first came to America, the first place they played was CBGB’s, it’s like punk rock almost AC/DC, to this country and to all of us kids who first heard it. So, we tried to bring that four chord chorus, down stroking, sixteen on the hi-hat to it, which to me reminds me of AC/DC, but you can’t change your sound so drastically, or then you alienate your fan base. But saying that, you can’t keep making the same record over and over again, only certain bands can do that, like AC/DC, I keep mentioning them because they are one of my favourite bands!
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