Eric Bass of Shinedown Interview

22nd February 2025 0 By Jon Deaux

Interview transcript courtesy Brian Colburn of MWM

How did Sly Stallone get involved with Shinedown and the track Diamond Eyes? It’s not the most obvious of collaborations

“Diamond Eyes” happened because Sylvester Stallone called the band, and he said “Hey, I’m looking for a band to write a song for this movie that I’m making called ‘The Expendables,’ and here’s a little bit about it, here’s what I want it to be.”

He sent over this poem, and I forgot the name of the poem, but the beats at the end of every verse would say Boom-Lay Boom-Lay Boom. And he’s like “The only thing I want in the song is, Boom-Lay Boom-Lay Boom.” That’s how the “Boom-Lay Boom-Lay Boom” thing happened in “Diamond Eyes.” It wasn’t us. It was Sylvester Stallone, his idea.

How are things with Shinedown at the moment?

Starting into that [“Threat To Survival”] touring cycle, we all had a very, very big wake-up call and *actually* got healthy. Right in the beginning of that touring cycle…

…The spirit of this band really emerged during that time, I would say, the current spirit of this band anyway, what I would pin as our identity. And that really enabled me to be way more creative in the band, and to ultimately co-write most of “Attention Attention.” There are some songs that I didn’t write on that album. But I love every song on that album, and I produced and mixed that album as well, and then into “Planet Zero,” the last record. And now into this new Shinedown record that we’re currently working on, the same thing.

Interestingly enough, this new Shinedown record, the 8th Shinedown record, I’m actually more hands-off than I’ve been over the last two, namely, because of this record of my own that I’m rolling out right now.

What can you tell us about it?

There’s a song called “The Pilot,” that’s going to be on the record… I had a moment where I just kind of unloaded and vented to Dave [Bassett] and to Brent because we’re all great friends. It was just one of those things about how I’m not in a good place, and I don’t know what’s happening with my brain…

…And it helps to talk about those things with people. I encourage everyone to talk about those things even the stuff you don’t want to say…

…But sometimes, man, you have to make your friends your therapists. They don’t have to have the answers, but it just helps for you to articulate those things to somebody…

But I got done articulating these things to him, and the next day we got back to writing, and it wasn’t going well, and Brent looked at Dave and he said “do you wanna play it for him?” and I said “what are you talking about?”

And, evidently, Brent had gone by Dave’s hotel room that night after we got finished and Dave was working on this song, and he played it for Brent, and Brent said “Man, you’ve gotta play that for Eric.” And Dave’s like “I don’t know, man, that’s super personal…”

I think Dave thought maybe I’d be mad or something and it was like nothing of the sort. He played me this song called “The Pilot,” that he wrote about me, and about what I was going through from my perspective, and dude, I can’t wait for everybody to hear it.

I wish I could claim songwriting on it, I don’t have any songwriting on it whatsoever. I played the acoustic guitar on it and recorded it.

But it’s a very different place for Brent’s voice, too, because it’s soft. There’s no trying to overpower the song at all, ever, once in the song. He’s basically singing in a speaking voice the whole song.

Is the new Shinedown album a concept record of sorts?

Not a concept album, not a concept album. Back to more of what “Threat to Survival” was, what “The Sound of Madness” was, which is just a collection of songs. And definitely all from a real place. Nothing’s changed in that department. It’s just.. that was sort of something agreed upon before we even started writing…

And again, it’s like, I think everyone’s gaze kind of shoots at me when they say concept record, because it’s like, I’ve been responsible for those 3 records and all 3 are concept records. But all of those were unintentional, other than my record. My record was not an unintentional concept record, but the rest of them were pretty unintentional. They ended up just being what they are. So this time we’re like, let’s just try to spread the subject matter around a little more this time and see if we can’t come up with some interesting things.

How do you go about separating Shinedown from your solo work?

I had these pieces of music that I was toying around with just on tour, on that Attention Attention cycle, and I remember going to Brent and I said ‘Hey, man, are you in any headspace to start working on a new Shinedown record?’ and he said ‘Absolutely not,’ because he does not like to write on tour.

But I had to ask him. I said ‘Well, I’ve got these pieces of music that they’re pretty different. They would either make the most different Shinedown record of all time, or I need to use them for this thing, you know, I’ve got an idea for them.’ And he’s like ‘I won’t be ready to write for another year.’

So. that’s kind of where the genesis of the record started. And I started writing these lyrics about these characters and these stories about these characters in song form, and what the record is.

How did I Had a Name come about?

What “I Had a Name” is: it’s chronological in nature. I mean, it’s going from the beginning of the story to the end of the story. But it’s just scenes from, it’s not really telling you exactly what’s happening.

I was pulling out, it’s the same thing I do when I’m writing other songs like, you know, if I have something in my head, a scene that I feel like is interesting, something I saw or experienced that I want to write about. That’s what I do. And so I just did the same thing with these fictitious stories and characters.

Is it autobiographical or something more..?

Have you ever had one of those moments where you have a shocking thought or shocking revelation about something, and you get ice through your veins? That shocking thing? I had that happen. I was like ‘Oh, my God! I am writing the most autobiographical record of my career through these characters. Like, you’re not just talking about these characters. You’re talking about yourself. Every single one of these songs is from you, from your childhood, from your current life, from your depression, from whatever. And what that really did for me is that enriched the record because now I just didn’t have characters anymore.

How would you like I Have A Name to be perceived?

I hope that people listen to it and can pull something from it that will be helpful to them, because at the end of the day, I realized, as I’ve gotten older that my job on Earth isn’t to be a musician. My job is to help people, and it’s really something I’m passionate about, and I only really know one way to do that…to help people…and that’s just through the silly little things that I make. Whether it’s a song or a video, or an album…

And some people won’t say it’s silly, but I like calling them my silly little things, you know because it is. It’s playtime man. It’s frivolous, you know. It’s insane that a 50-year-old man can make a living making songs, but that’s what we do.

Thanks for taking the time

Tracklisting:

1. A World Unseen
2. The New Gods Of War
3. Azalia
4. We Can’t Go Home
5. Goodnight Goodnight
6. Mind Control
7. New Graves
8. All Good Children – Our Guts
9. Modenhardt
10. Dead Inside
11. The Churches Of The Dead
12. Wanna Go To Hell