Melodic hard rock outfit
Shinedown debuted in the early 2000s with the muscular post-grunge
Leave a Whisper, a platinum-selling 2003 effort kicking off a string of modern rock radio successes that kept the band atop the Billboard charts from the late aughts into the 2010s. They smoothed their sound over the years to incorporate pop-friendly hooks and polished production, scoring crossover hits with singles like "Bully" and "Cut the Cord" from the Top Ten albums
Amaryllis (2012) and
Threat to Survival (2015). The stylistic evolution continued on 2018's
Attention Attention. In 2022,
Shinedown released their seventh set,
Planet Zero.
Hailing from Jacksonville, Florida, the band's founding lineup included vocalist
Brent Smith, guitarist
Jasin Todd, bassist
Brad Stewart, and drummer
Barry Kerch. Snapped up by Atlantic Records during the early-2000s flurry of post-
Creed and
Nickelback signings, the group released their debut album,
Leave a Whisper, in 2003.
Whisper eventually went platinum, aided by its single "Fly from the Inside."
Shinedown also supported it with an intense slate of live shows, remaining on tour throughout most of 2004. The following year, the band issued a live album documenting those shows, then returned in October 2005 with their sophomore effort,
Us and Them, which went gold. The group underwent a few lineup changes in the years to follow, re-emerging in 2008 as a quintet that included
Smith and
Kerch along with guitarists
Nick Perri and
Zach Myers and bass player
Eric Bass.
The long-awaited Sound of Madness, featuring Grammy-winning producer
Rob Cavallo (
Goo Goo Dolls,
Green Day), arrived in July. The set went double platinum in the U.S., peaking at number eight on the Billboard 200. It yielded six singles, including the crossover hit "Second Chances," which rose into the Top Ten of the Hot 100. Soon after the album's release, the band parted ways with
Perri and continued as a quartet. In keeping with their driving sound, the band loaned some of their songs to the WWE to use during their pay-per-view events, as well as a number of other soundtracks, all the while touring for Sound of Madness. The trek eventually led to a CD/DVD set, 2011's Somewhere in the Stratosphere, which featured a pair of complete live sets from the group's Carnival of Madness and Anything & Everything tours.
The band's fourth studio album,
Amaryllis (Atlantic/Roadrunner), was released in the spring of 2012. Once again produced by
Cavallo, the effort debuted at number four on the Billboard 200, their highest entry to date. Singles like "Bully" and "Unity" fared well on the charts, with the former crossing over to the Hot 100. The group promoted the album with separate tours with
Three Days Grace and
Papa Roach, which carried them into late 2013. A pair of acoustic EPs, Acoustic Sessions and
Acoustic Sessions, Pt. 2, arrived in early 2014, featuring
Smith and
Myers covering songs from the likes of
Metallica and
Adele.
In June 2015,
Shinedown issued the single "Cut the Cord," which landed on their fifth studio long-player,
Threat to Survival. Released in September,
Threat to Survival was another Top Ten hit for the band, debuting a refreshed sound that was less
Breaking Benjamin and more
Imagine Dragons on tracks like "Cut the Cord," "State of My Head," and "How Did You Love." While touring behind
Threat to Survival -- including a European stint with
Iron Maiden --
Bass wrote prolifically, producing dozens of songs and a concept for the band's sixth album. Produced by
Bass,
Attention Attention was released in May 2018 and included the singles "Devil" and "Get Up," two of four album singles to hit number one on the Billboard Rock charts. The soaring stand-alone single "Atlas Falls" (originally recorded during the
Amaryllis sessions) appeared in May 2020 with its proceeds benefitting the humanitarian aid nonprofit Direct Relief.
Sidelined from touring by the pandemic lockdown in 2021,
Shinedown set to work on another album. The politically charged
Planet Zero arrived in 2022, featuring the chart-topping title track and "The Saints of Violence and Innuendo." ~ Eduardo Rivadavia & Neil Z. Yeung