Shinedown performed at The New Daisy Theater Sunday night wrapping up their debut album tour "Leave a Whisper."
After 21 months of touring and more than 350 shows, the band will complete their tour in March and head into the studio in April to begin work on their sophomore album.
And while touring and fans have been good to Shinedown, lead vocalist Brent Smith and drummer Barry Kerch said they still do not believe they have arrived.
"There is no such thing as making it," Smith said. "I hate when people call me a rock star. We work for a living."Even modesty cannot keep Kerch from realizing the band's two major accomplishments.
"The biggest barrier is staying alive out here, I think," he said. "Keeping on the road and keeping the dream alive, and of course, getting a gold record is difficult nowadays with a rock band."
Smith said as a debut band they really understood the importance of radio because the stations decide whether or not to play their music.
"So, to have not only one single played but to have four released off our record is also a big accomplishment," Smith said.
To get people to know what they are about as a band is also one of the barriers they had to overcome, said Smith.
"We're about overcoming and never giving up," Kerch said.
"Letting go of all the negativity," was the message Shinedown wanted to send out.
"When we play the show and when we play the music we want people to feel comfortable in their own skin," Smith said.
Before beginning their new record, the band said they want to focus on the rest of their current tour and then be able to fully concentrate on new material.
"As much as we want to keep touring, now that it's being successful with sold out shows, we want to give ourselves something new to play as well as our fans," Kerch said. "As far as a vibe for it, I don't know. It's gonna be a lot of what's happened to us over the past few years."However, Smith said it is necessary to draw the line between touring and writing new material.
"As a live band, you don't ever want to make it look to the audience like it's work up there," he said. "You wanna try and keep it as fresh as possible and stay positive about what you're doing. I think there is a line you draw between being a live performer and being in the studio."Memphis is one of the cities that really sticks out in the minds of Shinedown, said Smith.
"Actually, the first time we played here it was our first sold out show. It was a headline show. It was ours and it was sold out," Smith said. "The first downbeat of the first song the crowd just erupted. That was probably one of the best shows."
Shinedown will tour until the beginning of March and will begin recording in April. Their new CD is to be released at the end of 2005 or the beginning of 2006.
Another Florida band, No Address, is currently touring with Shinedown. They also played Sunday night to promote their new album "Time Doesn't Notice," set for release in April.Ben Lauren, lead vocalist, was formerly a professor of English at Florida State University. He said majoring in creative writing definitely helped him with his lyrics for the album.
"I had to write a book of poems to receive my master's and most of the records came out of the poems," Lauren said. "But it's never easy because you wanna say things differently in a new fresh way so it requires you to dig really deep."
Along with Lauren, Phil Moreton, guitarist and vocals, guitarist Justin Long, drummer Randy Long and bassist Bill Donaldson formed the band in 2000.
The name for the band has been sort of an evolution going from New Address to No Address Lauren said.
"No Address is a bit more mysterious," he said. "Sometimes you're in a crowd of people and you're comfortable but you're also uncomfortable. It's very much about being comfortably uncomfortable, like something's not right but it's OK. The name has to deal with all the places you're going instead of where you've been."
The album includes themes of anger and sadness, Lauren said."It's a very conflicted record and sometimes I listen to it and am surprised at how angry I sound," he said. "Overall, it's a rock record."Getting signed for the band was a feeling of shock and bewilderment, Lauren said.
"Elated - it was just elated," he said. "It was everything we'd ever wanted. It was a dream and when a dream comes true you don't really know how to handle it."
Lauren said his influences include Otis Redding, Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters.
"I think it's the passion that inspires us to be what we are," he said. "Tom Petty meets Nirvana sort of encompasses our whole sound."The goal for No Address is to take this as far as they can and keep playing.
"Run the marathon, not the sprint," Lauren said.
