GODSMACK's SHANNON LARKIN Says SULLY ERNA 'Gets Better' As A Singer As He Gets Older

During a new appearance on "The Jasta Show", the podcast hosted by HATEBREED frontman Jamey Jasta, GODSMACK drummer Shannon Larkin discussed the latter band's musical evolution. He said in part (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "That is definitely a rabbit hole for me, seeing the evolution over two decades of making records with Sully [Erna, GODSMACK frontman and main songwriter] and his writing and the direction that the band took and as we aged.

"We had a unique thing in that we put a record out every four years since I joined in '03. And so we never overexposed," he continued. "And so that the differences, as the records changed, from 'Faceless' to 'IV' to 'The Oracle' to '1000hp' to '[When] Legends [Rise]' to the new one ['Lighting Up The Sky'] is a lot of change from… Imagine, four years pass, and you could be in and out of a love-affair relationship in four fucking years, and so our records definitely aged with us. And it's wild now to look out, man, and our fanbase, 'cause I was probably, God — I don't know — 30-something when I joined the band, and so a lot of the fans were, say, 10 years younger than us. And so now they're growing up and they have their kids, and then we end up playing last year on tour for almost eight months. And, man, we sold more tickets than we've ever sold, broke all our attendance records in every city, and [sold] more merch than we've ever sold, broke all our records. So I think that Sully is a fucking genius.

"Besides the 'Legends' record, the last one, which was definitely our commercial record, [Sully] wrote that record with Erik Ron and John Feldmann," Shannon added. "And they wrote a great record and all, but when he came to the band, and he's a Boston guy, man, and AEROSMITH was his first love and everything. And I always thought, well, it's not like we fell off or something like they did and needed help, but we all said, 'All right.' But as musicians, it was a kick the nuts. But we love him, we follow him. He's our fearless leader. And I knew Sully 17 years before I even joined the band. His band opened for [my former band] WRATHCHILD back in the day and shit, and that's when we became friends. So every time I'd come to Boston, Sully'd come pick me up and shit, take me to do my laundry. I'm talking WRATHCHILD days. So we've been friends for a long time. And then to watch his songwriting… God, he learned to play piano. And he's one of those dudes, he's a musician like us, but unlike me, anyway, he can just pick up — like he said, 'I'm gonna learn to play piano.' And three years later, he's fucking Elton John. That dude could pick up a fucking saxophone and be Clarence Clemons in two years or something; he's got that talent. And when he got really good at piano, well, as a vocalist, you also know that piano doesn't lie. If you're off a millimeter, it's very visible. So he got way better as a singer, and his brain's changed. Everything happened. And most rock singers like Sully, they usually go down as they get older, because it's your throat. It's not like our drums or bass or whatever. But he gets better. And so that's something, man."

"Lighting Up The Sky" was released in February 2023 via BMG. The LP was co-produced by Erna and Andrew "Mudrock" Murdock (AVENGED SEVENFOLD, ALICE COOPER).

The first single from "Lighting Up The Sky", "Surrender", which arrived in September 2022, marked the first release from GODSMACK in four years, following their globally acclaimed and gold-certified 2018 album "When Legends Rise", which earned the Erna-fronted outfit a No. 1 spot across U.S. Hard Rock, Rock, and Alternative album charts.

In a recent interview with Meltdown of Detroit's WRIF radio station, Erna spoke about GODSMACK's announcement that "Lighting Up The Sky" will likely be its final collection of new material. Asked if he and his bandmates are working on any new music, Sully said: "No. There'll be no more new GODSMACK… I mean, you can never predict the future, but the decision that was made was that we're gonna go out now and start honoring the catalog of music that we created over the last 30 years and just enjoy kind of the greatest-hits moments."

Photo credit: Chris Bradshaw