GODSMACK's SULLY ERNA On No Longer Releasing New Music: 'It's Time To Let The Catalog Do Its Job'

In a new interview with "Whiplash", the KLOS radio show hosted by Full Metal Jackie, GODSMACK frontman Sully Erna spoke about the band's recent announcement that GODSMACK's eight album, "Lighting Up The Sky", will likely be its final collection of new material. Erna said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "Music's in my blood. It's in my family. I've been a musician since I was three years old. I'll always have music in my life; I'm always gonna write songs; I'm always gonna noodle around on the guitar or the piano or whatever. I just think it feels right to kind of know that you've arrived and honor that. And what I mean by that is there's so many of us that live just our lives — I don't care if you're a painter or if you're a musician or an actor — but we live our lives and we have goals and we think about what's the dream. And for some people it's a nice little house with a white picket fence and a dog and a pickup truck. And then they get it, and then they go, 'Well, now I want a motorcycle and a pickup truck.' And then they go, 'Now I need a bigger house.' 'And now I want two dogs.' And it just never ends.

"We, I think, have humbled ourselves over time and kept ourselves grounded, 'cause we have a good group of people, good band that everybody's just good, honest people," he continued. "And we've kept each other in check and not try to fall victim of the rock star lifestyle and the egos and all the crap that we battled in the beginning. And I'd like to just kind of know that maybe it's time; maybe we've hit that dream that we said, 'This is what we wanted to do with our lives, and we're blessed now; we can do this with our lives.' So why keep searching for that next thing? Do we need a 10-million album plaque? Do we need to be headlining stadiums instead of arenas? I'm gonna just let things happen organically now and let the cards fall where they may and know that if this all ends tomorrow, we have zero regrets and we've had a hell of a run and we'll give each other a big hug and call it a good run and 'see you when I see you.' But for now, we don't have to make that decision. We talked about it; we're, like, we don't have to decide about not playing shows ever again. Why would we pigeonhole ourselves like that? We just think it's time to let the catalog do its job, go out there, honor the best of the songs, put together a really fun, big, full-impact greatest-hits show and do what we do best, which I always feel the band has been strong with the live performance."

Erna previously addressed GODSMACK's decision to no longer release new music last fall in an interview with Pablo of the Minneapolis, Minnesota radio station 93X. Speaking about "Lighting Up The Sky", he said: "I've never been that artist who says, 'Oh, this record is our newest record. It's our best work ever.' You can read any interview you want over my whole career, and you've never heard me say it," he continued. "I've always loved our records [and] I always knew there would be some good singles on it and hoped it did well, but I was never the guy that said, 'This is our best fucking work ever.' And I'm telling you right now this is our best fucking work ever. And it's because it's emotional, man. This is the last record we're ever gonna do. This is the last run around the mill for us. We put every single ounce of energy and emotion into this album. Especially for me, when I wrote a lot of these songs, it was about my life journey. That's really what the sequence of this album becomes about. Not that it was planned that way, but this really kind of mystical thing happened where I felt like the universe wrote this record."

"Lighting Up The Sky" was released last month 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, 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.

GODSMACK will embark on a spring 2023 U.S. tour with special guests I PREVAIL.

Photo by Chris Bradshaw