GODSMACK's SULLY ERNA: We're Blessed To Still Be Here Playing Our Music

Dave "Higgo" Higgins, formerly of Australia's long-running rock station Triple M, conducted an interview with GODSMACK frontman Sully Erna during this year's Soundwave festival. You can now listen to the chat in the YouTube clip below.

Asked whether he feels that rock and metal music is enjoying a bit of a resurgence at the moment, Erna said: "It's hard to say. Heavy metal and hard rock music, at least in the States, have experienced some pretty heavy storms, and it's really sunk into some valleys. But it's cyclical, and it comes around all the time. So it's just a matter of time when it hits again. And that's why we feel really blessed, because we really weathered some nasty storms. And we're still here, and it's still relevant, and so we're blessed to be here playing our music. And hopefully, at some point, it will come around full strength again, because a lot of the pop music and stuff like that has really dominated for a while."

GODSMACK's sixth studio album, "1000hp", sold approximately 58,000 copies in its first week of release to land at No. 3 on The Billboard 200 album chart. The disc, which arrived on August 5, 2014, followed up 2011's "The Oracle", which topped the chart with sales of 117,000 copies in its debut week.

Erna described the sound of the "1000hp" album to The Pulse Of Radio as "a little bit more raw, a little bit more open. The writing was a little freer. The production is really kind of raw and in your face, and the songs, man — I'm really, really excited about these songs. And I have to tell you honestly, I wasn't that excited about writing this record at first."