SHINEDOWN Frontman Says New Material Can't Be Compared To Any Of Band's Past Efforts

Jacksonville, Florida's SHINEDOWN is continuing work on the material for its fourth album in Los Angeles, with plans to begin recording the effort late summer. More than 14 songs have reportedly been written for the CD, which is not expected to arrive until 2012.

Speaking to the Artisan News Service on the red carpet of the 59th annual BMI Pop Awards which was held on May 17 at the Beverly Wilshire Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills, California (see video below),SHINEDOWN vocalist Brent Smith was asked if the band's new material was similar to that on 2008's platinum-certified album "The Sound Of Madness". "Not really, because we can't compare any of the other records to this one just like we can't compare the first one to the second one or the third one to the first one," he said. "We pride ourselves on being a band that each record sounds completely different than the last. The beautiful thing is the journey and finding out where you are in your life, not only as a person, but where you are as an artist and as a musician and how far you've come and how far you've grown. So, for us, we tour a lot our last record, we toured for almost three years so it's very, very crucial and very, very important for us for this fourth record [to be as strong as possible], so we take our time."

SHINEDOWN guitarist Zach Myers recently told Gibson.com about the band's songwriting process, "We aren't a band that goes into the studio and makes a record in six weeks. 'The Sound Of Madness' took 24 months to write. Brent has this weird thing when we're writing, we go into the studio, and there are no clocks around; there are no calendars on the wall. He doesn't like to have a time limit on being creative."

SHINEDOWN's live, multi-disc CD/DVD collection, "Somewhere In The Stratosphere", was released on May 3. The collection which received its title from a member of the "Shinedown Nation" fan community includes material filmed and recorded on SHINEDOWN's two epic 2010 headline tours: the inaugural "Carnival Of Madness" tour, in which they topped a stellar lineup of today's biggest rock acts including CHEVELLE, PUDDLE OF MUDD, SEVENDUST, and 10 YEARS; and the highly praised "Anything & Everything" acoustic tour, which featured stripped-down versions of both chart-topping hits and fan favorites alongside intimate conversations with the audience about the stories behind the songs.