SHINEDOWN Guitarist On Band's Musical Evolution: 'We Wanna Push Ourselves Creatively'

SHINEDOWN frontman Brent Smith and guitarist Zach Myers recently spoke to U.K.'s Scuzz TV about the evolution of the band's sound. You can now watch the chat below.

Said Zach: "I think that anything with Brent's voice is going to be SHINEDOWN forever; I think that's the one constant. But everything else, man, we just refuse to sit in a… The world doesn't sit still, so SHINEDOWN's not gonna sit still. We're not gonna sit and go, "[2008's] 'The Sound Of Madness' was a successful record, [2012's] 'Amaryllis' was a successful record. Let's do that again,' or get in there and start pouring the same formula into the same glass. We are musicians first before anything else, before we're entertainers, before we're in a band, and we wanna push ourselves creatively. And I think that we've always been a band that's been able to do that. And I think that as long as you do that musically… And our band cares about three things: the song, the song and the song. When you have that, musically you can kind of go wherever you want without giving [Brent] like a bagpipe, you know what I mean?! Which we could do, I guess… Or, you know, like a polka band. I just think, musically, we just decide to push ourselves always. Evolution's kind of what this band does. Sitting still is not an option for any of the four of us."

Added Brent: "The way we look at it too is just that no one's ever gonna sick and tired of drums, bass, guitar, badass vocals and a killer song; that's the recipe of rock and roll. And there's a lot of different genres out there, but I've always said this, and I mean it: rock and roll isn't a genre of music; it's a way of life. I think that people… When you are younger, you kind of get into… I don't wanna call it necessarily bubblegum music or what have you, but you're young and you like to just listen to anything that almost can reflect a nursery rhyme, so pop music or things of that nature. But even so, as you get older, someone's gonna break your heart, as you get older, you're gonna get pissed off. That's when rock and roll comes into play. And you're gonna need to… When you don't think you can fight anymore, you're gonna have to… Something's gonna come on in the background, and I guarantee you it's gonna have a raging guitar in it and a killer drum beat and a guy or a girl singing their guts out."

SHINEDOWN's fifth studio album, "Threat To Survival", debuted at No. 6 on The Billboard 200 album chart, selling 65,000 copies in its first week of release.

"Threat To Survival" is the third SHINEDOWN album to enter the chart in the Top 10, following "Amaryllis" and 2008's "The Sound Of Madness", which debuted at No. 8.