SHINEDOWN Guitarist: 'We're Not A Political Band'

Away Team recently conducted an interview with guitarist Zach Myers of Jacksonville, Florida hard rockers SHINEDOWN. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

Away Team: You guys had a live DVD that was scrapped back in 2007. Any chance we'll get a live DVD/album from this tour?

Zach Myers: I can tell you that we're gonna record a couple shows. DVDs are so hard-pressed now with labels, because they don't really make any money off of them. They put money into them but they really, no matter how many you sell of them, it's not like the old days where when you sell a concert DVD, you can't really sell a million copies of one. Ya know what I mean? I couldn't tell you the last person who did that in the last ten years, so… We actually talked about doing it ourselves, and funding it ourselves. This is way too cool of a show to not put out a DVD of some sort. If there's not a DVD, after this we're doing an acoustic tour and we're definitely gonna film a lot of that, so…

Away Team: Now, five singles off "The Sound of Madness", you said you're ready to release a sixth. It's been about three years. When can we expect to see a new SHINEDOWN studio album?

Zach Myers: At the earliest I would say at the end of 2011. At the very earliest. We're gonna take October off, and go write in L.A. We've been writing a lot anyway, we wrote the "Alice in Wonderland" song ("Her Name is Alice"),we've written "Diamond Eyes" for "The Expendables". But yeah, we're gonna go write in October, then we're gonna go do this acoustic tour, and then I think we're gonna wind it down in about mid-December. Kinda take a break, take about a month or two off, and then start it all back over again.

Away Team: You guys recently joined the ever growing list of bands that are boycotting BP petroleum…

Zach Myers: I don't know where this is coming from.

Away Team: Not true?

Zach Myers: No. We've been asked that like five times. I don't know where… I disagree with it, I think it's completely fucked. We all live in the south, so ya know that's our home… Do I get gas at BP when I'm home? No.

Away Team: So I guess the question still does apply. If you had the podium at a BP board meeting, what would you say to them?

Zach Myers: What can you say? Whose fault is it? It's really not their fault. In all honesty, it's not their fault when something like that happens. It's a natural disaster, they didn't pop the cap off the thing. But it is their fault for not fixing it sooner, or not having a plan in place. They really, if they would've kept their mouths shut, then it would've been fine. But this guy kept going on and saying things like, "There's more shrimp in Louisiana." This guy's an idiot, ya know what I mean? He's put his foot in his mouth so many times. When you're the head of a company and you have to have security to escort you back to Europe so people don't kill you, it's because you've opened your mouth too much. But no, as a band we can't get involved in that. It's not our place; we're not a political band. The most political we've ever been is "Devour", and that's just us talking about what WE saw when WE were in Iraq. But other than that, we're not a political band, it's not our business. Eric (Bass; SHINEDOWN bassist) and I are very political as people, but we don't bring that into the band. You don't talk about politics, and you don't talk about religion; that's just something that you don't do.

Away Team: This is your work. You don't talk politics at work.

Zach Myers: Yeah, and bands that use 45 minutes of their two-hour set to talk about politics should be shot! I'm sorry, it's people that pay to hear you bitch? So what? No one cares! U2 is one of my favorite bands of all time, and yeah, Bono will slip things in here and there, but he doesn't take half an hour. And that's the thing about it, it's finding that line, ya know?! Some bands don't do that.

Read the entire interview from Away Team.