Starting Fresh

"I don’t think rock is dead,” says Godsmack sticks-man Shannon Larkin. “But it’s certainly taken a hit as far as selling records. Now it’s more important to be, like, social media networking than getting on a tour bus and working your arse off for years. So it’s sad in a way for an old school band like us that’s been around 15 to 20 years... You don’t have to buy music anymore. So it is rough times... I do feel pain for new bands trying to come up and make it in this great dream of being a musician for a living.”

Although a commercial juggernaut in their homeland, they remain a somewhat unknown quantity in many other markets, including Australia.

“We’ve never felt like any of the other labels have pushed us or believed in us enough to get us out there and support us,” he ponders. “We love all the personnel, the president of the label here in America. They believe in us, pushed us, and we’ve been successful. Spinefarm seem to really believe in the band and they’re going to give us a push. So we’re really going to go for it hard, try and present this new record and our catalogue to the rest of the world in a really hard-working way. We’re gonna go back and tour every nook and cranny we can to try and spread the word.

“I’m not blaming anybody; I’m not pointing fingers at the label. I’m just saying that’s why we didn’t do as much touring abroad. We never felt like we had any kind of love from our record label. For instance, we did a Metallica world tour one time; we’re playing over in Europe to 50,000 to 70,000 people a night. We’re looking down in the photo pit and there was not one photographer... So we’re really going to make an effort on this one to get ourselves to not just be an American band.”

Those efforts will incorporate an inaugural trek to Australia as part of Soundwave 2015. The tub-thumper seems motivated by the prospect of essentially building a following from the ground up Down Under. This is in stark contrast to their extensive American jaunts, whereby the quartet has acquired a cavalcade of favourites they’re compelled to air on a nightly basis.

“In America it’s more like, if you can do good at radio, then your band is successful. But the curse is if you have a hit song you have to play it, your fans expect it. Out of our 12 to 14-song setlist, ten of the songs we play are hit songs that we have to play, or else our fans would be leaving the show going, ‘God damn it, they didn’t play I Stand Alone.’ Whereas in Australia it doesn’t matter if we don’t play this song or that song, ‘cause we’re a new band down there. Since we have no hits, we can pretty much put together a setlist we feel are the most kick-arse songs that translate the best live.”