Godsmack for the uninitiated are perhaps the biggest band you’ve not quite heard of (outside of rock and metal fan circles): they are properly HUGE. Three consecutive number one albums on the US Billboard charts and numerous awards over a career that began way back in 1995 is testament to the fact that Godsmack have staying power.
Erudite, intelligent, and not one to sit on the fence, Godsmack’s frontman Sully Iran is on blistering form, taking few prisoners in charting his bands success and plans for the future.
Here is what he had to say....
Do you still have the same feeling for your older material that you do the newer cuts?
S: Yeah, I think so and to be honest even more so. Now that the newer songs have really grown on us, it’s really great to see and hear the reactions from the audience and that’s what keeps it alive as well. I mean, the energy of the songs kick on at an even higher level. We are having a really good time with this whole thing and are really anxious and excited to get back out there and finish this year.
There were four years between 1,000 HP and When Legends Rise - was that a conscious decision to wait so long or a natural product after having come of the back of heavy touring?
S: It seems like there is a gap of four years between every record of ours and part of that is because for the audience it may feel like ‘oh, they haven’t put out a record for a while’...but for us it goes by very quickly. We deliver a record and then we tour for 18 to 24 months on an album, and, so, then you come off the road and spend, say, another 6 months writing and recording a new record. Then there’s a further 3 months getting it out there and in stores, so before you know it, 4 years has flown by pretty quick. I guess it is a good problem for us to have, as it means our music is working and has a longevity out there, on radio....and everywhere else. The burn rate of our music seems to last 4 to 6 months on each single and I think that’s the reason we can go out on tour as long as we can as the life of the record lasts a little bit longer that way.
I know for a fan it may be that 4 years feels like a long time to get new music, sometimes we even plan to get two records out quicker but you can’t drop a new record when one is still performing as you’ll start stepping on each other. It’s challenging for us, sure, but it’s a good challenge to have.
You’re obviously a seasoned pro in being an interviewee and answering some of the questions we are to ask later in our interview, “it’s all relevant to the story bro”, you’ve mentioned cycles just there, is that something that’s become more important in the industry than previously - it’s a more competitive market these days, is it not?
S: I guess it is competitive in the way that fans view music these days, you know since the internet has taken over our lives and we’ve entered the digital world, and that has become what my daughter and the younger generations have grown up with, they’re used to everything being a little bit faster. Back in the 60s, 70s, 80s we counted on the vinyl record, and when you got that record, it was really the only thing you could afford for that month and you would spend time just wearing that album and trying to catch a show, to get a glimpse of that star when they pulled up out of their bus or whatever it was. Music was a lot different back then and it meant so much to people, not that it doesn’t now, but I realized that this is such a different generation and era for how people listen to music and just how they experience it that everybody wants to go FAST. And the speed in which things are available on the radio, people are able to just download their favourite single and that leads to wanting more and more and more. That puts more pressure on the artists in that they need to deliver more content to keep the audience stimulated. But, you know, for a band like us and where we’ve come from, we still enjoy putting out a body of work that is delivered as a whole album that can be experienced and enjoyed as a journey through music rather than just extracting singles from it.
Is it really simply down to digital versus physical appreciation?
S: We are trying to educate our fan base to spend time with the music, the album, come see the shows, experience it live. Don’t lose that. Through the history of music, that connection has been hugely important. I don’t care how great computers become or how great the quality of HD is, the future of 3D or whatever you do, sitting on a couch in a living room, eating a bag of cookies, you’ll never be able to replicate the energy of a live show through a computer screen. There’s something very electric when the lights go down and the roar of the crowd hits, that crackle in the air as the band comes on, or the football team takes the stage, or the UFC fight begins or whatever it is...live events are critical for people to experience, they will be something from your life that you will remember when you are on your deathbed.
That’s a good point, I’m in my 40s now, and I remember the more tangible aspects of music buying. Going to a record shop for example, though it has come back round a little with vinyl...can we touch a bit on the cliches inherent with being in a rock band, these days, as we know so much about the people in the bands (what with TV and media), is there a danger that we now know too much and that nothing is a surprise anymore?
S: I just think that it kind of robs the people of a more elevated experience though music. And as an artist, that makes it hard to keep the mystique in your art when everything is exposed too easily. People can simply google your name and find out everything about you at the touch of a button. I remember when I was younger and the first time I heard Steven Tyler (Aerosmith) talking on the radio, and I was like ‘Ooooohhh shit, THAT’S what he sounds like’, I had never heard him outside of singing. So that was so exciting to me and I’ll never forget that day. Back in those days, being a superstar was a whole different thing, especially when you had that rockstar image. But you know, I also like the aspect of being grounded and human, I don’t ever want to lose that. And that’s something the band has taken great pride in, being able to be normal when we come home, to play poker or to grab a beer in a bar with your friends. Of course you’ll get people that come up but for the most part I try to alienate myself too much from being able to live a normal life as well. Once you get to that superstar level and you open up that can of worms, it’s really hard to shut that off. Sometimes it destroys artists, when they don’t know how to handle it, especially if they reach it at a very young age.
Godsmack have reached a level of critical and commercial success, sales and awards, do you operate with a certain confidence that your fans will carry you and how do you make sure you don’t get lazy in the studio?
S: I never have the expectation that the fans will just carry us. I do think that we’ve had a pretty good track record and that kinda buys a free pass should we have record that stiffs and doesn’t do shit but I certainly never try to go in the studio with those (lazy) expectations because for us, we understand that you’re only as good as your last album. Thankfully we’ve had two decades of great success and a catalogue that people still enjoy hearing live. There are parts of the world that we haven’t gotten to yet. And that means we can go there and play some of the material there for the first time and revisit the tracks from our past. There’s some perks that go along with having such dedicated fans but we certainly go in very driven, very hungry and work extremely hard to always produce the biggest, best most beautiful music we can write, that’s something that I take immense pride in as I have grown and matured as a songwriter. As a musician, I want to explore those textures and colours and these things that I have learned along the way and implement that in the writing and see if we can come up with something unique, different and fresh. That’s the challenge, every thing has been done, every song has been written. It’s very hard to come up with new material. Being unique is not easy and we have a format that we work in and we have identified what we should like and how to maintain but there’s no reason why we can’t throw in some twists and turns...and reinvent it to a certain degree and try to keep things fresh. We try to give people something that they might not expect, which is what I feel we managed to do on this record.
Do you roll your eyes though when someone prominent (or not) declares that this is the end of guitar music, it seems to happen every couple of years...
S: I gotta tell ya that I think that guitars are coming back. Pop writers, country writers, I’m hearing a lot more from those kind of producers and engineers these days. I think people are ready. It’s making a full circle, it’s been gone for a long time, Pop has really dominated the charts for a very long time. It’s been a lot of electronic music and built-track tunes. I think that we’re pleased to belong to the Metallica and Foo Fighters era, you know, the bands that still take a great deal of ride in playing instruments and figuring out a way to deliver this stuff, strong, powerful and LIVE without depending on computers or pro-tools or any of that crap. To me, there’s no talent in that, there’s no work in that. Yeah, you can work on your dance choreography and make sure your in time with the lip-syncing, in the end, you could pull up any 16yo kid and have him lip-sync to a Justin Bieber song - if he’s a good dancer. And really, what’s the difference between them, other than the credibility lent to it by it being actually Justin Bieber. And I’m not dogging Bieber by the way, it’s just an example. I come from a different world, I feel like I would be robbing our fans if we were just up there running a pro-tools session and we were just air-guitar-ing. We wouldn’t be doing our job at that point and why would we have spent our lives becoming as good musicians as we are if we weren’t going to showcase that.
Don’t worry we probably won’t lead with that...
S: (laughs like a drain) Sully Irma hates Justin Bieber hahahaha!
But with big production, your sets have become a little more elaborate, in terms of FX and design...
S: Yes and no. They have changed. But not in THAT way that it takes away from music. We still do what we do. We’ve toured with a lot of bands, and I won’t name names, but a lot of rock bands that want to sound just like they do on record but they are not willing to but the work into the live show in order to fully replicate it, so they might actually even sound better live. That’s one thing we get good feedback on and, without sounding like I am patting myself on the back, I feel like I deserve to do to that a little bit as we we’ve gotten so many compliments over the years with regard to our live performances and we are extremely proud of that. This band works very hard to replicate what we do on a record for the live show and we sound even better than the album at times and that’s an art and something that I feel we are never going to lose. I would not want to play music any other way. If it came down to it and I had to run track, I think that would be it, I wouldn’t want to do it anymore. I would just sorta writing and producing for other bands.
But surely performance has to be part of the whole package, I’ve been to many concerts where the band just sounds like the record only louder...
S: (agitated) Well that’s why you form a band or become a musician in the first place isn’t it? When you’re sitting in your garage or in your bedroom, and you have a beer and you’re just cranking up your amp and getting out these really cool sounds and that feeling that goes through your body is what addicts you to wanting to e a performer. Why would you want to rob yourself of that later just for perfection. Rock N Roll isn’t supposed to be perfect, there’s a reason why Janis Joplin’s, Hendrix and all those legendary performers were so amazing. There’s something magical about a singer reaching for a note and they crack a little bit and there’s something else to their voice that you didn’t get before. Those kind of moments for me are so immersed in passion that kind of...the emotion is only reached through the music and music has that gift. Music touches you on such an emotional level that it can make your body move in weird ways, it makes ya want to push beyond where you thought you were able to push. And those kind of moments are irreplaceable.
I know you’ve said that you don’t like to name names but I’d like to look back at the band’s roots...which acts do you think paved the way for Godsmack?
S: There’s been so many along the way. In our childhood we were raised on the typical rock n roll icons that many have been inspired by...the Zeppelins, the Black Sabbaths, the Rushes, the Aerosmiths, and then obviously the Metallica, Slayer wave broke through. We were into Judas Priest and Iron Maiden when that whole ‘metal’ movement happened - it was very inspirational. Coming from a city where we were raised on a tougher edge, you know a poor inner city, a lot of crime and violence, it doesn’t surprise me that between the influences of the streets and trying to survive, learning to be tougher and navigating those obstacles has helped us gravitate to a harder style of music. And so, there’s been so many bands along the way that have played an important part in influencing me as a musician and as a songwriter - those bands that I mention are at least half of the journey in getting me to where I am today. And I still continue to be influenced by, you know, jazz artists and blues artists or even Adele and Bruno Mars...there are so many different forms of music that I enjoy listening to just because I feel that those are really well written songs. And that’s where I find myself in my life right now. I enjoy great songwriters. Even people that when I was I younger I may not have appreciated as much as I do now. I’ve studied the Elton Johns, The Beatles, Michael Jackson and discovered just how insanely well written those songs are. And I just go ‘God! I hope one day that my music can be felt in the way that I feel these artists’.
What are some acts/bands that you have heavy on rotation?
S: Oh man, my iTunes playlist is such a variety of stuff that I wouldn’t even know where to begin. But I would say that I am in a phase of my life where I am really looking at songwriters. Great songwriters. Historical songwriters. I really breakdown the stuff to try and find out what it was about that song that made it so great. Why these melodies move me the way that they do. Why does this arrangement seem so complex yet seamless and beautiful. And to me, at least, it does go back to the classics Elton, Ray Charles, Amy Winehouse - she was brilliant, too bad she didn’t leave us with more music. We really got robbed of what she could have been. Some of the iconic people, the ones that I gravitate towards now...I don’t have any tricks up my sleeve or hidden artists that no one has ever heard of...I tend to listen to the biggest and the best, that’s the kind of writing level I am trying to aspire to. Whether for me or other acts.
Do you have any memories or expectations for playing Luxembourg? You were due to play but there was an issue?
S: There was a voice problem. The one and the only time in the history of my career that my voice decide to just hit the off switch and I don’t even really know that happened. If there was a weird allergy attack, I wasn’t like super sick but I was not feeling well and somehow this thing only targeted my vocal chords and it’s the only time I’ve not been able to do a show because my voice decided it was going to go to a whisper. So, yeah, that’s one of my unfortunate memories of Luxembourg and to this day I keep thinking about how badly I wanna get back there. I was so disappointed in myself let alone thinking how disappointed the fans were. Things were going so well, I just really look forward to putting on a good show for those people. I guess, being on the road for twenty years, it was bound to happen. I remember thinking at one point that I was Superman or something being that I hadn’t got sick on tour. It was 15 years at that point having never missed a show and Murphy’s Law.
What is your rider must have?
S: Errrrr....CLEAN SOCKS. There’s nothing better than peeling off a wet pair of sock after you come off stage and just being able to throw them in the trash can and putting on some nice new cottony socks. That’s a good feeling.
What was your take on the event Gillette ad campaign...being that your band is one that is a very masculine take on music?
S: Which campaign was that?
The one about being more ‘woke’ and less toxic?
S: Oh fercrissakes, listen here’s my thoughts in general, I’m not going to go too deep into this. As you know between the liberals and all the other bullshit that goes on in the country sometimes, the bottom line is that I love my country and I love having a free life and being able to do what I do for a living but I gotta tell ya, there’s just some things that I feel get way out of control. This hashtag me too movement is such a tricky thing because of course we all want to be sensitive...I mean, I have a daughter and we don’t want to be subjecting women to being in that kind of danger but there’s also a bunch of bullshit that is going along with this that’s just making people lose perspective. I personally get really irritated and angry about it, I wouldn’t want to be a judge today and try to determine who’s full of shit and who’s legit, it’s gotta be really hard for them. You certainly don’t want to let people get away with doing something that was clearly wrong but at the same time, I feel like there’s a lot of people just capitalizing on that garbage. How far are you going to take it? When is enough enough? Walking around California with vaginas on your baseball cap...I struggle to take it seriously, I’m sorry. People need to get a grip.
Which musicians, living or dead, would you like to have shared a stage with?
S: Oooofff, thats a good one, man. I would have LOVED to have to done some of my solo stuff - as that really gives me the freedom to experiment, there’s no rules and I could bring out my wider blues, jazz, world influences - but I would have loved to have done something with Lisa Gerard (Dead Can Dance). I just love her voice, she’s probably my favorite singer when it comes down to her spiritually and her angelic tones...I find that she inspired things that I have written from as far back as when I wrote Voodoo to my Avalon solo record. I would have to have been able to share a stage with John Bonham or Jimi Hendrix... I would have fronted that band in a second. HA!
What are your hopes then, for the show in Luxembourg?
S: I just want to be able to get there first. Hahah. I want to be able to deliver a great, long-deserved show. Give them something to remember and you know, have a great time. I think they’ll see the one thing that Godsmack does and does really well, we have a very interactive kind of show that puts the audience in it with us. Even if you don’t really know our music and are coming as a friend of a friend, we usually find that people have a good experience of what a Godsmack show is. Over time we’ve become loose and it’s more like we are all hanging out together and sharing music in unity. I’m really looking forward to it, as I feel I owe them something.
I’m buying, is it a beer, a whisky, or a beer with a whisky chaser?
S: Laughs - I don’t really drink beer anymore, so I think we will just stick with the whisky.
In order to win yourself a pair of tickets for this show, please head to our Facebook page and follow the oh so gentle prompts. The competition ends on Friday 1 March at 5pm!
