In America, when it comes to hard rock, few bands could hope to attain the kind of success that Godsmack have. The Massachusetts group have had three consecutive number-one albums on the Billboard 200, and 6th August was recently declared “Godsmack Day” in the city of Boston.
But when speaking to drummer Shannon Larkin, a veteran who’s enjoyed stints with several bands, including a one-set spot with Black Sabbath, the conversation regularly turns to the world outside of the US. “The Angels were one of the greatest bands in the history of music,” he tells Music Feeds.
In what Shannon describes as the band’s “last ditch attempt” to expand outside of the US, Godsmack have armed themselves with new LP 1000hp, which they’ll soon support in Australia as part of the recently announced Soundwave 2015 lineup. After a four-year break, the new album serves as both a homecoming for the group and, Shannon hopes, their debut onto the world stage.
Music Feeds: How did it feel coming back to record an album after four years this time around?
Shannon Larkin: It felt great. We needed some time apart after The Oracle. The tour, we were off and on almost two years on that one. So we took a break from each other’s faces for a while and all did some side-projects and different kinds of music and took a step away from Godsmack for a while.
When we got back together, it reminded us of how much we like playing together, how much we like making music together.
MF: Sully said recently that during the break there was a question mark hanging over whether you guys would come back. Are you able to elaborate on that at all?
SL: It was mainly Sully. The three of us pretty much go with the flow and we’ve been doing this for a long time together. Sully gets… he’s like a jack of many trades, y’know? He owns a recording studio, he’s a producer, he likes to act, he acts in movies and TV shows over here, so he’s always got all kinds of stuff going. Whereas the three of us just play music.
We do other bands on the side, blues bands and funk bands, and just try and always play. So I could see where Sully might’ve felt that it might be time to move on, but honestly the three of us never thought that and we knew… that old adage of don’t know what you got till it’s gone?
After a year or so we got back in touch with each other and we pretty much knew that we would get back together and make more music. It’s what we’ve done for the last 15 years.
Watch: Godsmack – 1000hp
MF: Did that impact the recording process at all or was it smooth sailing from the get-go?
SL: Tony, our guitar player, he lives in Florida where I live, and Sully and Robbie live up in Boston. And Tony and I have this studio down [in Flordia] where we write and record demos and stuff.
When we first started talking about writing more music, Sully and Robbie said, “Well, we’re gonna come down to Florida and hang out with you guys for a couple weeks and just get our bearings and see how everything feels.” And by the end of those two weeks, we basically had like 16 songs pretty much put together, which ended up being like 90 percent of the record.
So after two weeks, we took another two weeks off and made the plan to get back to Boston where our headquarters is and get back to work on it. Once we all got in the same room is when everything felt like we hadn’t even been apart for a week, let alone a year.
MF: One of the reasons we ask is because Sully said recently that you guys are “fired up again.” Was there something specific that happened to achieve that? Was it just getting back together? Did it feel at all like a reunion?
SL: Yeah, that was totally it. Just putting us in the same room with our drums and guitars and basses. It just felt natural. We’ve made many records and played thousands of shows together. It’s like riding a bike, we just got right back on it. Everything clicked, man.
And, you know, there’s been drama in the past… whatever, we’re dudes that live together, pretty much. Especially on a record cycle, we ride on buses together, planes, trains, automobiles. We’re in each other’s face constantly. Even with your family you get sick of people after a while and you need some time apart and when you get back together you realise how much you enjoy being with them.
This record was the easiest record we’ve ever made as far as any kind of arguing or getting on each other’s nerves. There was really none of that. It was pretty much all business and it was fun, too, because the ideas were just flowing like water.
MF: This is the second album with Dave Fortman. We’ve found that different members of a band will often have a different opinion of a producer or engineer because of how they may treat a particular instrument. What has working with him a second time been like?
SL: Well, the great thing about Fortman is I was in this band called Ugly Kid Joe in the ’90s, I was the drummer and Dave was the guitarist and so we made records and toured the world together for close to seven years back in the ’90s. So I’d already known him like a brother.
So when I brought Dave Fortman to the attention of the band, before The Oracle, I knew that he’s just such a cool guy and he’s such a great engineer and such a great producer, that if Sully liked him personally, I knew he would get the gig and be able to help produce The Oracle, which he did. It wasn’t even a question of using a different guy this time.
Being a producer, you gotta have great ears, of course, and he’s a true producer where he’ll put his two cents in arrangement-wise — he’s there from the start of pre-production to the end of mastering — but another great thing about [Dave], and it’s a trait that all of the greatest producers have, is they also have to be somewhat of a psychiatrist.
Us band guys are known to be freaks and have huge egos and explode into arguments or drunken behaviour at any moment. And Dave is always there with something funny that breaks the tension in the room and I always say that if he wasn’t a great producer, he would’ve been a comedian in another life, because the dude is hilarious.
And not only that, but he’s also one of those multi-instrumentalist guys that can play drums, guitar, bass, he can sing like a bird, he plays piano, so if there’s an idea that he has for any one of us, he can actually pick up our instrument and say, “Try it like this.” So that’s really beneficial as a producer.
Watch: Godsmack – I Stand Alone
MF: The music scene has gone through countless changes and trends since Godsmack first released an album, but you’ve always stuck to the sound that fans know and love you for. Were there moments where you guys toyed with switching up the formula entirely?
SL: Absolutely, man. It’s funny because we’ll read reviews and some of them will be, “It’s classic Godsmack, sounds just like the last record.” But honestly each record we try to do something different, because as musicians, players, we don’t wanna keep making the same record over and over again.
However, our favourite bands, basically AC/DC and the Ramones, had a formula that was tight and original and if they’d have changed, we would’ve hated it. For instance, on the IV record, we each felt that that record went in a more bluesy rock record, rather than the Faceless record, which was much more militant and metal sounding with David Bottrill producing and stuff.
And then after the IV record, we turned around and did an acoustic record EP, The Other Side, which was completely different, we never used acoustic guitars on our records and then The Oracle, of course, we tried to go back and make our heaviest record with that one.
With this new one we kind of tried to go to our punk rock roots of the Ramones. Four-chord choruses with down-stroking and sixteenth notes on the high-hat. Y’know, trying to keep the energy level up to 1000 horsepower or whatever.
We strive to change our sound a little each record, but I’ll mention AC/DC and The Ramones again, man. We don’t want to change too much and alienate the people who’ve made us who we are, which are our fans and the people that enjoy our music.
MF: You guys are pretty notorious for the relentlessness of your tour schedules in the past. We’ve heard you recount the story of Dimebag Darrell looking at your touring schedule and being struck by disbelief. Do you think that impacted the band negatively in any way? Maybe interpersonally? Or would you do it all over again the same way?
SL: Well, y’know, that’s a great question. And I think that it was necessary in the early days. We’re kind of like that band, that’s why we haven’t been to your country yet and we definitely wanna come there and we’ve signed a record deal with a label that I think [is gonna get us down] to Australia.
We’re kinda like The Angels, you know? Angel City. We’re really big in our own country but around the world we haven’t had that kind of success. And I think a lot of it was due to the hard touring that we did in the earlier days. Selling the band and selling our music by getting in people’s faces, whether it was a 500-seat club and then working our way up to a 10,000-seat arena.
But I mention The Angels, it’s one of those things that we still haven’t given up on, as far as we will come to Australia even if we have to play the clubs or whatever. Though I must say that we hope to get on a festival down there so that we can at least play in front of bigger crowds.
But we will do what we have to do, we’re not getting younger. It’ll be 20 years next year that Godsmack has been a band. And this is kind of our last ditch attempt to try and go around the world and be successful in other countries. It’s not for lack of trying, I’ll say that.
MF: Do you think there’s something specific that’s been a roadblock in that respect?
SL: I don’t. I mean, have you heard of The Angels?
MF: Absolutely.
SL: They were, to me, one of the greatest bands in the history of music and yet for some reason they just didn’t make it in America. And believe me, man, me and all my friends growing up on the East Coast of America, we loved The Angels. They were called Angel City over here, and we tried to spread the word. I don’t know why, but it just didn’t happen.
I don’t know, it could be just the nature of the world. I don’t think anything has obstructed us. It’s just it could be… I don’t know, man. All’s I know is there’s some great bands that have gotten famous and huge in their own country and recognised for how great they are and it just doesn’t happen elsewhere for whatever reason.
Watch: The Angels – Dogs Are Talking
MF: It’s funny you should mention breaking through in Australia with a festival. You guys were actually announced just this morning as part of Soundwave Festival. You weren’t aware of that?
SL: No! We got it?
MF: You sure did. You’re on the lineup.
SL: Yeah, baby! That’s rad. That is great! That makes me really happy, man. I tell you, I was in this punk band from Los Angeles called Amen and we went down there and did a festival called Big Day Out, and oh my god, that must’ve been 15 years ago I was in that band, and I’ll never forget it and I loved Australia.
It was just a beautiful country, I had a blast down there. I’ve had my fingers crossed for a while now hoping we’d get a festival. So that must’ve happened real recently, that’s great news.
MF: Oh, it happened exactly one hour ago.
SL: Nice! Now I’m stoked, so we’re coming to Australia, baby. That’s awesome
MF: What have you got planned for Australia? You’ve said you’ve been hoping to hear news like this for a while. Is there a perfect gig that you’ve created in your mind?
SL: Well, we know that, for one, it’s a country we’ve never been to. So we’re not big there. In America it’s all pretty much radio, it’s run by radio. If radio plays your songs and likes you, then you’re successful and you can draw crowds.
But down there in Australia, we don’t have radio hits that we have to play, so we can put together what we feel is the best set to kick everybody’s ass. Whereas here, there’s pretty much 12 songs in our set that we have to play, because they’re hit songs and if we don’t play ’em we’ll piss our fan base off.
But we don’t have that stigma down there, so we’ll be able to put together the baddest ass set we can imagine. That’ll be great.
MF: Last question. You’re a big blues fan. What would be your ideal blues band, if you could play with any three or four musicians?
SL: Well, if it’s a one-guitar player band I would have to pick Jimi Hendrix over Stevie Ray Vaughan, but it would be one of those two guys obviously on the guitar. Or the late, great Johnny Winter, who we just lost, was probably my third favourite.
Bass players, oh my god, I would have to say John Paul Jones. Some people say that Led Zeppelin isn’t blues but the blues that I grew up on was mainly heavy blues and the English blues, who got it from us American guys down in the South.
But I’m not quite that old to have gotten into the Robert Johnsons and all that. So my blues is kind of what the English was regurgitating as blues when I was young in the early ’70s. I would say John Paul Jones, Jimi Hendrix, and I guess I would be the drummer, right?
MF: Of course.
SL: But as a vocalist, oh my gosh, again I might have to go with the grit of Johnny Winter. I loved everything he sang, man.
Godsmack’s new album, ‘1000hp’, is out Friday, 29th August. They will appear alongside Slipknot, Faith No More, Soundgarden and more at Soundwave Festival 2015.
Watch: Godsmack – Cryin’ Like A Bitch!!
