2001-Brent SmithVocals
Jasin ToddGuitar2001-2007
Brad StewartBass2001-2006
Barry KerchDrums
Zach MyersGuitar2005-
Eric BassBass2008-
Shinedown formed in Jacksonville, Florida, but are not the most famous band from there: That would be Lynyrd Skynyrd. The bands have a connection: Shinedown's original guitarist Jasin Todd is married to Melody Van Zant, daughter of Skynyrd's frontman Ronnie, who died in 1977. In 2004 Shinedown released a very popular acoustic cover of Skynyrd's "
Simple Man" that became a staple of their live shows.
Shinedown's bass player, appropriately, is named Eric Bass, although he pronounces it like the fish, not the instrument. It's his real name, not a stage name like Alicia Keys, who chose it to tie in with her piano playing.
One of the singles from Shinedown's second album, Us and Them, "I Dare You," was famously performed by Chris Daughtry during his stint on American Idol. The song also became a theme for Wrestlemania 22.
Shinedown released three different versions of their 2005 album Us and Them. There is the regular 13-track version, a limited edition edition that includes three bonus tracks, as well as a more widely available version with two bonus tracks.
Shinedown's most famous song is "
Second Chance" from their third album,
The Sound of Madness. The song is about lead singer Brent Smith's second chance: After his band Dreve were dropped by Atlantic Records they signed him to a development deal that led to Shinedown.
Bass player Brad Stewart and guitarist Jasin Todd were both booted from the band around 2007 because of conflicts with their bandmates. Their replacements, Eric Bass and Zach Myers, got along much better with Brent Smith and became more active in the creative process, often writing songs with Smith. Bass became the band's producer starting with their 2018 album Attention Attention.
Shinedown contributed the song "
Diamond Eyes (Boom-Lay Boom-Lay Boom)" to the 2010 Sylvester Stallone film
The Expendables. Stallone is the one who told them to incorporate "Boom-Lay Boom" into the song - it's a reference to a poem that helped inspire the film.
Shinedown lead singer Brent Smith has described writing and recording a studio album as a "journey, finding out where you are in your life, not only as a person, but where you are as an artist and as a musician and how far you've come and how far you've grown."
The tour rider for Shinedown is full of fun. The guys constantly remind promoters of their southern origin which accounts for "good ole fried chicken," "Snapple sweet tea" and "the true taste of Coca-Cola." They joke about the purpose of the Grape-flavored Pedialite they request, which is "guaranteed to cure a hangover, or if we find a sick baby." The rider also contains a funny warning: "no purple skittles, purple is for terrorists." The last wish on the rider is for a special surprise that all band members can enjoy and they list some examples like "trinket, water guns,a million dollars, Asian hooker."
Bassist Eric Bass admitted to City Beat magazine having a fairly un-rock 'n' roll hobby. "More recently, I have started building model airplanes," he said in a 2013 interview. "I needed a quiet hobby I can sit in my house and do. It is something I have found solace in. It may be a little geeky, a little nerdy, but it is fun."
Shinedown are extremely popular on rock radio, as evidenced by their dominance on Billboard's Mainstream Rock chart. In 2025 they became the first band to total 20 #1 hits on that chart when "
Dance, Kid, Dance" reached the top.
Brent Smith says he was addicted to alcohol, cocaine and OxyContin from 2003-2008. He was able to quit cocaine and Oxy, but he gained a lot of weight and struggled to stop drinking. He was able to lose the weight, dropping 70 pounds in 2011, but he didn't get fully sober until about 2016.
"There's another person in me, and that other part of me is trying to end me," he said on the
Lipps Service podcast. "I have a very addictive personality, so I was never doing drugs or drinking to have a good time, I was doing it to fall down - I was doing it just to make the day go away."
Eric Bass struggles with clinical depression, which is reflected in songs like "
A Symptom of Being Human."
"It's hard to talk about sometimes because I don't want to seem like a victim, but this thing shows up and takes over," he
explained to Songfacts. "Then I have those moments of clarity where I can step outside of it and feel what it used to be like when there wasn't this cloud around me."
Brent Smith is their main songwriter and has co-written almost all of their original songs, either with his bandmates or with outside writers like Dave Bassett, who wrote with Smith on "Second Chance," "
If You Only Knew," and about two dozen other songs for Shinedown. He's also written with Rachel Platten ("
Fight Song") and Halestorm ("
Love Bites (So Do I)").
