SHINEDOWN frontman Brent Smith has revealed that he and his bandmates are currently in Malibu, California working with Grammy Award-nominated multi-platinum songwriter and record producer Dave Bassett on material for their upcoming album. The follow-up to 2018's "Attention Attention" is being recorded in part at bassist and producer Eric Bass's new studio in Charleston, South Carolina for a tentative late 2021 release. Smith took to SHINEDOWN's Instagram Wednesday night (March 24) to write: "So to everybody that has been curious about what is going on in the land of @Shinedown here is an update. We are primarily focusing on writing at this point. We never rush the creative process especially when it comes to writing the songs as they are constantly being revised. Lyrics will change, melodies can change until we are fundamentally all in the right place with one another, before the actual recording of the album begins. Yes we demo all of the material, and yes we are constantly studying how each, and every song makes us feel emotionally from the very first day it is written, and demoed, all the way up until we are ready to record what will ultimately become the album version... "We began writing in June of 2020, and we are currently still in that process. Now that being said we must be honest with all of you guys, and girls we never want to make the same album twice, it's not in our nature, and quite frankly it's not who we are. Certain artist have a very specific style that works for them, and they will focus primarily on that style, and we say more power to them, and if it ain't broke don't fix it... That being said we as a band must constantly embark on the next level. Our Fanbase 'Family' deserves our absolute BEST, and that can take time. "Our audience is our entire world. We have often said that 'We only have one boss, it just happens to be everyone in the audience' and we take that VERY seriously. Something else behind the scenes that is beyond crucial is the fact that our record label of 20 years @atlanticrecords and our management @indegoot allows us the time, and resources we need to make these kinds of records/albums. Believe us when we say it takes a village, because it does, and we never take that for granted... SOOOOOOO that being said, it's time to get back to work." Last September, Smith told the KLOS radio show "Whiplash" that he and Bass were looking to make a more organic-sounding album this time around. "We've kind of proven that we can make these very large records, these very cinematic, orchestrated records with this wall of sound," he said. "What we wanna try to do with this album is we do want to hone it back down to drums, bass, guitar and vocals and the best songs that we can write and the freshest songs we can write with the most tenacity and the most ferociousness that we can express. So I don't think this time around we're going to necessarily look at the handbook of, 'Let's layer this record like we've layered other records, and let's keep adding to it so that it grows.' I think more the idea of big mono on this album, it's more about stereo and putting all of the sonics down the middle. But you don't have a hundred tracks on a song; you don't take a 22-piece orchestra and bring it in there. We've done that, and we've done those kinds of records, and we love those records, and we love that sound, but I think what we wanna do with this next record is we really want to focus on being a four-piece band, and let's see if we can peel the paint off of the walls with just the fury of the four of us in a room." In August, SHINEDOWN broke the record for the most No. 1s ever in the 39-year history of the Billboard Mainstream Rock Songs chart, scoring its 16th No. 1 hit with "Atlas Falls". This also marked the band's 17th No. 1 on the Mediabase Active Rock chart and its sixth consecutive No. 1, following "How Did You Love", "Devil", "Get Up", "Monsters" and "Attention Attention". Originally written in 2013, "Atlas Falls" was first made available from SHINEDOWN's vault in March 2020 as part of an exclusive song and T-shirt bundle for the band's COVID-19 fundraising effort.
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