Eric Bass, bassist of the multi-platinum rock band Shinedown and producer of the band’s upcoming album “Planet Zero,” discusses their new music.
The band dropped a thought-provoking and cinematic music video for their lead single “Planet Zero” on Thursday, March 3. Shinedown is addressing a lot of extremely relevant cultural topics on the new album “Planet Zero,” which will be released on April 22 on Atlantic Records.
Song selection process for ‘Planet Zero’ LP
On the song selection approach for the new album, Bass said, “Honestly, it just happened organically. We started writing, and out of the gate, the subject matter started to present itself. The last song on the record ‘What You Wanted’ was the first song that we wrote. We tried to write some other subject matter but it didn’t feel right. We pride ourselves in writing what we know and writing honestly.”
“In history, it was the first time where everyone on Earth was living the same reality at the same time. We felt the need to talk about that otherwise, it would be disingenuous. The songs just presented themselves and they wrote themselves. It was a very fluid and easy process because we were all going through these moments at the same time and we wrote what we saw and what we felt,” he added.
Bass listed the closing track “What You Wanted” as his personal favorite song on the record because it takes fans “on a journey.” “It was a nice commentary that tied everything in a nice bow, and it encapsulates everything you just listened to. Sonically, ‘What You Wanted’ is a little different than everything you’ve heard on the album. It’s an epilogue of what you listened to. I just enjoy that song a lot,” he elaborated.
“This was the most difficult Shinedown record I’ve ever made, but I hope the love and the heartache all come through, and it makes the fans feel something. That’s all we care about and that’s all we want. We want the fans to feel alive, inspired, and educated in a way as well,” he added.
Songwriting and music inspirations
On their music and songwriting inspirations, Bass said, “Musically and sonically, I want to create sounds that I don’t hear very often and things that make me excited. Trying to find things that I don’t feel like I would normally hear is what inspires me. Sometimes you achieve that, sometimes you don’t.”
“I am inspired by creating and making songs. Each song is different, each song has its own beating heart and it comes from a different place,” he added.
The digital age
On being an artist in the digital age, Bass said, “You have growing pains with that, for sure. I’m older, I got into this business when they were selling CDs in stores, where they kept track of who was buying the music and who was interested. Now, it’s a whole different ballgame.”
“These days your income is coming from a different place, it’s not coming from selling a product, it’s coming from touring. Also, how you quantify what a gold or platinum record is completely different now,” he said.
“The hardest thing for me personally about the digital age is the promotion side of things and being on social media. We’ve had to adapt to putting ourselves out there in a different way and trying to be more present on social media. For me, it’s about trying to stay relevant in the digital age,” he added.
Regarding the title of the current chapter of his life, Bass said, “Acceptance.” “I have a lot of acceptance right now with myself,” he admitted. “Also, acceptance that I have gained a lot of wisdom. I have a lot more to offer as a human being, and I am accepting where I am in my life. I have gratitude for where I am right now. I am really trying to embrace all of that.”
‘The Saints of Violence and Innuendo’
He also opened up about the tune “The Saints of Violence and Innuendo,” which is geared towards “the people running big tech.” “In our eyes, they seem to thrive on divisiveness,” he said.
“Sometimes, these big tech companies can pick and chose what can be said and what can’t be said. Shinedown is very much about bringing people together,” he added.
The “Planet Zero” single introduces it all with a study in cancel culture run rampant and a warning about how we are dehumanizing one another when we don’t agree on an issue.
With more than 4.5 billion global streams and platinum or gold certification for all of their albums, Shinedown is a major force in the rock world, and one of the most popular and successful modern rock bands of the last couple of decades.
Shinedown was named No. 1 on Billboard’s Greatest Of All Time Mainstream Rock Artists Chart, after notching the most ever #1s in the 40-year history of the Mainstream Rock Songs Chart.
“Planet Zero” provokes a thoughtful question about if cancel culture has gone past the point of holding people accountable for bad words and actions that deserve it, into people shutting down anyone that has a different perspective or opinion that they don’t agree with.
The video brings to life a glimpse of a dystopian future (complete with a menacing A.I. character Cyren from the album’s interludes who we hear at the end of the music video) that warns of the dangerous consequences of constantly canceling each other and erasing differing viewpoints from the conversation.
Dream collaboration choices
Bass shared that he would love to work with Tom Morello from Rage Against the Machine. “I would love to do something with Tom, he is such a creative guy. I respect him a lot. I would like to collaborate with Tim Commerford and Brad Wilk from Rage Against the Machine as well,” he said.
“I am also a fan of Canadian artist Lights. I would love to work with her too. I really did her music, she is one of my favorite singer-songwriters. I love her lyrics and I love her delivery and her voice is beautiful,” Bass added.
Shinedown is saying that if we shut each other down, we lose empathy, our humanity, and our ability to communicate in a way that leads to actual progress and understanding – and that hateful speech and evil voices may even become harder to detect because it just goes underground where it becomes stronger and more insidious which makes it harder to recognize and combat head-on.
Planet Zero was written for everyone regardless of background or affiliation with the hope that our culture can stop looking at each other as demographics or talking points and start seeing each other as people with individual life experiences and perspectives.
Part potent social commentary and part in-depth exploration of the human psyche, the Planet Zero album takes on the increasingly toxic division among those of differing ideologies in our culture, the need for honesty in our public discourse, cancel culture, and the corrosive effects of social media on society and mental health. There is also triumph, hope, and reminders that we all need one another on this album.
The band’s “The Revolution’s Live” U.S. Tour kicks off April 1 with their biggest stage production they have ever had. The Pretty Reckless and Diamante are opening for Shinedown as their special musical guests.
Success
Bass defined the word success as “doing what you love every day.” “I would be doing music even if I didn’t make any money doing it, and I did for a long time. I love playing music, writing music, producing music, and being a studio rat, that’s success,” he said.
“Success is loving what you do on a daily basis and loving the people around you while you do it,” he added.
“In my personal life, I have been married to a woman that I have been with for 28 years, that’s success,” he acknowledged.
Their “Planet Zero” album is available for pre-order by clicking here. “I hope this album makes the fans think, that’s the whole idea of it. We want to give them a glimpse of the world through a lens they may have not seen before. We need to learn to have empathy for each other. Sonically, this record is very fun and the songs are amazing,” he concluded.
To learn more about Shinedown and their new music, check out their official website.
