It’s not always easy to know when to let things go. That’s not said in a bad way, either — not everything that once was needs to keep being. It seems as though Godsmack have reached that point, at least as far as their recording career goes. The Massachusetts rock act’s newly released Lighting Up the Sky is the band’s eighth album over their near 30-year career, and from all indications, their last. But for frontman Sully Erna, bassist Robbie Merrill, drummer Shannon Larkin, and guitarist Tony Rombola, it was a decision that came with deep thought on how their musical aspirations affect their personal lives.
For Godsmack, it’s time.
Over the years, they’ve given us a string of memorable rock hits. But even though music has been a big part of the band’s collective lives since 1995, it’s not the only part of their lives. Sometimes as a fan, it’s easy to forget that the musicians and artists we idolize are really just people at the end of the day. They’ve got families, birthdays, anniversaries — things that as regular folks we have the advantage of celebrating without the confines of public pressure. It’s only fair that at some point, these musicians and artists want to do that, too. Erna ruminates over this in an interview with Heavy Consequence, showing a different and perhaps more openly tender side to a band who’s been hard and heavy for decades.
Read the conversation below, and pick up tickets to Godsmack’s recently announced spring US tour via Ticketmaster or StubHub.
You’ve mentioned that this is likely the last Godsmack album and I’m wondering… why?
Sully Erna: Isn’t everyone? Funny. Well, we’ve come to this realization that it’s time because — and I say this as humbly as I can — we’re coming up on almost 30 years of the band being together. We have 26 Top 10 singles and 12 number ones. I mean, God, this record we’re feeling is probably the best work we’ve ever done. At what point do we start honoring the career and the music and putting together our greatest hits show? Who wants to go see Aerosmith and not hear “Dream On” and “Same Old Song and Dance,” and all the greatest songs that have been the soundtrack to our lives? I would have to assume after three decades of being out there and working as much as we have creating this catalog, that we would want to be able to honor that, so when fans come on the show, they don’t have to sit through the whole new record and the stuff that they’re just waiting to hear.
We’ve missed a lot of years with our children and our families and friends. It’s actually a very emotional time right now, for us to be thinking we’re going to close this chapter, but we’re gonna open a new chapter. We’re not announcing a breakup. We’re not announcing the farewell tour. At this point, we just want to get out there and have fun with our career and have fun with the fans and be able to put our time into the live shows, but also be able to just take some time to ourselves when this is over and not have to feel the pressure of a timeline.
