Shinedown’s Brent Smith Talks New Song ‘Asking For it’, Grand Rapids Show, Axl Rose Fronting AC/DC + More with WGRD [Video]

Shinedown is rocking Van Andel Arena May 4th with Five Finger Death Punch and P.O.D.! It was very cool of frontman Brent Smith to check in with GRD today and get everyone excited for the show!

Brent talked about the band's recent appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live, shared his opinions on Axl Rose finishing up AC/ DC's current tour in place of Brian Johnson, and Shinedown's new single "Asking For It". 

Shinedown kicked ass on Jimmy Kimmel Live on Monday night! Brent is very modest about their awesome performance of their new song "Asking For It":

Jimmy Kimmel is always super rad, his whole organization is super pro. We had a good time... It was actually probably the first television appearance that we weren't on the road for two or three months straight and had to fly in on no sleep, because that's normally when we do television... So we had about two and a half weeks off, so that's probably why we sounded pretty decent and looked pretty decent, because we were a little bit rested."

Believe me, Shinedown sounded more than decent! Check out the video above!

Here's Brent's take on Axl Rose finishing out the rest of the AC/DC tour:

I was a little confused by the whole situation until the other day, because Brian Johnson actually released a statement yesterday about his hearing loss... It's quite tragic on a lot of different levels. I think before he made his statement people were just really angry at Angus and I understood that, because of the iconic voice that is Brian Johnson, but I didn't really know what was going on... Everybody was just making their own assumptions... but from what I  gather from Brian Johnson's statement, he's OK with them bringing Axl in to finish up the dates. It basically came down to the fact that the doctors say with the hearing loss he can't perform in stadiums anymore... it doesn't mean that he can't go into the studio and perform, so I think he's going to continue to make albums with AC/ DC, and hopefully, God willing, he may be able to return to the stage... After reading his statement, now that I know both sides, and it looks as if  Brian Johnson gave his blessing for Axl to come in and do this, so more power to them."

"Asking For It" is the latest single from Shinedown's new album Threat to Survival. Here's what Brent had to say abou the new song:

It's a unique track on the record becuase it was the very first song that was written for what came to be Threat to Survival ... and normally during the writing process we'll write a lot of songs before we go in to record what the album is going to be, anywhere from between 40 and upwards of 60 songs sometimes. 'Asking For It' just kind of held on through the all of the other sessions. It always felt like the opening song to the record, and it is the opening song to the album. As far as subject matter, it's pretty straight forward, be careful of the toes that you step on in life  because they may be the attached to the ass that you have to kiss later on. It just means-- be careful how you treat people, basically, and don't be a jerk. As far as sonically, it's a very classic punk rock style song. I kind of borrowed a little bit from Cheap Trick and Billy Joel... We just shot the video for it about 8 days ago and we're going to do something that's completely not traditional with the music video, it's literally an over the top, just hilarious montage of wonderful chaos... I can't give too  much away. You'll have to see it for yourself when it comes out. Hopefully, within the next week/ two weeks it will be out. It's something that we've never done before, I hope people really dig it."

Can't wait to see the new music video! Check out the full interview with Brent above, stay tuned for updates on the new music video here, and be sure to stick with WGRD to win tickets to the Shinedown, Five Finger Death Punch, P.O.D. show at Van Andel Arena May 4!