Shinedown singer Brent Smith has recalled the moment when drummer Barry Kerch expressed serious concern about his health during a difficult tour cycle. Smith discussed the experience in an interview with Rick Beato.
Smith was struggling with withdrawal while touring behind the album Threat to Survival, the band’s fifth record released in 2015. He was candid about how challenging that period was for him and his bandmates.
“That album cycle was my withdrawal, like two years of being on it,” Smith said. “It’s interesting when I think about that album because it was the fifth record. It was literally called Threat to Survival.”
Smith stressed the importance of the people around him during that time.
“But the only reason I was able to get out of it was because I had such a support system,” he added.
It was during the tour for that album that Kerch made a direct appeal to Smith about the state of his health.
“I remember Barry saying to me at one point in time during that tour … ‘I don’t want to watch you die,'” Smith recalled.
The comments were made during a discussion about Smith’s recovery and the role his bandmates played in helping him through a period when he was performing while dealing with serious personal struggles.
Smith’s account shows how the concern and honesty of those closest to him proved critical during one of the most difficult chapters of his life.
Smith had experienced a serious setback with his addiction in 2014, and while he was clean during the Threat to Survival tour, he was still dealing with withdrawal symptoms. During a performance at The Mayan Theater in Los Angeles, the physical effects became so severe that he believed he might not survive. The album itself had been intentionally structured with five producers and eight mixers, and the record spawned three number one hits on the Billboard Mainstream Rock Airplay chart: “Cut the Cord,” “State of My Head” and “How Did You Love.”
Kerch, who joined Shinedown as drummer in 2000 and is an original member of the band alongside Smith, stood by him through this crisis. The support from his bandmates proved essential during what Smith describes as a time of really difficult personal issues for everyone in the band. The honest concern they showed him helped him stay the course toward recovery.
Smith achieved sobriety in March 2016 and has maintained it since. His next album, Attention Attention, released in 2018, marked a major milestone as the first record he wrote, recorded and toured fully sober. That achievement represented not just a personal victory for Smith but also a testament to the relationships within the band that had sustained him through his darkest period.
