Shinedown

Melodic hard rockers Shinedown hail from Jacksonville, Florida and originally featured vocalist Brent Smith, guitarist Jasin Todd, bassist Brad Stewart, and drummer Barry Kerch. Snapped up by Atlantic Records during the early-2000s flurry of post-Creed and Nickelback signings, the group released its debut album, Leave a Whisper, in 2003. Whisper ended up doing quite well for the band (eventually going platinum), aided by its single, "Fly from the Inside." Shinedown also supported it with a heroic slate of live shows, remaining on tour for most of 2004. The following year the band issued a live album documenting those shows, then returned in October 2005 with its sophomore effort, Us and Them, which went gold. The band underwent a few lineup changes in the years to follow, re-emerging in 2008 as a quintet that included Smith and Kerch along with guitarists Nick Perri and Zach Myers and bass player Eric Bass.

The long-awaited Sound of Madness, featuring Grammy-winning producer Rob Cavallo (Goo Goo Dolls, Green Day), arrived in July. In 2009, the band parted ways with Nick Perri and continued on as a quartet. Fitting with its driving sound, the band loaned some of its songs to the WWE to use during their pay-per-view events, as well as a number of other soundtracks, all the while touring for Sound of Madness. All this touring eventually led to a CD/DVD set, 2011's Somewhere in the Stratosphere, which featured a pair of complete live sets from their Carnival of Madness and Anything & Everything tours. Preceded by the emotionally charged first single "Bully," the band's fourth studio album, Amaryllis, was released in the spring of 2012. ~ Eduardo Rivadavia, Rovi