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Smith and Myers Discuss Challenge of Mixing Original Songs With Creative Covers on New Album
The duo's debut studio album 'Smith & Myers Vol. 1' is due out October 9
By Marty Rosenbaum -August 21, 2020
Brent Smith and Zach Myers have a dubious task at hand. The duo have put out recordings of cover songs together under the moniker Smith & Myers, but up until this point haven’t released any original material.
Back in 2014, Smith & Myers released two EP’s called Acoustic Sessions, which consisted of covers from the likes of Adele, The Clash, Otis Redding, Phil Collins, and more. With the duo’s release of their debut album Smith & Myers Vol. 1 on October 9, Zach Myers tells RADIO.COM the record “is more of an introduction rather than a reintroduction.”
“I think most people know us from Shinedown, but this project has garnered fans of its own which makes me really happy and makes me realize how naturally people come to music. This is the first time we've ever written songs for this project and so I hope people come to it organically. I hope they enjoy what they hear and it means something for them and these songs touch them,” he added.
On top of trying to introduce a new project during the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, the duo is also sharing original songs for the very first time. They’ve taken a simplified approach with this project and have stripped away aspects of their music that fans may associate with Shinedown. “At its core, it’s one instrument and a vocal, a story, and a song,” Brent Smith said.
That was a deliberate choice for Smith & Myers. Let the storytelling, the songwriting, and the songs be the focus. “It’s all about the rawness,” Smith said. “The vulnerability, but it’s also about the storyline, the story telling, and really showcasing the songs.”
Smith & Myers are also carving a new path with the content of songs like “Not Mad Enough” by touching on social issues. Myers felt compelled to write the song in the immediate aftermath of George Floyd’s death. “A song like ‘Not Mad Enough’ is about right and wrong,” Myers said. “We watched a man die, on national TV, in high definition. It doesn't matter what his path was. He shouldn't have died and we shouldn't have had to write that song.”
“The reason we are touching on social issues now is that we can't sit here and watch the world change in the way that it's changing and not comment on it,” he added.
Smith & Myers not only shared “Not Mad Enough” to coincide with the announcement of their debut album, they also dropped a fantastic cover of Neil Young’s “Rockin’ In The Free World.”
While the Neil Young cover may fall in line with other rock songs they’ve played in the past, Smith wasn’t afraid to share the most outrageous song they planned to cover.
“The most outrageous cover song would probably be when I brought ‘Better Now’ by Post Malone to the table,” he said.
“Nobody knew how we were going to do it, but I had it laid out in my head. It's quite simple the way that we did it. I think it turned out awesome and I'm a huge fan of Post Malone, so it was just an excuse to put a Post Malone song on our record.”
Like their original material, Smith says each cover song on the record served a purpose. “We tried to focus on the lyrical content for these cover songs - it was all about the song and the structure,” he said. “There were a bunch of songs that I wish we could have done, but we feel like the songs that are there are the ones that were meant to be there.”
