GODSMACK's SULLY ERNA On 'When Legends Rise': 'We Really Feel This Is Probably The Best Record We've Written Since Our First Album'

Mindy Novotny of Milwaukee FM radio station 102.9 The Hog recently conducted an interview with GODSMACK frontman Sully Erna. You can listen to the entire chat via the SoundCloud widget below. A few excerpts follow (transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET).

On the band's new "When Legends Rise" studio album:

Sully: "It's an expansion from what we've done over the years and I think just a sign of our growth and our maturity and developing some textures for the fans and also maintaining the integrity of what we built the core audience off of. We're really hoping to accomplish that. I think it's a big, fat, powerful rock record. It has a lot of great hooks in it. I'm really excited for people to spend some time with it. I think they're going to be pleasantly surprised when they hear the rest of this record."

On balancing their new approach versus sticking to their core sound:

Sully: "There's also a lot of stuff on here for the core audience. We just wanted to take Side A and for those of you who don't know what Side A is, there was a thing called vinyl once. [Laughs] The first part of this record, the first five or six songs is certainly a new chapter in our career. The back half of this record certainly gives toward the core audience. Just take a listen for yourself and you guys can judge whether it's something you love or you don't. We really feel this is probably the best record we've written since our first album."

On the "director's cut" for the video of lead single "Bulletproof":

Sully: "As they say, comedy is nothing more than reality exaggerated and it's not really too far off from our world and what we've been trying to do with expanding our audience and just trying to have some fun with ourselves and not take everything so seriously and be so angry and blah, blah, blah. Our management pitched us with some directors who were obviously ridiculous with some of their ideas. It wasn't working out, so we called my cousin from Sicily and you obviously know the rest!"

On the band's forthcoming co-headlining world tour with SHINEDOWN:

Sully: "We're super-tight with them and we spent a lot of time talking amongst each other about designing a really big, great, huge show."

On not staying in a musical "box" with "When Legends Rise":

Sully: "That's the point of this new record. There's certainly some fans out there that are raising their eyebrows going 'Hey, what is this? What's going on here?' But again, there's one comment like that to 150 comments who are really loving this record and feeling relieved that there's a fresh new sound out there."

On the lyrical contents of "Bulletproof":

Sully: "I never write fictionally; I always write about something that affects me on an emotional level and usually through true events that have happened in my life. I went through a pretty crazy transitional period a couple of years ago where I decided to remove myself from all negative people and drama and things like that and decided to start living my life the way that I wanted and just start having fun with this."

"When Legends Rise" is GODSMACK's first release through BMG after splitting with its longtime home, Republic/Universal.

GODSMACK will perform at several music festivals this spring and summer, before launching a tour with SHINEDOWN on July 22 in Clarkston, Michigan.