Shinedown

Brent Smith started Shinedown in 2001 after his previous band, Dreve, was dropped by Atlantic Records; the label kept Smith under a development deal and helped him find collaborators in Jacksonville. He recruited bassist Brad Stewart, guitarist Jasin Todd and drummer Barry Kerch, the lineup that recorded the band's earliest demos before Zach Myers and Eric Bass eventually joined.

Their debut, Leave a Whisper, arrived in 2003 and paired post-grunge riffing with Smith's wide, gritty tenor, a combination that carried through The Sound of Madness and the records that followed.

Leave a Whisper went platinum in the US, driven by four singles that all reached the top five of Billboard's Mainstream Rock chart, including "45" and a cover of Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Simple Man." The band supported it with more than 400 shows across 2003 and 2004, touring alongside Van Halen, Seether and Three Doors Down.

Songs such as "45," "Second Chance" and "Sound of Madness" became rock-radio staples, and the Skynyrd cover remains one of the band's best-known recordings. Every single Shinedown has released has reached the Mainstream Rock top five, and 23 of them have gone to number one.

Billboard ranked Shinedown the top act in the Mainstream Rock chart's 40-year history in 2021, and the band has sold more than 10 million records worldwide. Later albums, including Attention Attention and Planet Zero, leaned further into arena-scaled arrangements, with Bass handling production duties.