Back in 2022, Godsmack vocalist/guitarist Sully Erna had much to say about the multi-platinum hard rock group’s eighth studio album “Lighting Up The Sky” being their last. At the time, Erna seemed fairly certain about their transition to a legacy band, telling 93x at the time:
“This is the last record we’re ever gonna do. This is the last run around the mill for us. We put every single ounce of energy and emotion into this album. Especially for me, when I wrote a lot of these songs, it was about my life journey.”
Expanding more on that in that conversation, Erna did admittedly leave himself some wiggle room, as he stated:
“I wanna make sure people are clear about what we’re saying here. I’m not saying that the band may be breaking up. What I’m saying is I think this may be the last body of work you get musically from the band. And it’s because we’re in this place in our lives right now where we’ve done a lot of work over the last three decades.
Without sounding egotistical, which we’re not trying to do, we’re at 27 Top 10 singles, 11 number ones. We could literally do back-to-back nights in an arena and play 15 songs a night and never play the same single twice, let alone the ‘B’ cuts. And we started thinking, when we were in that thought process, why are we in here grinding all the time and doing this new music when we wanna just also know that we’ve never stopped in the 25 years we’ve been touring.
We’d like to be able to enjoy our lives, our family, our houses, the things that we’ve earned over the years that we’ve sacrificed. So I think the balance for that, the happy medium, is to be able to just go out there now and continue to do live shows and put the greatest-hits show together.
I don’t know what we’re gonna do after this record. And it doesn’t make sense to continue to do music. It really feels complete in a good way, in a positive way. We feel like we’ve honored our career, our relationships with our fans, and we’re always gonna be there for them; we’re gonna do shows. But as far as to continue this, after this [album], unless we just decide one day, ‘Yeah, one more for the road,’ I think this could be it for us with new music.”
Of course, much has changed in the years since Erna made those comments, including the departures of key members Tony Rombola & Shannon Larkin earlier this year. Whether or not their exit has offered up previously unforeseen opportunities, it would seem that “Lighting Up The Sky” may well not be the end of the Godsmack‘s musical output.
Appearing recent on Kylie Olsson‘s ‘Life In Six Strings‘, Erna spoke with less certainty about the creative future of Godsmack. When asked if he thought there will a tenth Godsmack album at some point, Erna replied:
“I think there will. I said there wasn’t going to be, and at least I know there won’t be with the original members. [Shannon and Tony] have [officially retired], and very honorably, and we’re still really good friends. There’s no drama there. I’m putting some new people in place. I’m still in some trial periods, but we have some plans coming in 2026 that we’re excited about. And it’s gonna be good. I mean, the band’s coming into the height of our career. All these years later we’re hitting another moment where we’re doing our best attendance. And it’s kind of come full circle.”
[via Blabbermouth.net]
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