Shinedown - Episode 2 (Us And Them)

Our Shinedown series continues as we move on to the band's second album, Us and Them.

In this episode, we pick up the story following the success of Leave a Whisper and explore how Shinedown approached the challenge of recording a follow-up. We talk through the writing and recording of Us and Them, how the band continued to develop their sound, and the songs that helped establish Shinedown as one of the most promising rock bands of the mid-2000s.

As always, we'll be highlighting and dissecting the hidden gems from Us and Them, those songs that are overlooked and underappreciated and deserve far more attention than they receive.

If you're already a Shinedown fan, or you're curious about an album that often gets overshadowed by what came next, this episode is well worth a listen.

Keep an eye out for future episodes as we work our way through Shinedown's discography and uncover hidden gems from albums such as The Sound of Madness and Amaryllis.

For any requests for future episodes, please email: RandM.HiddenGems.Podcast@gmail.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_07 1:14

Welcome back to another edition of Rap and Metals Hidden Gems Podcast. I am your host as always, Daniel Stucky, and we're in episode two on our new series on the American Hard Rock Jugging Auto Product, the Sound of Madness Monsters, and as you're just hearing in the background right now, heroes. It is, of course, our episode two on our new series on Shinedown. In episode one, we covered the formation, how Brent Smith was discovered and nurtured into this band Shinedown. We covered their debut release, Leave a Whisper, and some of the popular tracks, and more importantly, the hidden gems from Leave a Whisper. And today we are covering their second studio release, Us and Them, telling the story of the album, those popular tracks, but more importantly, dissecting my hidden gem tracks from Us and Them. So thank you for joining, and let's get into an episode two on our Shinedown series. So welcome back to the podcast, and thank you once again for joining us on the Shinedown journey. We're in episode two. We're in their second studio release, Us and Zem. And towards the end of episode one, we give a little bit of background to Us and Zem. I'm gonna repeat the same information here. So if you haven't heard episode one, you have the context at least for the studio album. But I do recommend you go back and check out episode one, because there may be some callbacks, for example, to the formation, some of the band members, how they joined, etc. etc. As we get into this episode and others in the series. Now Leave a Whisper had come out. It didn't immediately hit the charts, you know, skyrocket the band into Superstardum. But the singles, singles like 45, Simple Man, Burning Bright was also a single I did well for them. Fly from the Inside was the very first single. It was really 45 that kind of got them some more notoriety. But with the singles, they got a bit more popularity, a bit more recognition, a bit more chart success, especially as a debut releasing band, you know, just starting out after 45 picked up some popularity from the band. The record company Atlantic Records, they decided they were gonna do a re-release of this album, Leave a Whisper, a Deluxe edition, as they called it, which was the standard album with some bonus tracks added on. Some were demos, some were live songs, some were songs that were recorded for the album but didn't make the final cut. Now they kind of have on the deluxe edition. And the cover of the Linnard Skinned song Simple Man was the big single to come off the re-release deluxe edition of Leave a Whisper to give it that push back into the mainstream. And that did well for them. Got to number five in the US mainstream rock charts and kind of set them apart again from some other bands that were just starting out. Give them that little bit more notoriety beyond what 45 gave them. They also released Burning Bright. And if you want to hear the story as well of why Simple Man and Leonard Skinned was chosen to be the cover song where the connection is to Shinedown and Leonard Skinner, listen to episode one. We discuss it there. So this is where we are in play. Leave a Whisperers come out. It wasn't initially successful. The singles uh were successful, especially 45, Simple Man and Burning Bright. That kind of pushed the album then more successful. It got to that platinum recognition, which is in the US over 1 million units sold of the album. So it truly was successful, especially as a debut release for a brand new band on the scene. And then that brings us to where we are for this episode: the album to us and them. Now, they did lots and lots of touring for Leave a Whisper, both for the album, supporting major artists to try and get that more notoriety, more ears, hearing the band perhaps for the first time, getting new fans. Obviously, it's working for them to a degree. And then they finished touring. Now, well, touring is too hectic, too chaotic to be writing or recording any music. So they did all that, and then they decided, okay, right now we need to do the second album. However, Atlantic Records wanted them to churn out something much quicker than the band desired. They wanted something to come out within a six-month time period, meaning the band didn't have the luxury of working the way they did on Leave a Whisper. On Leave a Whisper, they didn't just write uh 12 to 15 songs. Majority get on the album, cut one or two, perhaps. They wrote 50 to 100 songs. I've seen interviews where it's quoted as they say they wrote 500 songs. I've seen others where there's more 50 to 100. I think that's more the realistic number. I think the 500 is an inflated, exaggerated number. So we're gonna go with 50 to 100, which is still a lot of songs. I mean, as I said in episode one, there are more Shinedown songs on the cutting room floor. That's just a demo stage, maybe even a proper recorded stage, but it's just never been heared by anyone than the total number of songs on any studio Shinedown release, which is pretty crazy and more unusual for the rock and metal genre than the way those songs are usually written. This was written more in like a song right away. You had Brent Smith, lead singer, lead vocalist, and the main founding member of Shinedown. I said it in episode one. Brent Smith ever leaves Shinedown, Shinedown's done. No matter what the other band members do, they would have to start a side project with a new name. They'd have to audio slave it rather than rage against the machine. It they'd have to velvet revolver it rather than guns and roses it, if that makes any sense. Because Brent Smith, in terms of the meaning of the band, the branding, the technical ability with the vocals and the addition he adds to the sound, how unique he is, uh, there is no way you could replace him. And if you did, it would just would either be seen as a copycat and a lesser than copycat, or it would be seen as too drastic, that it's no longer Shinedown, it's no longer the brand that it once was. And if you secured episode one and the formation, how the band started, I'm pretty sure Atlantic Records wouldn't cover the band if Brent Smith was no longer in the band. So Shine Down, in terms of writing albums and songs, it's usually Brent Smith working with uh a professional studio musician or songwriter that works with the record company, in this case Atlantic Records. In the first album, Lever Whisper, for example, he worked with Rick Beatto, who's now known as uh a big YouTuber working in the music world. But back then he was just mainly a songwriter and music producer for the big record labels, in this case Atlantic Records, and there were other songwriters, he wasn't the only one, he was just the one I mentioned because he's now on YouTube and people will recognize his name. But he does the same here in Us and Them. He also obviously works as songwriters. He's still kind of starting out as a songwriter himself. We talked about how much he learned from Desmond Child in episode one, I won't go into that again. That was when he was part of his dream days, right before Shinedown. And as we get into the later albums, the more recent albums, the other band members, the bassists, the guitarists, they have more of a say in the songwriting. But in his early albums, there's mainly Brent Smith or Brent Smith and another. And the way that Brent Smith and therefore Shinedown like to work when it comes to recording their albums, is they like to write a whole heap of songs. As I mentioned with Leave a Whisper, they wrote 50 to 100. And if they had the choice with us and them, they would have done exactly the same. Picked their 12 to 15 favorites, and they would have been the final album. And it wouldn't just be their favourite songs, they would have been discussions and decisions on making sure that the album had the right flow, the right number of fast songs up tempo, compared to the number of ballad, softer, slower tempo songs, making sure as an album as a whole, art piece has that balance. You might find that your favorite songs are 20 of the heaviest songs you wrote for that session, but you need some soft songs on there. So although it's in your top 20, we have to get this one number 25, 26, or slower. Bring that in and drop off your favourite 19th or 20th song. You know what I mean. You have to get the balance of the art, which is in this case the album as a whole, not just the individual songs. So that's how Shinedown like to work usually. That's how they work on Leave a Whisper. That's how they work on albums after us and them. But remember, Atlantic Records have given them a six-month time period to get the next album out. And the reason is they want to make sure the band aren't forgotten after the success of some of the singles, like Simple Man, Burning Bright 45. The success overall of Leave a Whisper in its entirety with the deluxe edition release as well, reaching overall platinum. They want to make sure the band isn't forgotten, and it's still in that mainstream mentality with the radio stations, the fans, that this band, Shinedown, is not just an up-and-coming band, it's a current band. They don't want to wait a couple of years and then people either forget Shinedown ever existed and don't care anymore, or that they're now like, oh, that was that old hat band that my dad used to listen to, you know. They want to make sure it's current, it's cool, and we're piggybacking off the success and the fans we've got now so they don't forget us when the next album does come out. We want to make sure there's continuity there. So I get it from the uh Atlantic Records uh perspective, they want to make sure they got that continued success, making sure the brand isn't forgotten. It's for example, Coca-Cola, one of the biggest brands globally. How many Christmas adverts do you see with Coca-Cola and the Santa Claus? By the way, pointless knowledge. Santa Claus wears red because of Coca-Cola, by the way. I think before that he supposedly wore green. But I believe I read that somewhere as a pointless knowledge fact. So I'm gonna still call it fact, even if I'm maybe slightly wrong or misremembering it. But Coca-Cola, one of the biggest brands in the world, you still see adverts in the cinema theatre, on TV, uh, wherever, on billboards, when you're out and about in major cities, you see Coca-Cola adverts anywhere. But everyone knows what Coca-Cola is. No one's ever forgotten what Coca-Cola is. It's still one of the, if not the biggest brand in the world for any kind of industry. But yet they still plow all this money into advertising. And the reason is they never want to be forgotten. They don't want to be seen as that old brand that, oh, do you remember that brand from back in the day? Do they still still sell those? Are they still in the market? You don't want that conversation to ever happen about your brand, which is why these big corporations like Coca-Cola keep hammering money into it, and that's the mentality that Atlantic Records are having here with Shinedown. So I get it, but the band didn't like it, and they don't like this album as much as the others because for that reason, because they feel the quality overall isn't up to what they would consider their standards. Uh, and they put it down to the fact that they were rushed in that six-month time period and weren't allowed to work how they like to work with writing the whole repertoire of songs and picking their favourites. Now, I think that's an unfair opinion. I mean, that's Shinedown's opinion, that's Brent Smith's opinion. He's welcome to it, and there are Shinedown fans who feel the same and back Brent Smith on this one. And to be honest with you, the Spotify streams would back that up as well. But maybe it's nostalgia talking to me, maybe it's something else. But I feel that's an unfair opinion. I think this is still a good album, and there's still some banging tracks on this album, and some of the most banging ones are ones you would have heared, and I will quickly cover those as well while we tell the story of the album before we head to the hidden gems. And I got three hidden gems to show you from us and them. In Leave a Whisper, I only had two, and yes, I wrestled with one or two that didn't make the cut, so that's what we ended on two, but on three, I couldn't wrestle one of these three tracks out. All three had to make the cut. So we got three hidden gems to go through here. So it can't be that bad an album, especially when the three singles that came out as part of the album they are all great tracks, too. So that's six songs on this album that, in my opinion, are all really, really good to great songs. And there's only 13 tracks on the album as a whole, and there's still some other tracks that I think are good, but just didn't quite make the hidden gem uh categorization. There was too many Spotify streams compared to the others for it to be eligible for Hidden Gem Territory, and that's why I didn't make the Hidden Gem top three in the end. So yes, there are some one or two uh they feel like filler tracks, not so great, and one of them is over seven minutes long, in my opinion, which is called Lady So Divine. We won't be covering that one. But overall, the album I think is still a good album. I think it's still a better, above average album, and I think the band sell themselves short when they say comments like the six months affected the quality of the album. Because I think the quality is somewhat still there. It is a bit of a different album to Leave a Whisper. Leave a Whisper was coming straight off into that post-grunge new metal sound, which is very, very popular in the early 2000s when it came out, I believe in 2003, 2004, somewhere around there. 2003, I believe, is correct one. And this album, Us and Them, it still has elements of that sound, but um, there is also something new coming in. Uh, so let's talk about the album. When did it come out? It came out in October the 4th, 2005. So this is two years after Lever Whisper, and it got to number 23 on the US Billboard 200. So that's good going for a band in the stage where they are in their career as Shinedown are here, playing the genre of music that they are. Now, this initially charted higher than Lever Whisper, however, overall, you know, in its like two-year cycle, you can still buy the album today, of course, but um you treat these cycles between like this album and the third album coming out. In that cycle, uh, us and them overall sold less than Leave a Whisper. So Lever Whisper in the long run outperformed Us and Them, but in the short run, in that initial few weeks of release, uh, where initially charted Us and Them was superior. And the band again toured heavily like they did when they supported Lever Whisper. They were trying to get their name out there, working hard as a band to get that recognition, and this time they toured and supported bands, for example, like Caether. So this band was more supporting Shine Down than Shinedown supporting them, and this was Hailstorm. So in the case of Hailstorm, Hailstorm are very much there to get the notoriety from Shinedown, a supporting Shinedown. In the case of Fly Leaf, at the time in 2005, they were probably seen as equal to Shinedown in popularity. And in terms of Caether, Caether were starting out, been around a little few more years than Shinedown, and absolutely were the more popular band in 2005 than Shinedown with more notoriety, but there wasn't a gigantic leap between the two bands. It wasn't like when weirdly Shinedown supported Van Halen, for example. It wasn't that kind of distance between them. But on these next two bands in 2005, remember, there was a big gap between these two bands, and these two bands that they also taught with during the Us and Them tour, they particularly opened for. And the first one is God Smack. And it really, really was everywhere at the time. But now, in 2026, there's a gargantuan miles, kilometres, wherever you want to say, between God Smack and Shinedown and Tim's popularity. Shinedown are well, oh well, oh well in leagues of their own above Godsmack. No disrespect to Godsmack or their fans. Now, there's one other band they opened with on this Us and Them tour, and this is one of my personal favorites. And in 2005, especially, there absolutely was a gargantuan gap between these two bands, and it's right as Shinedown opened for them in 2005, and that's Rob Zombie. It's not as famous as, for example, Dragular or Super Beast, but I chose this one because and the tracks for all the other bands like Hailstorm and Flyleaf and Seether. I chose them because they would have been the songs that these bands would have been pushing as their new tracks in or around 2005 when they did the tour with Shinedown. Again, I'd put Rob Zombie as one that's legendary in his genre. He's legendary in the music industry, let's be honest, whether it's White Zombie or Rob Zombie. But today in 2026 is another one. If they went on a tour with Shinedown, Shinedown would probably headline above Rob Zombie these days. It depends on the setting, I guess. If it's in a true cut metal festival where all the metal heads go that are metal wherever they go, Rob Zombie's headlining. Anywhere else, Shinedown's headlining. Shinedown has more streams, more chart success in Rob Zombie. But maybe in that core metal world, Rob Zombie's still iconic and legendary enough that he just squeaks his head into the headline bill above Shinedown. But back then, 2005, Rob Zombie deserves to be headlining. But it just shows how far Shinedown as a band has come that they've left Flyleaf in their dust. I'd say Hailstorm are up there with them, to be honest. They have just as much success, maybe not chart success as Shinedown, but they're they're well recognized within the same genre, same world. Caether had their moment in the early 2000s, haven't stood the test of time, they haven't kept that success going long term like Hailstorm and Shinedown Does has. But then God smacked, they've left them behind. Rob Zombie, I've talked about them. So it just shows how far they've come as a band Shinedown after this Us and Them tour. Now, let's get into the album Us and Them and let's go over their first single from the album. It came out in the 23rd of August 2005. So that's a few months before the Us and Them official release to get some momentum going before the album comes out. And it went to number one on the US mainstream rock chart. It's the first single that Shine Down got to number one. And remember, they have the record for the most number ones on the US mainstream rock chart of all time, despite the fact that chart has been going for over 40 years. You think of the amount of rock bands that have been and gone in those 40 years, even the ones that have lasted the test of time, like Aerosmith, for example. None of those have as many number ones as Shinedown. They have. This was their first one, and it was there for 12 straight weeks. It also got into the Billboard Hot 100, which is the US's version of the top 100 singles, regardless of genre. Got to number 72 there, which for a rock or metal band, it's good going. Shinedown fans will know, the rest of you will be wondering which song this is, and his song is called Save Me. Save me, the first single from us and them, there from Shinedown. And by the way, in terms of Spotify streams, Save Me is the highest streamed track on Us and Them as per recording, and it's not even close. Second place is quite a distance away. Now, if you've been following us from episode one in the Shinedown series, or if you've just heard the previous album Leave a Whisper before, you might have noticed that the song Save Me sounds quite different from the songs that are on Leave a Whisper. Not drastically, it's not like they've gone from metal to techno and something drastic like that. But there is a much lighter tone, more maturity, I would say, than anything on Leave a Whisper. Leave a Whisper has a lot of that early new metal songs. And I love that sound. It's my era, it's my jam. But I can see how it'd be seen as more immature than, for example, the song Save Me, especially with like the subject mat and the lyrics on Save Me, but the tone as well. It's got a bit more of a lighter tone than the things you heard on Leave a Whisper. And uh melodies are a bit more thought out, but again, a bit more mature is the word I would use. Now, are you a professional wrestling fan? Or even just a casual fan? Or where did you used to be a fan when you were younger? If the answer is yes and you're a fan of WWE or watched it even passingly in the decade of the 2000 to 2010, especially the mid 2000s, there's no doubt you would have heard Shinedown on your TV, on your pay-per-views. If you're like me, chances are the first time you ever heared Shinedown was from WWE television. And this song, Save Me, was used on the WWE pay-per-view No Mercy 2005 as the theme song that was shown at the start of the pay-per-view, the end of the pay-per-view. You've played throughout, played in all the promotional material leading up to the pay-per-view, for example, when they're doing these little skits of like, oh my god, Eddie Guerrero versus Dave Batista, and they'd do a little montage of both wrestlers. You'd have this song Save Me playing in the background. And No Mercy 2005 for professional wrestling fans is quite notable because it's the last ever pay-per-view appearance for Eddie Guerrero, who's much loved in that world. He unfortunately passed away in his hotel room just three to four weeks later after that pay-per-view appearance. This was his last one, and there's a dark bit of irony there that the soundtrack song for that pay-per-view for Eddie Guerrero's last ever appearance before he passed away earlier than he should have from some heart failure was called Save Me. Bit of dark irony there, but that's just how it happened, is how the cookie crumbled, as they say. Sweet 16! And he was recording demo songs to get noticed, just for fun. Uh the origins of the song dated back all the way then, before he was ever in the likes of Dreve, when he was just a 16-year-old in his bedroom, I guess. Uh the band actually wrote and released the song to radio before the band had finished writing lyrics for about four to five of the songs left on the Us and Them album. That's how tight a schedule they had, is that they were releasing songs to radio to get hype before the album was even finished and due to come out in like two to three months' time after this was released to radio. Uh, what is a song Save Me About? Well, if you listen to the lyrics, you know, I've got a candle and I've got a spoon. I live in a hallway with no doors and no rooms. It's quite dark. But a quote from Brent Smith Save Me is a song about how people will take on everyone else's problems and issues. When they put that much pressure on themselves, they're going to hit a wall eventually. A person in my life saw me go through the darkest times in life. They picked me up. Eventually, they had that dark time themselves, and I had to pick them up. So we talked about it in episode one, we're about to talk about it in episode two, and we'll talk about it probably in every episode on the Shinedown series. The lyrical content in most Shinedown songs are very personal to Brent Smith, and Brent Smith Personal Demons is usually around either alcohol addiction or depression, self-esteem, etc. etc. And he writes a lot of songs about depression and addiction, especially earlier on. Some of the love songs come later, and we'll talk about them when they happen. But this is one of those songs about depression, and it's quite dark in its tone. Sometimes you find on Shinedone Records, and I'd say Save Me is one of them, where the actual meaning of the song, as quoted by Brent Smith himself, the man who wrote the lyrics, uh, is actually less dark than the actual words used and their like dictionary meaning. This I'd say it'd be one of them. You read the lyrics, you think it's about a heroin addiction or something. You read Brent Smith's description of the song meaning, and it's far more human and relatable than those dark things around heroin addiction. Let's be honest, most of us aren't heroin addicts, so we can't relate to those feelings. Now, we're gonna move on to the second single from Us and Them. It came out on the 13th of February 2006. So this would have been four months later than the album release. The single got to number two on the US mainstream rock chart, so it doesn't get quite as high as Save Me, and it's not added to that list of most number ones. It's not on that short list. Got to number two, got close, but no cigar. But it did get to number 88 on the US Billboard Hot 100. So at least it charted there. And this is the first Shinedown song I ever remember hearing. I likely would have heard Save Me because I was a WWE professional wrestling fan back when it would have been part of that No Mercy pay-per-view, but I didn't take it in. I don't remember it. I do remember listening to this one and liking it. This song is called I Dare You've got to be a little bit more than a little bit. And that song is number three in terms of the most streamed on Spotify today, and I'm quite surprised about that. I'm surprised there's such a gap to save me. I'm not surprised that they're both in the top three, but I am surprised that I dare you isn't number one because, in my opinion, it's the more recognizable song off Us and Them. Maybe that's bias talking because it's the first Shinedown song I remember hearing. And the reason why I did first hear it is because it was the secondary theme for WrestleMania 22 in Chicago, I believe, that year. Uh, it wasn't the main theme for WrestleMania, because the tagline for this WrestleMania was Big Time, because this was the main theme by Peter Gabriel. The song Big Time there by Peter Gabriel from Genesis Fame. Now I played that little clip, even though it's not a wrestling podcast. We're not talking about WrestleMania, but said this was a secondary theme for that WrestleMania, and I wanted to show you how different the main theme was. So you knew that it wasn't that like I dare you got lost in the shuffle behind the main one. It was kind of when we gotta do a big fun advent, we roll out big time. If we need something with a bit more grit, a bit more emotion to sell the matches, we bring out Shinedown and I Dare You. And that's where I first heared uh Shinedown ever that I remember. I probably would have heard Save Me, as I mentioned, but I dare you was the first one I took notice of, and I remember thinking, ooh, what's that band's name? Oh, that band's name is Shinedown. I now like Shinedown. I'm now gonna go and listen to an album. So the first album of Shinedown I ever listened to is this one, Us and Them. And that's why maybe I have a bit of nostalgic bias towards it, why I think this album is better than the fans, and Brent Smith himself gives credit for. But I do really think some of these songs are good. And I dare you, I thought it was a really good song. And what separates it is Brent Smith's vocals, as is most Shinedown songs. He belts out those choruses, especially that last bridge going into the final chorus with that Hello! Which he does much better than me, but you get the idea. He really belts that out. He's putting so much power, emotion, and vocal range throughout the song that it really stood out for me. Took Brent Smith off this song, doesn't stand out. You listen to the bass and the guitars, there's not a lot going on, playing some basic chords. The drums, I want to give a shout out to drummer Barry Kirch here because he chooses to not play a straight drum beat, he chooses to play a beat on the on the toms, mainly the floor tom, and it does really make the song stand out a bit more and carries it differently. Like this song. You know, if you weren't a professional wrestling fan like myself at this time, you may have heard a song in the United States at least, off one of the biggest shows uh going at that time period. I think it's still going. I could be wrong. I'm not in the United States, so I don't know for sure, but if not, it had a very, very good run, multiple decade-long run. And that show is American Idol because there was a contestant on American Idol. Uh, I believe the year was 2006. It was on season five of American Idol, and they had a contestant that made it to the if you didn't know an American Idol, it's like Pop Idol elsewhere in the world, like X Factor, like all of these vocal talent shows where first couple of weeks there's all these randoms auditioning. Some are really good, some are really bad, and you laugh at them. Then there's some like pre-recorded kind of whittle back of the good singers until we get to like a final ten, and they go into these live shows where they sing live, and then uh fans of the show will vote for who gets knocked out, and eventually there's a winner, they get a record contract, and they're meant to get superstardom from there. Sometimes it's worked out in case of Carrie Underwood and Kelly Clarkson, but it's also a bunch of occasions where the winner kind of released a single and fell away and was never heared from again. And that's regardless of whether it's American Idol, Pop Idol, X Factors, just the way they shows those shows work. Um, but on season five in 2006, so you know, around the time this single came out, maybe a few months later, uh, there was a contestant called Chris Daughtery. Now, rock metal fans, more rock fans, I guess, may know Chris Daughtry from his band that is still going today called Daughtry. Let's have a quick listen. The band Dartry there with What I Want. I chose that one to play it to you because there's a guest appearance there from Slash from Guns N' Roses fame. He plays the guitar throughout. That's why you get that cool little riff at the end of the chorus. Most of uh Dartry's stuff, I'd guess, is kind of like pop rock, maybe a little bit heavy, maybe I'm being a bit unfair. Uh, you know, you hear it for yourself, then what I want. But that's not the most famous song. Most famous song by him is It's Not Over. But before he released his albums with Dartry, he was a contestant on American Idol. I think he came fourth, I could be wrong, but in one of those knockout rounds, he sung a cover of Shinedown's I Dare You. Let's have a quick listen to the song with Chris Daughtry singing, remember, not Brent Smith. And let's hear uh Judge Simon Cowell's uh thoughts on the song, I Dare You. I think it was the week later, I think it was Elvis week or something, where he got eliminated and came fourth overall. I'm a little disappointed because I said I'd get you the Simon Cowell reaction to that performance, and I do remember vividly seeing it on YouTube, but now all that's available on YouTube is the actual performance itself, and then it immediately cuts off. I can even get the results show that was the next day, where you see little clips of the performance and you see overall how he got through that week. What I can't find is a judge's response immediately after the live performance, but I do remember Simon Cowell saying that he found the song overall, not just his performance, but the song and the songwriting itself, he found the song boring. I remember back in the day, I even though I'm from the United Kingdom, I used to look up when rock or metal singers would be on these popular shows like American Idol, Pop Idol, X Factor, because I always wondered how the general populace, you know, those these judges that all they care about is pop music and making money and manufacturing artists. I always wondered how they would treat uh good rock metal singers. So I asked how I found this uh clip of Chris Daughtery singing, I dare you, amongst his other American Idol performances. And I just remember thinking to myself, Simon Cowell, come on! The song is anything but boring. This song is way, way more interesting, and there is almost a top-level hypocrisy with Simon Cowell making that claim when he just gets artists to release the same song over and over and over again, not because it's a great song, but because it makes money and he can promote it and become even richer. I mean, how many ballads have you heard either about breakup and heartache or about finding new love and being in a new relationship when it all follows the same verse chorus, verse chorus, little bridge, and then we up the key, and we sing the final chorus in a higher key. How many times have you heard that using the same four chords? I might add he could just literally take the vocal recording from one song, plaster it over another, the BPM isn't that different, it'd sound just fine. How many times have you heard that from a Simon Cowell artist? Especially the ones that usually win these kind of competitions as well. He does it because it makes money and the masses lap it up, but that to me is boring. Not the song by Shine Down. I will say, Chris Daughtery's performance. It isn't his finest live performance, let's be honest. I mean, either on American Idol when he's performing there or generally with his band, he's performed much better. This is probably one of his weaker performances on the show overall, in terms of his vocal ability and delivery in the performance. But I think that just goes to show how talented Brent Smith is and the boots you have to fill to get to his level. Um, it's just such a hard job to do. And Daughtry, in my opinion, didn't quite achieve it here. But he's had success with his own band Daughtry after leaving American Idol where he came forth. Now back to the Shinedown show. What is I Dare You About? Enough about WrestleMania, enough about Chris Daughtry and American Idol. What is a song by Shinedown, I Dare You About? Well, the song is basically about battling the psychological battle internally regarding negative thoughts and self-doubt. To walk through fire and stand up for yourself, reclaiming self-respect. Now let's move on to the third and final single from Us and Them. It came out on the 25th of July 2006. There is a deluxe edition of Us and Them, but unlike Leave a Whisper, there wasn't singles purely to promote the deluxe edition. So this is the final single from Us and Them. And this is the oh well, it's not the opening track. It's not track one, it's track two, but it's the opening real track, because track one's more of an intro. And this song is the one I started this episode of the podcast with, and it's called Heroes. The third single and the first real track on the album, Heroes There. And the song, if you're wondering, is about people you look up to, for example, celebrities, selling out their morals or ideals for fame and money, which we can all, let's be honest, think of an example of that if we had a quick 30-second think of some celebrities we've we've looked up to in the past. Now that song went to number four on the US mainstream rock chart. So the only single in this album to get to number one, to get to get them rolling on that journey to getting the record for the most number ones on that chart was Save Me. I Dare You Number Two, Heroes Number Four. And in terms of the songs, I think I Dare You is probably the best of them in my opinion, but that could be nostalgia talking. Save Me is a close second for me. Some of you, you might flip that around. Heroes is a third out of those singles for me. Heroes, I think, starts well, has good energy going, and then the chorus comes in. I think it just drops that energy a little bit. And I think that's probably the weakest part of the song. But it's still a good song overall, in my opinion. In terms of the Spotify streams, uh in reverse order, the top three are, I dare you, very closely followed in number two by heroes, and then a distant number one is Save Me. Now, we've covered the promotional singles for us and them. Let's cover some of the hidden gems, the reason why we are here listening to this podcast. It's our unique selling point. And the first single, or song I should say, because it wasn't a single, the first song from us and them that I want to cover as my hidden gem, my first hidden gem, my first chosen hidden gem in this album. It's one of the heaviest songs on the album. I'm a metal head at heart. It's track number 10. It's called Begin Again. Thanks, Brent. Welcome to you too. Um, begin again starting there. It starts with his really high-pitched guitar note, which when I said is one of the heaviest songs on the album, you might be wondering, hmm, what's he talking about right there? But then the distorted, down tuned guitars come in. And this song is something that I think would have fitted quite easily on the previous album, Leave a Whisper. I said how Us and Them is like a more mature evolution of Leave a Whisper. I think this one goes back to the kind of new metal post-grunge sound of Leave a Whisper, the early 2000s-esque, and maybe that's why I like it. But I think it fits so well. And the best parts of the song I haven't shown you yet. I've only shown you the introduction and the first line of verse one. So we got some time to go. Now, when that drop-tuned, heavier guitar comes in, it's playing quite a simple ref the dun, dun, don, don, don, don. But what separates it is when the other guitar comes over the top, playing like it's higher pitched. It's got some um guitar effects going on there as well. But it's playing like a higher harmonized melody over the top of the chorus, it's acting like a Brent Smith vocal line, right? Brent Smith can go very high in the vocal lines, especially in these early Shinedown albums. And the guitar is playing the Brent Smith role, playing on top of those heavier chords, and it sounds really good there, and then it drops right down for the verse. And we're gonna get to the verse and play that for you next. But listen out for the drums by Barry Kirch as well, because like in I Dare You, he doesn't just play a straight beat, a straight bass drum snag, and he doesn't play that kind of beat. He plays on the toms again, he's playing on the drums that Hi-hat and the cymbals are kind of kept off. We're changing the pace, and I always love it when bands play in the toms. I think it gets a really unique, cool sound, something that's not as common, even though it happens all over the place. It's nowhere near as common as that like ACDC money beat the boop boot that you see in all genres of music, absolutely everywhere. Now, listen out for those toms. Let's get back into the verse of Begin Again.

SPEAKER_05 44:28

Welcome friends to second slots and starts that won't begin.

SPEAKER_02 44:37

To twisted eyes that's inside rules that always be.

SPEAKER_07 45:10

Sorry, apologies. I know that was a tease we built all the way to the chorus, and as soon as it kicks in, I cut it off. But we gotta dissect these things, you know, guys. So did you hear the toms? Did you hear what I was talking about there in the verse? I also like the vocal delivery of Brett. He tones it right down, but you got these backing vocals this time. You don't always get that in Shinedone songs, especially the early days, because Brent can usually just do everything himself. But in this time, he gets his band members involved, and every second and fourth line in that verse, you've got the back end vocals just kind of easing you into like a I don't want to say dread, but it's bringing you into a darker place. I don't know why group vocals do that a little bit when they're done in this kind of delivery. So you gotta get welcome friends! Seconds last and start that one begin. That starter won't begin. You got the back end vocals there. When you get the second voice, it's a bit haunting the way it comes in, and I like it. Uh but then I also wanted to call out the last line in the verse where the Brent Smith really does kick it up, but not without actually going full in, because we got a bridge to get to before we hit the chorus, right? We can't just go oof and then where are we gonna go? But at the same time, Brent doesn't want the end of the chorus to be quite generic and boring. So he does pick it up a little bit, and you got that and keep a piece of mind, and there's some background whispers I can't make out what they say while the guitars are playing, and then you get that little bridge of bring only what you need to survive, and then we're gonna get in the chorus, which I'm gonna play for you right now. Love that chorus. Love the whole build-up to the chorus, really. The verse with the tom-toms and the vocal delivery, then the vocals pick up with that keep our peace of mind, and then the bridge bring only what you need to survive. They're all bringing up, and then we get bam, we get this chorus, and the drums kick into life here. They go from playing this beat on the toms, we get the bass in the snare now, but it's playing in our beat tempo, kind of headbanging drum beat there. Boom, beat, boom, boom, part of the podcast where you learn I absolutely cannot beat box, and that is a true absolute fact. But hopefully you got the message I was trying to deliver. That drumbeat really kicks a song into life, and you go from just listening to it swaying your head to headbanging and tapping your foot. You're now into it, and you I just build up like, oh yeah, I'm there, you've taken me all the way, and now I'm kicking down the door and I'm headbanging with you. The uh vocal delivery as well, it goes into a higher tempo. It's not as high as tempo, he can go much higher, but it's higher than what you heard on the verse, which is what you want for a chorus, because in the mix, the higher tones stand up more than the lower tones. If you sung in the lower tones, yeah, the guitars, the drums, and everything would probably overshadow Brent a little bit. But also it captures your ear and it becomes the crescendo of the song, which choruses are meant to be. And you get the lyrics, they burned an image from lines on my face, they stole it from the pages that kept my place. I stand on the outside, would die to get in. I crawl inside just to begin again. And I think first of all, there's a lot of words there in that chorus, and that leads again to the catchiness and the quick up tempo pace. I'm clicking my fingers, don't know if it's coming through the microphone, but it's that foot tap and the headbang and the lyrics and the vocal delivery is matching that drumbeat and the energy the song is now getting. But let's talk about the meaning of the song. Now, I talked about it in episode one, Leave a Whisper, with some of the song meanings. It's unless it's a promotional single like Save Me and I Dare You in Previously 45. At this time in Shinedown's career, they aren't doing interviews left, right, and centre about every single song on the album. These are hidden gem tracks, remember. These are the tracks that are unloved, underappreciated, therefore they don't have the high Spotify streams, they aren't played on every live show, they don't have a music video and a single promoting it, but they are great songs nonetheless. And some of them will occasionally be asked by fans who are die-hard fans, and they'll ask the band members later on kind of what are these songs about, and they'll get the answers. Shin down are very transparent about the song meanings. But these kind of songs like Begin Again, they just never ask the question. So it's down to the fans or me to come up with what we interpret the meaning to be. We don't aren't always accurate until you hear Brent Smith tell you himself. We don't know the absolute hundred percent factoid truth of what the song meanings are, but we can have a pretty good guess. And in Begin Again, I believe the song is basically about being judged by others, constantly trying to begin again and put yourself out there for human connection. But the judgment has stuck. You've been painted black, you've been tarred, and you can't shake it off. So you keep going back to your dark place despite putting that energy and putting that effort in to get out. The other everyone else, the other people around you, they've made their judgment, they've made their scorn, and they ain't changing their ways. So you just kind of go back to square one. That's what I believe begin again is about, and that supports some of the fan theories I was reading online that I also agreed some part with. Now let's get back into Begin Again. Uh, we're gonna play a little bit of verse 2 The Bridge and the chorus again, because I've played them in snippets so far, and I want you to hear them in like a whole sequence without being cut off. So if we didn't like what you've heard of begin again, I'd recommend you skip about a minute in front and see where we get to next. If you did like what you've heard of begin again, please enjoy the rest of it. I'm trying to introduce these hidden gem tracks to you to add them to your playlists. So hopefully you become a fan and we give these songs the credits they deserve. So let's try that for begin again right now.

SPEAKER_05 51:46

Whatever talk, there is no problem in the story.

SPEAKER_07 52:23

Second time round, like I did just then. I took in all the things I mentioned about the energy with the drums, the way the lyrics are constructed to kind of give that energy with the vocals as well. We're about to come into the breakdown of the piece before we get to the final chorus. Now, the breakdown, this is the bit where we get the frustration. The meaning of the song that Brent Smith is trying to portray, I think, is ultimately frustration. That's the one word I would use to describe it. Frustration, maybe judgment as well. And I think in the breakdown is when he's trying to convey that emotion to you. It's less about the melody, it's less about the energy, and it's more about that emotion to try and create the art form that Brent Smith and Shine Down are going for on the song Begin Again. So let's listen to that, and we'll play the song to its entirety, and then we'll get to our second hidden gem. Go back to big the breakdown of Begin Again. Now, a couple of things to take away from that final chorus, all the other choruses really. Notice the main guitar riff in that chorus is the deeper, darker, drop-tuned riff from the introduction. It's the same one. But notice in at the end of the final chorus, after it's repeated, you get that opening higher pitched little melody on the guitar coming back in. The one that kicks start at the whole song, the one that the heavier drop-tuned riff supports and kicks in with after a few bars. Basically, the song comes full circle towards the end with everything that start coming back in at the end. Begin again, anyone? Maybe that's me looking too deep there. But you can make the argument, right? That we're beginning again. We're bringing the beginning back in at the end of the song. Let's get into our second hidden gem track from us and them. This one is track number six on the album. And in terms of streams, it's still basically every single song in this album except for the promotional singles. In terms of Spotify streams, are way, way lower. There's uh one a little bit closer called Shed Some Light, which is a song I quite like, but I think has too many millions of streams over the other songs to be classed as a hidden gem, so I discounted it because it's the fourth highest stream track on the album, but everything else is way, way lower. So Begin Again is at 3.3 million. This next song has a few more, it's in the 4 million range. By the way, the highest dreamed is 64 million with Save Me, so quite a big jump. This next song is track six on the album, and it's called Beyond the Sun.

SPEAKER_02 56:31

Speak to me so I can understand your tongue. You seem rather fragile. It's been said it's cold beyond the sun. Have you ever been there? Communicating thoughts of ways to never have to speak again.

SPEAKER_07 57:04

So we're going acoustic and much softer and down tempo for our second hidden gem that doesn't last long, the in terms of the acousticness, anyway. We get some distortion in a little bit, we're just cut off from it. But I want to talk about that introduction, the first verse. You pretty much heared all of it there and Beyond the Sun. The introduction, the first verse, the way the guitar is strumming at the tempo, it's drumming at the way Brent is delivering his vocal lines. It's got quite a deep, meaningful atmosphere surrounding the piece of music for me at the moment. And I think it's very beautiful as well. Not beautiful in the sense of bright colours, lovey-dovey, happiness, but just beautiful in the tone. I don't know how else to describe it, but I get that from the start of the song. And it's gonna get a bit more progressive, not gonna be progressive in the dream theatre sense, but it's gonna be progressive in the way the song builds. So we're starting off in this acousticness. Um acousticness, new word, just made it up, but we're gonna use it from now on. It starts with this acousticness and brand delivery, toned back, but deep and meaningful. The speak to me so I can understand your tongue. You seem rather fragile. It's very toned back and reflective delivery. It feels like he's reflecting on himself and life around him. It's uh basically this emotion. He's trying to tell a story or at least an emotion in the way he's delivering this verse for me. Which goes back to his, if you remember from episode one, it goes back to some of his early inspirations. They weren't rock gods, metal stars. His early inspirations were the likes of Ella Fitzgerald and Otis Redding, the soulful singers that his dad introduced him to. And I feel that inspiration is coming out here, which we haven't maybe heard in the first Leave a Whisper Shinedown album. I feel like that part of Brent Smith is coming out more here, and it will come out even more in future album releases. We'll get there in the future episodes. But let's get back to Beyond the Sun. We're gonna listen to the bridge and the chorus this time, the bit I cut off. Uh, remember I said the acoustic doesn't last, it's about to finish, at least for this little part of the song. It comes back, but distortions about to come in. Let's get back to Beyond the Sun.

unknown 59:28

Let me be the fire in your head.

SPEAKER_07 1:00:09

The end of the bridge and the first chorus there. Now the chorus is toned back in the first cycle. Brent Smith lifts it up in future renditions that we'll get to as we get through the song. But it's still building even on the first chorus. It's reaching a more of a crescendo than the verse gives you, but it's not the final crescendo. We're still building. As I said, it's progressive in that sense. I don't mean progressive in like the, as I said, the dream theater, the Symphony X realm, where everything's got odd time signatures and different ombras, etc. It's progressive in the sense that we're building something. Uh and that's what you get in Beyond the Sun. I think that's because of the story that Brent Smith is trying to tell. Now, like other songs I've mentioned, I mentioned I'll begin again, the true meaning of the song, Brent Smith has never been asked, so we don't truly know. But from fan interpretations and my interpretations, I've come up with some theories that it could be about love or it could be about friendship. But the ultimate message I think is trying to come across is that it's to support someone who is holding themselves back from going beyond the sun and reaching the place yourself doubt stops you from reaching. For example, with the line, it's been said it's cold beyond the sun. Have you ever been there? You know, you're saying how it's not a nice place beyond the sun, this happiness, but if I get there, I'm gonna be cold and gonna be depressed. But you've never been there, how do you know? So it's that person trying to support another whose self-esteem, self-doubt, scared, whatever it is, something's holding them back from reaching their true potential where they want to go in life, and this friend is trying to support them there to get beyond the sun. Let's get back to the song. You would have more obvious thing you want to take in from that second chorus is the second half of it was very different to the second half of the first chorus. Brent Smith raises a tone. I talked about his song Building. This is the part of it building. You know, in the first chorus, he sings more like a better place, a sweeter time. We won't need any wings to fly. A place beyond the sun. And then second time around, when he's hitting this part again, he goes, A better place, a sweeter time, we won't need any wings to fly, a place beyond the sun. There's so much power and emotion behind it second time around. We're building, as I said, the first chorus. Although it was a chorus, it wasn't as powerful as what we were building to, and that's what you got there. That was the obvious part. There's more subtle parts about it too. One of the ones I'm gonna play to you is I'm gonna play you the clip of the bridge leading to the first chorus first. Listen to the line, Let Me Be the Fire in Your Head. Listen to how it's delivered first time round.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:12

Let me be the fire in your head.

SPEAKER_07 1:04:21

Now, in terms of the vocal melody itself and the length of the notes he's holding, etc., that doesn't change second time round before the second chorus, but some other stuff does. See if you can hear it.

unknown 1:04:32

Let me be the fire in your head.

SPEAKER_07 1:04:49

Brent Smith's vocal melody is actually the same, but now he's got backing vocals alongside him, and I think it's a little bit more raspiness in his delivery as well. The point is, you may not have picked that up on first listen, how different that last line of the bridge going into the chorus is first time, the second time around. But you play them side by side and they sound vastly different. Okay, not vastly, but one's a lot more powerful than the other. And that's all deliberate. It's just for some people listening to the song for the first time, you probably wouldn't have heard it. But for someone like me who's listening to the song multiple many times, it's something that I've been able to pick out. And these little things, sometimes they go over your head, they don't you don't take it in, but trust me, your body does. Your body will notice that, oh, this is picking up, your ears will pick that up too, but maybe your brain doesn't. But that doesn't mean your emotions don't when you're listening to this kind of music. Just because you as a listener maybe doesn't pick things up in not just this song, but any music in general or even movies, any kind of art form, just because you deliberately don't hear it or pick it up, doesn't mean your subconscious doesn't. And your subconscious will have just as much of an influence over you as your brain in most example. Okay, let's go get back to Beyond the Sun. The breakdown post-second chorus there on Beyond the Sun. Now I really like the guitar effect. I think it's a guitar effect. It could be a keyboard effect, but it's some sort of high-toned effect going on. It doesn't sound natural. But I really like that going on in the background there. But then you got Brent just belting out that note for sun as well, just holding it for quite a long time with quite a lot of power and energy. You really get the emotion coming out of him there. And then it all drops back down because you're about to go into the final chorus. And notice again the bridge and the chorus when we get to the third cycle, the final cycle of it, before we get to the end of the song. It's even more than what it was in the second. Not drastically, but subtly. Enough of your subconscious picks up on it, and you feel you're just building and building and building in this song until you get to the end of it. Let's play you now the final minute of Beyond the Sun. We'll play it now from the bridge going into the final chorus all the way to the end.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:45

Let's go.

SPEAKER_07 1:09:01

I believe Brent Smith's delivery as well went up a slight notch, a little bit higher in tone, more aggressive, more raspy. And then in the post-chorus, there you had everything coming back in, including, I mentioned that guitar effect could have been a keyboard. That comes back as well, just to kind of round out the track. A really great track, beautiful track. I think it's overshadowed in Shinedown's discography, mainly because they've got a lot of great slower tempo tracks. This one leans slightly into the heavier side with the way the chorus is and some of the other ones. So if you're looking for a softer track, maybe you'd lean more there because that goes wholeheartedly into the softness and the acoustic, whereas this one kind of does a halfway house, maybe. But I think it's just merely because they got other songs similar to this in their back catalogue that are more well-known. I think they just overshadowed this one. Lives this lives in the shadow of them. But also I think it's because this came out in 2005. I think people who bought this album at the time would have really liked Beyond the Sun. I'm sure it would have made a satellite at the time. But then other songs that come out afterwards, and then later on, things like streaming services come out. So people then are streaming the newer tracks, the more recent tracks that are of the same atmosphere and kin. Uh ignoring this one a little bit, which is why it's less Spotify streams. But I do think it's a really, really good track. I think it's worth listening to us. Why it's a hidden gem track? I just think because of its state, its era, and it sounds a little of its era of its time in the mid-2000s. I just think it lives in the shadow of other Shinedown tracks. I don't think any Shinedown fan thinks this song's bad or average in any way. I think they all think it's a good song. I just think as I said, it gets lost a little in the shuffle. Now, we're gonna move on to our final hidden gem track. This one is one of the latter tracks on the album, Us and Them. In fact, this one is track 12 of a 13 track album, so only one song afterwards. But in terms of our hidden gem tracks, it's absolutely still is classified and eligible for the hidden gem territory. But in terms of Spotify streams, this next hidden gem track is the highest streamed of our three hidden gem tracks from us and them. Not by much, but you know, it is higher streamed than Beyond the Sun and Begin Again. Stylistically, it's also a very different track to Beyond the Sun and Begin Again. Begin Again was kind of your post-grunge new metal kick-ass song. Beyond the Sun was your slower tempo, slightly progressive track, more acoustic, more soft, more dark in atmosphere. This next hidden gem track, the final one, it's just a kick-ass rock song, but with deep lyrical meaning. Let's listen to our third hidden gem track from Us and Them. I've built it up enough. Track 12 on the album, it's called Fake.

SPEAKER_05 1:11:58

This place has begun to have me. I recall the light of the dance mothers me. I prefer the feelings that don't make a bad feeling.

SPEAKER_07 1:12:36

So when I say it's stylistically different, I think you can hear that immediately with the way the song starts. This song would not fit on the previous album, Leave a Whisper, it would stand out like a mile. It just about fits on us and them with the way some songs like I Dare You and Save Me, some of the singles sound. Um this one is still different, but it's in the realm enough that it just about fits on the album and has a place. But I love the groove on fake, the way it starts, the way the guitar riff kicks in. It's not even a riff, it's more just of a single chord, really, just played in a rhythm. And ironically, I'm saying how much I love the groove. There isn't really a drum beat in that beginning part, the introduction. You just got a hi-hat just keeping time. But the Brent Smith is kind of bringing some rhythm, not in a scat style, like you know, scat manjoe. He's not bringing a beep-ba-ba-ba-da-b- He's not doing that kind of scat rhythmically. He's not doing the kind of rhythm singing you see, for example, in a band like Disturbed. You know, they you listen to Down with the Sickness. It's all about the rhythm and the way the delivery is done by David Rahman and the backing instruments in Disturbed. But Brent Smith and the way he's delivering his singing here at the start of fake, he's not just singing uh a consistent vocal melody line with one breath. He's like changing his breath and his tone between the notes, if that makes any sense. So it creates a rhythm that accompanies that guitar part as well. For example, the first line, This place has begun to kill me. He's not just singing, like the first part maybe is more of a melody, but the second part of the line and the other lines in his introduction, he sings and there's three notes that are changing to create that rhythm. So instead of him be going, begun to kava me, and with one held breath, he's taking almost like a new breath between each one, singing a new note to his begun to kava me. It's kava me. We're creating a little rhythm that a ba ba ba. You see what I mean? I've probably explained it badly, but I'm hoping I'm getting across that they're working in harmony here, Brent and the guitarist Jason Todd, together to create this rhythm, even without the drums. Although the hi-hat is keeping a little time to tell you. He keeps everything aligned. Being the orchestrator of the piece, the beat comes in a little bit later. Let's get back into fake and let's get back into that rhythm. And listen now, because very soon, I pretty much just cut off before it, the song drastically changes. This rhythm in part that's in the introduction, it comes back, it's like a main theme and hook of the song. It's what draws me into the song, but the main chorus, etc., is very different. Let's listen to those parts of fake now. So we got this long held, soaring vocal there from Brent Smith to lead into the chorus, the I thought you never would. And that fades away in the background. Well, I guess it's a second recording of Brent's vocals rather than the same recording. But comes in then when the chorus kicks in with the But I'm bleeding, and my hands are bruised from the grip that I once had on you. Now the chorus lines that Brent sings is a higher pitch than what I was just able to do. But the entire chorus lifts the whole song. Instead of having the guitar being with that groove and the stop-start nature of the rhythm, now you've got more of this continuous sound with these chords being played, and it just lifts the whole piece, and the drums come in with a proper beat as well. Before that, just playing hi-hat notes, before then actually playing the build, which is more of just like snares and toms, just kind of building the entire atmosphere rather than a driving beat. The driving beat comes in here in the chorus, and everything feels like it's on liftoff, and we're on our way. And it feels lifted and higher. It's the best way I can feel I can describe the change in atmosphere and tone between the verse and the chorus. And I really like that vocal melody in the chorus. I think it's catchy. I really like Brent's delivery of it. And what does it mean? What's the meaning of the song fake? Well, again, like Begin Again and Beyond the Sun. We don't truly know, but the belief is that it's about two characters. Uh, one is full of hope, dreams, and ambition, while the other is a cynical pessimist. These could be two different people, which some people believe, like an ex-partner or a friend. I personally believe it's the two voices inside Brent Smith's head as he's describing it. There's a line in the single I Dare You off this album. It's the line that leads into the chorus of I Dare You, and the line is which voice in your head will you keep alive? So being that that line was delivered on the same album by the same lyricist Brent Smith, it leads me into thinking this is about two characters inside the same person, the same brain, rather than two different individual people. But go back to the meaning of the song. As I said, you've got one character that's full of hope, dreams, and ambition, the other a cynical pessimist, and it's basically the ambitious, hopeful person uh being sick of the pessimist telling him to be honest and realistic. For example, there's the line, you don't know how it feels to be misunderstood, to reach for the sky. I thought you never would. It feels like an argument between the two characters, and mainly the hopeful one being annoyed and frustrated with a pessimist. Let's get back into fake and let's listen to a little bit more. Notice now when the verse comes in, we've got the same groove as we had at the start, the one I was waxing lyrical about. But now it's the same groove, but this time the drums are actually playing a beat alongside it. It's carrying the groove even more. Let's listen. And it just feels like it's more of a whereas before is the introduction, you're kind of taking us on the runway, we're climbing the stairs. Now we're just driving in the car. Now we're motoring. Now we're on the freeway enjoying the music. Um, Brent Smith again, his delivery, he's killing it here. He's carrying rhythm himself, the way he's delivering the lines. He's got that rope rock vocalist with the soul oozing out of him in the second verse as well, the way he's delivering lines. I feel his rock influence and his RB soulful influence kind of merging together as a fusion, probably leaning more towards the rock, but I feel that soulfulness is still there a little in the background. And then we get the bridge going in the chorus. It's the same as the one before, but everything's just building, building, building, building. And then you get that line, the one that says to reach for the sky. I thought you never would. I mentioned it in the song's meaning, but I also mentioned how the chorus just lifts everything up. When you go ahead, Brain Smith shouting, To reach for the sky! I've now got imagery of the sky, blue skies, wherever that's just with clouds, whether that's like an airplane climbing into them, the sun, open up to your interpretations, but I'm getting the feeling of liftoff, as well as the music then carrying me there with the chorus, with the way the rhythm kind of becomes more of a sta a continuous noise rather than this stop-start rhythm that we got in the verses and the build-up bridge into the main chorus. Now I'm gonna skip the second chorus, not because it's not interesting, but because it's the same as the first chorus, and I will play it again when I play the end of the song. First of all, though, I want to cut to the breakdown of the song. We're gonna play that and then we'll come back and play the rest of the song after talking about that breakdown a little bit. Let's listen to it. Now it's quite a short breakdown, but in terms of the atmosphere, I feel I'm getting from the verse and the chorus elsewhere that it's quite a not a happy song, but it's in that realm. It's not a frustrated, aggressive, angry song. But then I get that little bit of frustration creeping through a touch in that breakdown. And when you get to the song's meaning, what we believe it's to be about is that two characters, the optimist being annoyed with the pessimist. Um that makes sense because even when you're the full happy optimist believing in all your dreams, trying to achieve them, you still get these moments of frustration. But your outlook on life, the positive mental attitude you try to portray in life to get you to where you want to be, which a lot of people is a motto they adhere to in their lifestyle. You still get these frustrations creeping through, but then you try to overcome them. And I feel like this breakdown being short, the way it kind of changes the chords, you get a little bit of frustration coming through, not an aggressive way, but just in a frustrated way, but then it goes away because we get back to the main hooks of the song. We know we kind of cleared that out, and now we're back onto being the optimist of one full of hope and ambition to achieve your dreams and to reach for that sky. Now we're gonna come back into the little bit of the pre-chorus, and then we're gonna listen to the final chorus to the end of the song Fake, our third and final hidden gem from this album, us and them. Let's finish it off. Let's finish off fake. Is that it's mainly written by Brent Smith, but it's also co-written by John Shanks. Now, Bon Jovi fans will be familiar with John Shanks because he's currently the rhythm guitarist for Bon Jovi and has been since 2004. So he was when this recording was taking place and when the song was being written. Before he was in Bon Jovi, remember he wasn't there for the heyday in the 80s, he's there since 2004. Before 2004, before Bon Jovi, he was uh a songwriter and a session musician for record companies effectively. So obviously he was um making contacts during those years, writing some songs, playing guitar in some songs, and then he got his break in Bon Jovi and he wrote a song with Brent Smith, a song Fake. And that brings us to an end of our hidden gems and an end to our coverage of the album Us and Them. Now, once this album was finished, released, and the band had done their touring to support it, Atlantic Records once again wanted him to write a third album in a six-month time frame like they did for us and them. But this time, instead of going along with the demands, Brent Smith refused due to his unhappiness with the process and the output the last time they were forced to do this with this album. Us and them, the one we just covered, and the record company eventually bowed down to Brent Smith's demands and agreed to give them 18 months instead. And the work on the third album started in 2007, so two years after Us and Them was released. There was a bit of a delay, and we're gonna get into all that because there's some drama, there's some band lineup changes. Some people leave, some people join, and it's more than just one person. So there is quite a bit of drama. It's the most drama you get in the Shinedown story, and we are gonna cover that in the next episode, episode three in our Shinedown series, when we cover the third album, The Sound of Madness, which I mean, if the extra 12 months led to the quality you get in Sound of Madness, then maybe I wish they had the 18 months rather than the six for us and them, but we do still have some killer tracks in us and them. I think both Brent Smith and Shinedown fans are harsh on this album. There's a worse album in their back catalogue. We haven't got to it yet. We will get to it in this series, and I'll mention it when we do. But Us and Them is still a great album. I pulled out three hidden gem tracks. You got three singles that are really good as well, with I Dare You Being the One That Introduced Me to the Band. A lot of people would have been introduced to the band from the song Save Me, perhaps, as well, given the fact that that's the highest stream Spotify track on the album. So I think this is almost an underappreciated album. I wouldn't call it a hidden gem album because it's not unknown enough, but it's certainly underappreciated. And as I said, we've called out three hidden gem bangers, begin again, beyond the sun, and fake. And I hope you've enjoyed going through those with me. And I hope you agree that they are hidden gem tracks. Because I truly feel they are. And we are gonna get into the Shinedown story, and we're gonna get into the mega classic album from Shinedown next time. Because their best album, in my opinion, by quite a distance, is the next album. The third album, The Sound of Madness. I think it's not just a classic Shinedown album, I think it's a classic album of the genre. So many great tracks. And we're gonna cover that next time. So please do join us there and join us for all the drama in the band that we'll go over with the lineup changes and also the hidden gem tracks we're gonna pick out from that classic album. It's difficult because so many great songs that are not candidates for hidden gem treatment because they're too good, loved too much by the public. But I've done it. I've found some hidden gem tracks, and we will go through them, announce them, dissect them, as we have done here in episode three. So if you've enjoyed this episode, please do check out episode one on Shinedon. If you haven't already, please keep joining us for future episodes in the series. I predict they'll be seven to eight episodes long, probably uh an episode per album. And if you've enjoyed this format, please do check out Dan's series on Nightwish and Iron Maiden, the first one. We cover in the very much the same format both of those bands, the stories, the discography, the big hits, and more importantly, we dissect the hidden gem tracks from each one. And we've also got series on hidden gem bands. The Diablo Swing Orchestra is the answer. If you haven't heard of either of the bands before, go check them out. You might love them. Hopefully, I'll convince you that they should be on your Spotify or Apple Music playlists. Now that brings us to an end of this episode. I'm Daniel Stuckey. This is Rock and Metal's Hidden Gems Podcast. Thank you once again for joining us, and I will see you in episode three, hopefully. Oh, look, I ranked. See you then. Bye bye.