Most know Sully Erna as the frontman of Godsmack, writer and singer of anger-fueled songs like “Whatever,” “Awake” and “Cryin’ Like a Bitch.” But there is another side to the Lawrence, Massachusetts, native hinted at by “Voodoo” and “Serenity” but not fully explored until “Avalon,” his debut solo album released in September 2010. Incorporating a vast range of sounds, including piano, cello, hand drumming and another vocalist, “Avalon” takes the listener on a musical and spiritual journey. While on tour promoting the release, Sully called in to Live Metal’s Greg Maki to discuss “Avalon,” his understanding of the basic nature of music, Godsmack’s upcoming run on the Rockstar Energy Drink Mayhem Festival, his future in music and more.
LIVE METAL: I’ll just get right to it: I think “Avalon” is an absolutely amazing album. And especially with regard to “Avalon,” the note that you have included with it is really dead-on, because the music moves me in a way I can’t really explain. How did you come to that perspective and that understanding of music? Was it something gradual, or was there a moment where it all kind of came into focus for you?
SULLY ERNA: Yeah, there was actually a moment where it kind of hit me, the light bulb went off. I was writing my book, and I was with my publisher at the time. I kind of had the book already written, but we were rearranging it, making sure it flowed properly and kind of polishing and tweaking. I was still jotting down some notes about things I wanted to stick in there, and at the time, it was just talking about music.
The whole book is about my life up until I became successful with Godsmack. It was more about how I grew up and these rough times, but it was always music that was there to kind of save my life and save me from doing the wrong things at times. I was raised in a very violent neighborhood with a lot of gangs and drugs and stuff, and I was involved in a lot of bad things that kids just get involved in hanging out on the street. But whenever people were off doing the wrong thing and really going to do something dark or ended up in something really bad that night that I could’ve been involved in, I was home practicing because I just loved playing. So music really became the foundation of the book and the thread that played through it as a theme.
As I got to this middle section where I was like, “What is music?,” I was sitting there talking to the publisher, and we were drinking a bottle of wine, and we remember going, “Wow, it’s really crazy when you think about it. What is music? It’s really just nothing more than frequencies.” And then we kept breaking it down, and of course, a frequency is just a vibration, and that whole thing started playing out.
We were really tripping on this because I’m thinking, we couldn’t’ve been the first people to think of it, but it was one of those moments that hit me like I think about space, you know, when someone says, “Hey, if you could actually build a rocketship that could keep going straight up, up, up, up—any which direction off the planet and just go straight forever—it never ends.” That freaks me out, that whole concept of space never ending. It just weirds me out because I wanna go, I wanna see what’s out there.
It was the same thing in a sense with this thing. I was like, wow, this is weird. This is just a bunch of strings or whatever vibrating. It’s just something vibrating, and yet, when it bangs against our body, when we feel these vibrations, it creates emotion. And that’s unexplainable because there’s no lyrical content at that point. There’s no anything. It’s just a sequence of different vibrations banging around, creating these sound waves, these frequencies, and when they hit us and we hear it or feel it, we respond with emotion. I don’t know, man. That really blew me away.
So the whole idea of this project started to revolve around that. It’s time to get back to the music and let people hear and feel music like it used to be back in the day when “Dark Side of the Moon” and those kind of records were really relevant and they took you through this musical experience and made you feel all these sensations. I just love that, and I’m so glad and proud that we were able to create a record that really gets people back to the music.
Obviously, Godsmack has consumed a very large portion of your adult life. So how long has the music of “Avalon” been inside you just waiting to get out?
It probably started for me back in like ’03. I started to write pieces like “Eyes of a Child.” Shortly after that, I was writing stuff like “Running Blind.” “Until Then” came about early before this project was developed. So there was always this other side.
But you’ve gotta remember, too, that I was raised as a drummer since I was 3 years old, my dad’s a trumpet player, my great-uncle was a famous composer in Sicily. I’ve always had this other musical background, as well, but Godsmack is what pushed me to the surface through that hard rock music. So most people that know me publicly just know me through Godsmack, and they don’t realize that I have these other backgrounds and influences.
And so, as I grew and got older and wanted to explore these emotions and different creative sides, this is the stuff that I was most drawn to, more of this world music, hand drumming, tribal, eclectic, kind of trancey, hypnotic at times music. And other times, just really beautiful, well-written, composed piano tunes or acoustic guitar stuff. For me, it’s really just about writing great music—or trying to—because I don’t categorize music anymore. I stopped doing that a long time ago. I don’t think of Pantera as metal and Lady Gaga as pop music. I think of it, it’s either a great song or it’s not a great song.
The subject matter of your lyrics is very different from Godsmack. You’re very vulnerable, and a song like “My Light” is very beautiful and uplifting. Does that reflect where you are in your life at this point? Is this an album you could’ve made, say, 10 or 12 years ago?
I don’t think so. No, because I hadn’t grown that much then. I know I couldn’t’ve. There’s no way. It would’ve never come out this way. When I was younger and writing Godsmack stuff, I was much angrier, and I had the world against me and the typical stuff we all think about when we’re younger, fighting off everything and going through disastrous relationships and whatever. So I had a lot more energy toward anger back then. Now I have a beautiful daughter. I have a much different kind of life. I’m very content a lot of the time. I have a great career.
My audience is growing, as well, with me. They’re not the young, 18-, 19-year-old kids anymore that they were when Godsmack first started. Now they’re into their 30s and have families of their own.
It’s a much different place to be, and for me, I feel like I need to grow and expand as the world, my life and they expand, and help this transition happen together. So that’s why I kind of launched this off of Godsmack’s record, as well, because I need people to understand the transition. I’m not breaking up Godsmack. I have no desire to do that. I want to finish up that legacy just as well in the end and hopefully put them in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame one day or something like that. But I also need to explore other avenues, whether it’s this or acting or scoring films. I’m gonna continue to brand my name and do what I want when I feel it because that’s what my body’s telling me to do.
Why call the album “Avalon?” Does that hold some special meaning to you?
Not so much a special meaning. It’s just I really enjoyed the title the most from all the titles we were choosing from. That song was the first song that we wrote as a band, together, with all these musicians. It really kind of defined the sound that we were looking for. When we were talking about starting this project, we all had an idea in our head and we knew we were gonna step outside our comfort zone, but we didn’t have a distinct sound yet of what this project was gonna sound like. And “Avalon” was written, and it really made us feel like that was what we were looking for, that kind of world music, very primal at times and haunting, but modern. That kind of defined the project. And then from there, it branched out and we started developing new pieces.
Even though it’s your name on it, it sounds like it was a pretty collaborative process with the other musicians.
Very much so. Everybody definitely brought in their 2 cents to this project and added pieces. The guitar player, Chris Lester, was responsible for the music on “My Light.” Tim Theriault was responsible for the music on “7 Years.” Everybody brought something into this project and made it as unique as it sounds. It doesn’t surprise me now looking back at it, listening to this and not being able to categorize this record because everyone comes from such a broad musical background—so much different from one another. We have blues backgrounds in this band, we have a classically trained Bulgarian cello player, we have Niall Gregory from Dead Can Dance who’s versed in Brazilian and Celtic hand drumming—it’s from everywhere, all over the world.
One of the things that’s probably taking people by surprise is that you have another singer on the album, too, Lisa Guyer. She’s someone you’ve known a long time now, right?
Yeah, I’ve known Lisa for about 18 years or so. She was introduced to me through a mutual friend of my sister’s. I always admired her. I’d always see her in the clubs singing. Great, amazing blues vocalist. We would’ve never thought our voices went so well together, but it just magically, again, lined up and worked out better than what we thought it would. I come from such a hard rock background, she comes from such a blues background—we would never put our voices together if someone on paper said this will work.
What was the vibe like in the studio? Did you have to do anything to kind of get into the headspace to write and play this kind of music?
It just came very naturally. We didn’t go in there with any expectations, and that’s what really helped us get through this. Even the way we recorded it—pop in the studio for three, four, five days, throw down some stuff, and then go back and people would do their own little things. We’d come back, write a little bit more, drop a few more things on a recording and try it out. We just kept bringing in material and experimenting with it, and eventually picked the best 10, 11 songs that we could for this record. They’re very diverse, and every song sounds very different from the next. It’s, again, no wonder that this record sounds as unique as it does. It was just the way it was the built and the people involved in it that made it as different as it could possibly get.
What has the reaction been like from the record label? Because, obviously, it’s so different from everything you’ve done before. Have they been behind you on this all the way?
Not really. I think they humored me for a second and gave me a small budget to do some recording. They knew I wanted to do a solo thing. Everyone wants to stick with the paycheck that feeds their families, which is the mothership, and Godsmack has always been a very reliable source for that. But I told them to take things seriously, and eventually, now they’re starting to understand this is gonna go one way or the other, with or without your help. We’re taking this thing on the road, and we’re gonna blow this thing up. And I’m gonna have a career as Sully Erna just as I am as Godsmack. It’s very important to me. If you try to keep me in a cage, there’s no way it’s gonna work. I can’t be that one-dimensional.
So I think they were a bit nonchalant about it and just humored me and said, “Here you go. Have some fun, and let us know when you get back to Godsmack.” And then they saw that I wasn’t going back as quickly and I was putting a lot of time and effort into this. They also started to see that once it was put in front of people, it was responding. That’s what kind of got their attention again.
Now we have a feature documentary running on Palladia TV, which is VH1’s HD channel, and it’s doing really well. It’s gonna run for the next few months. I want people to know about it because if they don’t know about this project and what this is about yet, if you watch this documentary, you’ll totally get it. It’s about the making of this record, but it’s much more than that. It really taps into what you were saying about music in general and what a gift it is and how it’s built off of vibrations, and everyone has these interviews and their own theory about what that means to them, why music is so powerful in their lives and how sometimes we don’t realize it’s probably just as powerful as food or water—you don’t realize it until you don’t have it that you need this in your life. It’s the soundtrack to our lives. This whole documentary is about that. It’s a really cool piece on how we put it together. You can go to SullyErna.com, and we have a banner set up that you can click on the Palladia thing and it shoots you to their listings, and you can set your TiVo recorder up or whatever and check it out.
Right now, you’re taking the music out to the people on tour. How is the tour going?
The tour’s going great. Small, little, intimate audiences, but of course, that’s what we have to expect at this point. It’s still a developing thing, and we’ll get it there. I don’t really see this growing into an arena-style act. If it did, I’ll figure out a way to translate it. I think it feels better in the theaters, and even though it’s a little bit smaller than I’d like to see it right now, I don’t know if I’d want this to grow any bigger than 3,000-, 5,000-seat theaters. It just feels like more of a theatrical kind of event than it does an arena or stadium show.
But right now, yeah, it’s going great. People are receiving it very well. We’re getting really good reviews and very positive feedback throughout the tour. Everybody that sees it, even when they don’t know what they were gonna go see, they respond to it really positively and love it. Some people are even saying they love it more than Godsmack. It’s really interesting to see people’s take on this. But at least they’re feeling it and hearing it like we want them to. That’s all we can ask, that they get the same connection that I do from it.
Not too long after you finish this tour, you’re switching gears and heading back to Godsmack for the Mayhem Festival. Are you looking forward to that?
Yeah, it’s gonna be summer and I’m looking forward to seeing the guys again and putting on a big, fat rock show and flipping burgers in the parking lot and having just a good, old-fashioned summer with the guys. Yeah, it should be good. Really, really enjoying the whole mix between both of them so far.
From here, looking forward years into the future, I know you’ve said you want to keep doing both, but do you see that going on? Do you see yourself singing “Whatever,” at 60, onstage?
I don’t think so. I guess you never know. I’m still in really good shape right now at 43, and I take very good care of myself. There’s a possibility, but I don’t think so. I don’t know if I want to be onstage screaming “Time Bomb” when I’m 60 years old. I do see myself performing, and I definitely want to continue to write music, and I would love to have built a nice solo career for myself, as well. I just want to perform and sit at a piano and sing the songs and stuff that I’ve written over the years and hope people enjoy it as much.
For sure, I can see myself always being on a stage, but I don’t know if it’s gonna be at that level. It’s very taxing on your body, on your vocals. Godsmack is more like a full-contact sport. It really is. It’s very aggressive, and it’s a very physical show. And I don’t know how long my body will endure that kind of thing when I get into my later years. So I’ll just take it step by step and see what happens and where I go.
LINKS
www.sullyerna.com
www.godsmack.com
www.rockstarmayhemfest.com
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