Shinedown: Hot Sauces and Sizzling Rock (Part 2 of 2)

Continued from Part One…

Barry Kerch: With Brent being sober for quite a few years now, we’ve re-energized ourselves and really come together as a group. It’s better now than it’s ever been with the four of us. And with that, the mission is even stronger. We’ve never been a band that looks back and thinks, “Oh, look at what we accomplished.” Instead, we go, “That was cool. What’s next?” We’re selling out 20,000 people in arenas here in the states and in the UK. We can do the same in the rest of the world. We’ve got a lot more to do, and we want to be in stadiums. So we’re just getting started, and that’s the way we always look at it. We’re always hungry. We’re always working hard. We never take a break.

Let’s shift from talking about music to hot sauce. The Shinedown hot sauces are really good. How did that whole enterprise come about?

It was kind of organic and kind of by chance. Torchbearer, who we partnered with, approached us and said, “Do you think you guys might be interested in this?” And I went, “Yep, I’m your guy! It’s me. I love hot sauce.” Half of my fridge is hot sauce. Literally. I make my own, I grow my own peppers. I am a hot sauce nerd and have been since I was a little kid. So then the main guy at Torchbearer and I started going back and forth: “What flavor profiles do you like?” We started spitballing ideas, and he said, “Okay, let me make up some samples.” He’d send me a bunch, and then I’d say, “I like this, I don’t like this, and maybe this one needs this.”

Torchbearer has been around for about 20 years, so they really know what they’re doing. They have a huge selection of sauce. He’s like, “Should we add a little more arrowroot to make it a little thicker?” We got into those levels, and we spent about five, six months on it. And we finally came up with three products that we really were proud of, that fit both of our ideas.

The Symptom Garlic Chilpotle is the first one released; the other two are coming soon. It was fun to do, and I would absolutely do it again. But what was really nice about it is that it’s a true passion. Shinedown didn’t slap their name on some hot sauce that was given to us: “Here you go, here’s a hot sauce.” We worked hard on that, and it’s something I’m proud of. I would never put Shindown’s name – or my own personal name – on something I didn’t believe in.

Back when you joined the band, did you ever imagine that you would still be doing this all these years later?

I hoped and prayed, but it was a gamble. Going into it, I knew it was a gamble. I hoped to get to my 30th birthday in this band; now I’m almost 50! And we’re still going strong.

I remember in the early days; we didn’t make any money for the first two, three records, really. And any money we did make, we put back into the organization, right into the band, and to pay crew and everybody else. My wife was supporting me on a very meager teacher-type salary. And I remember my mom once coming to me in those early days, asking, “So when are you going to get a real job?” I said, “Mom, this is my real job.”

She said, “Yes, but eventually, maybe you’ll have a family, and you’re not going to be able to support it on just this.” I said, “Don’t worry. I’m going to figure it out.” And I did figure it out. We’re very successful now. Even if were to, God forbid, plateau right here, and this is as good as it gets, it’s awesome. And I have a career for the rest of my life. We can play shows for the rest of our life at a very good level, be able to support our families and have a great time playing music. That’s amazing.

It was a lot of work and a lot of suffering, and still is. You miss a lot of things, but I get to do what I love for a living and I have a wonderful support team. To know that I’m secure enough in the career that I’ve chosen to be able to continue this for as long as I want to, that’s awesome.