ABC/Randy HolmesLet the madness begin! Shinedown headlines this year's edition of the annual Carnival of Madness tour, which kicks off tonight, July 20, in Southaven, Mississippi. The band has played the Carnival before, but for this go-around, Brent Smith and company are set on upping their visual game.
"One of the big elements that we're gonna do is, quite frankly, we're really into production," Smith tells ABC Radio. "Especially when we do the Carnival, we really focus on what the actual visual is gonna be for the audience, so we're gonna take it to the next level."
"When we did Carnival in 2013, we brought performers with us, and a lot of different things from a circus and a theatrical point-of-view, from a carnival aspect," he continues. "This year's production's gonna be a lot more modern, and we're just gonna do some stuff that [has] never been done before."
Along with the new visuals, Shinedown is bringing some new tunes, courtesy of their latest album, Threat to Survival, which Smith feels is "probably the strongest" of the band's five records.
"We have never made the same record twice, so each record we really are trying to give the audience a snapshot of where we were in that place and time," Smith tells ABC Radio. "Threat to Survival...it's 11 scenarios, and it was a very autobiographical record."
Along with Shinedown, the Carnival of Madness tour features Halestorm and Black Stone Cherry. The tour concludes August 18 in Detroit.
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