The metalheads of Godsmack had to cancel their tour dates this year due to concerns over coronavirus.
In an interview with SiriusXM’s “Trunk Nation,” Godsmack frontman Sully Erna said that the band decided against scheduling any tour dates this year due to the ongoing pandemic. Originally, the group was going to head out on a major tour with The Pretty Reckless from July through September, but Erna said the trek was cut because “I don’t see this thing resolving itself to the point where people are going to want to jump back into big crowds yet.”
He noted that people might not want to go to a concert or sports event after coronavirus dies down, since there could be lingering parts of the virus spreading around. Additionally, he figured that a lot of people will probably want to get back to work and save money, rather than immediately start buying concert tickets.
“We decided, ‘You know what? Let’s not try to jam ourselves into the fall,'” he said. “We were at the tail end of the record anyway, so this gives us time to go work on a new album and also be first next year to be able to pick the venues we wanna go to, the tour buses that we want, the days that we wanna be at those venues, the markets we wanna be in, and let’s just book out ahead of time and be first next year instead of trying to find our little piece of real estate this fall when every other band is probably gonna try to go out and tour.”
In the meantime, Erna just launched a twice-weekly internet show dubbed “Hometown Sessions” on his Youtube video. He said that the show will feature “celebrity guests, musician friends,” and music conversations each Tuesday, followed by “real talk” and “real life” conversations with experts discussing mental health, addiction, depression, and other topics on Thursdays.
Godsmack has been working on material for their follow-up to 2018’s When Legends Rise. The record, which features “Bulletproof” and “Under Your Scars,” follows 2014’s 1000hp.
Erna isn’t alone in his thoughts regarding the state of the concert industry; earlier this week, bioethicist and professor of healthcare management Dr. Zeke Emanuel told The New York Times that he predicts the concert industry will not fully resume until fall 2021, noting that he has “no idea” how promoters are already postponing shows to this fall. The industry is certainly taking a big hit from this pandemic — a new report from Pollstar shows that the industry could lose up to $9 billion in revenue this year.
See our updating list of events postponed to fall 2020 due to the pandemic here.
