Shinedown's Eric Bass Announces Debut Solo Album

Shinedown’s Eric Bass, a songwriter, producer, and multi-instrumentalist, has announced his debut solo album “Eric Bass Presents: I Had A Name”, set to release on February 28th. The concept album was written, recorded, and produced entirely by Bass himself. The lead single “Mind Control” has also been released, and the music video can be watched HERE.

Eric Bass had started gaining storytelling ideas for “I Had A Name” back in 2018 sitting at a hotel Milan, Italy while on tour with Shinedown. “I sat on the bed with a pen and paper and wrote for two hours. It turned into a synopsis for a prequel to the story I’m telling on the album. When I started writing music, I thought about these characters. The album doesn’t chronologically tell the story, but it depicts various scenes from it – bits and pieces that happen throughout it.” The album focuses on societal commentary while also touching on deeper themes such as mental health struggles.

“We live in a world right now where music gets homogenized and maybe everything sounds and feels the same. I wanted to create something different and I hope listeners hear that,” Bass shares about the new record. “Lyrically and emotionally I hope it empowers them and they can see themselves in the characters and stories I sing about.”

In the video for “Mind Control”, the audience is taken into a futuristic-looking world and then focuses on the protagonist, who is addressing a crowd of mannequins at a podium. He then lets them catch on fire and gleefully watches them burn. The video takes a turn towards the end as the bright colors and chaos shift to a calm, black and white scene, with the protagonist looking at himself in the mirror, seemingly reflecting on his past actions. He then douses himself in gasoline and drops a lit match on himself.

About the song, Eric Bass has said: “’Mind Control’ is part of a larger story than I’m telling on this record and in the graphic novel that goes along with it. We’re following this character Devaren as he’s talking about his disdain for the population and how he can’t stand them, but at the end of the song he has this reflective moment where he actually regrets everything he’s been doing. The interesting thing about the characters in this story is that they represent a different part of my neurodivergence and mental health journey. In ‘Mind Control’ Devaren represents the depression that has crept into my life over the years that I didn’t see coming. I just had to personify that in a character so in ‘Mind Control’ it has taken over, but ultimately in our story it will be defeated.”

Preorder and presave “Eric Bass Presents: I Had A Name” HERE.

Eric Bass Presents: I Had A Name Tracklist:

1. A World Unseen

2. The New Gods Of War

3. Azalia

4. We Can’t Go Home

5. Goodnight Goodnight

6. Mind Control

7. New Graves

8. All Good Children - Our Guts

9. Modenhardt

10. Dead Inside