Godsmack’s Sully Erna Describes How Success ‘Distorts Your Reality’
A lot of musicians have admitted over the years that becoming successful has changed their lives a lot. Godsmack's Sully Erna, though, thoroughly described how much his life changed outside of his wealth, and added that finding success "distorts your reality."
Godsmack formed in Massachusetts in 1995 and started gaining a following in the Boston area by playing shows and becoming acquainted with the local rock radio station WAAF. By the time they released their self-titled major label debut in 1998, their songs had already been making the airwaves.
During an interview with 98KUPD's The Shan Man, Erna was asked what realizations he's had throughout his career as he went from being in a garage band, to a household name with a lot of commercial success.
"Once you step into the ladder of climbing to the top and the big leagues, I remember the first thing that I kind of learned was that it distorts your reality," the frontman recalled.
"And what I mean by that is when you're a young band and you're doing the grind and playing the circuit and trying to get a deal, and you have this group of friends and you all hang out and they support you on the weekends with your gig and you go home and have beers with them and shoot pool at the bar, all those things are normal. And then you go to your job and you go to rehearsal at night, and that's your reality."
Erna added that becoming a rock star is nothing but a fantasy at that time, but then as that actually starts to happen, your idea of reality is basically flipped upside down, especially when the band plays shows multiple nights in a row without a break.
"You do that for two or three years in a row, you just become a robot... And when you go home, all the things that used to seem normal to you are foreign," he continued.
"And you go to a bar, and you see the same group of guys and friends that you would hang with, and all of a sudden they kind of act and treat you a little different. It's a little bit of a standoff — you're staring at them, they're looking at you, and they expect you to be this thing now 'cause they've now seen you for the last so many years on MTV or in articles and on videos. The behavior changes."
The singer believes he and his bandmates have remained mostly humble throughout their journey, and as a result, their lives have become "normal" again.
"You eventually learn who your circle is and your family and your friends. And we've been in that place for a while now, where we just have a great support team around us and good family and kids and friends and all that stuff. And we do our job — we go out there and we enjoy what we do. We've been blessed to be able to have a career that we love and we can actually make some money at. So all things are good now, and have been for a long time."
Listen to the full interview below.
Godsmack's eighth album Lighting Up the Sky is due Feb. 24, and will apparently be their final full-length release. Though the band plans to continue touring over the years, they feel satisfied with their discography at this point and would prefer to continue celebrating all the hits they've put out as opposed to releasing more new ones.