Two Big-Time Rockers Say Going Country ‘Isn’t a Gimmick’

Today’s country music features a unique blend of genres.

There are more and more artists genre-blending and even crossing over into the country music world intentionally.

I spoke with Brent Smith, lead singer of Shinedown, as well as Zachary Baker, aka Zacky Vengeance from Avenged Sevenfold, on Taste of Country Nights.

Both are in the midst of a country music entrance.

The thing that these two rockers have in common is the love of the music, not having any boundaries when it comes to their creativity, and the fact that they both want to make sure that everyone knows this isn’t just some cash grab, it’s real.

Vengeance dropped the first single from the upcoming project, “Dark Horse,” in late 2025 and has a full-on country and Americana solo album set to drop this year.

He said, “This isn’t a gimmick, this isn’t me quitting what I was doing and putting on a cowboy hat and attempt to become a country star, this is very genuine and from the heart.”

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Smith, the lead singer of Shinedown, also stopped by Taste of Country Nights to tell me how his band accidentally started crossing over into the country lane from one major song and a performance linked to it.

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Shinedown has an eighteen-song record set to release on May 29, and they have already released four singles from it.

One of those is “Searchlight,” a song that the band performed at the Grand Ole Opry recently. They were invited to play for the first time during the Opry 100 celebration, where the Opry wanted to bring in some bands and artists that have never before played the venue.

Smith said the evening was amazing and surreal, and “having Carrie Underwood come out and introduce us — it was a wild night.”

But due to their explosive performance of it on the Opry, at least twenty country stations across America have added the Shinedown song to their playlists.

The band didn’t set out to write a country song, Smith said.

“When we were in the writing phase, what it originally was was more of a rock ballad and was a bit heavier and had a different vibe.”

Smith recalled how the song just lent itself to steel guitars and a country vibe, saying they did not intentionally make the song to crossover into country music.

Smith explained that he just heard something within the soul of the song that told him to re-record it and change the whole vibe.

Smith — who grew up in Knoxville, Tenn. — knows all about country music and the Opry. “When you walk out there [on the Opry stage] it’s like an out-of-body-experience,” he stated.

Both artists are the real deal and are making music that speaks to them from the heart.