Godsmack recently unveiled their new live album and concert film titled Live at Mohegan Sun, and embarked on a spring 2026 headlining tour with support from Stone Temple Pilots and Dorothy.
Heavy Consequence recently caught up with Godsmack frontman Sully Erna to discuss the new live release, the tour, the departure of two classic members, and the future of Godsmack, including plans to record new albums despite previously suggesting that their most recent LP would be the band’s last one.
Live at Mohegan Sun (order here) captures Godsmack’s sold‑out October 26th, 2024, performance at Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Connecticut, which turned out to be the final show featuring longtime band members Tony Rombola (guitar) and Shannon Larkin (drums).
Erna and fellow founding member Robbie Merrill (bass) have since continued Godsmack with new guitarist Sam Koltun and new drummer Wade Murff, and are in the midst of the band’s aforementioned spring tour. The first leg runs through a July 3rd show in Bangor, Maine, with a second leg launching in September (pick up tickets here).
Check out our interview with Sully Erna below.
Godsmack’s new live album and concert film captures an October 2024 concert at Connecticut’s Mohegan Sun that turned out to be the last show with guitarist Tony Rombola and drummer Shannon Larkin, who both retired from the band a few months later. The footage shows an inspired performance, with a rousing reception from the crowd. Is it safe to say that’s it’s one of the most memorable shows of Godsmack’s career?
Sully Erna: What I can tell you is for sure, I feel like it’s one of our best pieces of work we put out live. It being the last [show] with all four [classic] members made it that much more important and special and emotional. I love the way [Live at Mohegan Sun] came out. I’m not always the biggest fan of recording live or filming live, but to know that this thing was unedited, there’s no auto-tune… This is straight up a rock band playing their instruments, and I’m so proud of that because we’re trying to preserve the art of music and get these kids away from their computers and their auto-tunes and their running tracks onstage and all this crap that they do that does not allow true appreciators of music to give them the full respect. You can’t go into a studio, sing one chorus, and then fly the other choruses in, and call it a song.
This is four guys onstage that grew up in an era where that’s what we were taught, looking up to bands like Zeppelin and Sabbath and Rush and Metallica, even the more modern bands like Foo Fighters. These are bands that really play their instruments and it takes tens of thousands of hours sometimes to be able to be that good. So, that’s dedication, and that’s commitment.
I just watched Journey’s concert from 1981, the Escape Tour [with] “Don’t Stop Believin'” and “Open Arms,” and all this stuff. And I’m watching them going, “Oh my God, this is 1981. This is as live as it gets.” They didn’t even have auto-tune back then, and these guys aren’t missing a beat, not a note, nothing.
My point is I’m really proud of this because this is a show that not only looks great, sounds great, but is filled with everything a Godsmack fan would want. When it comes to the behind the scenes, the final retirement party with Tony and Shannon, and the final bow onstage. I think it’s just extremely valuable.
Tony and Shannon’s departure from the band wasn’t officially announced until five months after this concert, but obviously you knew that this was gonna be their last Godsmack show. What was the timeline of you and Robbie finding out that the two of them were leaving the band leading up to that show and then the ultimate announcement a few months later?
It started when we were writing the record [Lighting Up the Sky]. We went into the studio, COVID was finally over, we got back to work. I had ended a relationship. There was a lot of things that kind of took us away from the progress of writing and recording the record and completing it. But once we got in and we started working, the bond got so much tighter.
These guys really helped me at a time when I was down and out, and really showed up for me as brothers, like they always do. It just created a real bonding moment and all those conversations just kind of led to, “Wow, what a ride we’ve had, look at what we’ve done here.” We’re sitting here going like, “Man, it’s been almost 30 years we’ve been together as a band and we’ve done so much.”
And Shannon and Tony were just kind of voicing at that moment, not solidifying it, but just basically saying, “I don’t know how much longer I’ll go.” Shannon got sober. Life changed for him. He was seeing life through a different lens. Tony’s just a very committed family man who loves to be home with his wife. And they’re just like, “Maybe this is the last one. Maybe this is the last hurrah. We’re gonna finish this record. We’re gonna tour on it, finish the touring cycle, and then there’s a chance we may take our final bow.” And then 18 months of touring went by and you just kind of forget about that.
But about a month or so before it ended, we all started sitting in the dressing room and talking and they brought it up again. They’re like, “We don’t think we’re gonna continue after we finish 2024. That’s when we started to go, “Okay, this could be the final one.”
At that point when I started talking about it and just saying like, “I don’t know how much longer we’ll go for.” A good friend of ours, Dan Catullo, stepped up, who’s done a lot of work with us in the past, filmed our other shows. He was like, “Sully, we have to get the final show on camera because we don’t know.” And I’m like, “Yeah, you’re right.” And so he brought in 25 cameras or whatever it was, an audio truck. And I’m so grateful that we did that. ’cause we really did get to capture the final moments of this band doing what we’ve done best for the last 25, 30 years.
It’s unusual for two members of a band to exit at the same time, especially under amicable circumstances. Did you and Robbie have real conversations about the future of Godsmack when you learned that Tony and Shannon were leaving, as far as continuing the band?
Yeah, once they made that decision and once they actually left, me and Robbie had a sit down and have a real talk and just say it’s decision time for us, like, “What do we do here? Half of our band just decided to go home and retire, and me and you started this band in ’95 and here we are now back to me and you. Is this the time? Nothing great lasts forever. So, do we bow out, as well? Do we stop Godsmack at this point, and end it with Tony and Shannon, and just call it a good run.”
There’s no hard feelings. Everyone still loves each other. To go out on top is a great thing, too. But then we were like, “You know what? I don’t know, man. We still have some gas in the tank. Let’s run this thing a little more. We’ll bring in a couple of good players, and make sure they honor the music, honor the parts, the arrangements. Don’t try to reinvent anything. Come in, play what the fans know.”
We did that, we were able to get this guy Sam Koltun, who came from Dorothy. We got Wade Murff, who played with Daughtry and some other acts as the drummer. We brought them in and we started working with them and we’re like, “You know what? These guys sound great. They did their homework. The band is still gonna sound like the band. The voice isn’t changing.”
So, for the audience, I think they’re gonna really enjoy the show just like they have in the past. When you’re playing to 10,000 to 20,000 people, not everybody’s in the front row looking and going like, “Oh, that’s not Tony anymore.” They’re just back there enjoying the sound, the music, what they came for. And that’s not gonna change. And it sounds great. And these guys really elevated the show even a little bit more.
Shannon’s a tough one to replace. He’s the GOAT behind the drums. But this guy, Wade, he’s got some chops and he is a strong, strong, visually strong player. So, we’re like, “Let’s just run it. Let’s run it. We’ll see how this feels. If it’s really foreign to us, we’ll give each other a big hug and walk away and call it a great run. But if this thing starts to feel alive again, then why not? Let’s run it until we don’t feel like running it anymore, and make a little bit more history. Let’s just open that next chapter in our lives. Close this one. Walk through the next door and see where it leads us.”
Do you envision Sam and Wade as permanent members of the band when it comes to continuing to tour and recording new music?
I wish I had a good answer for you, but I can’t predict the future because if there’s one thing life has taught me over the years that I absolutely know now a hundred percent, is that I don’t know anything. Every time we think we have it figured out, it throws a curve ball at you. So, I’ve humbled myself to life and God in the universe, and I just kind of roll with the punches, man. So, you can’t bring two new guys in after building a brand in a catalog for 30 years and call them band members.
But we are a family and we do want a band to be a band. So, they are being brought in permanently, and we’ll give them the opportunity to bring in ideas, to record on the records. And if they can pull their own weight, then great. If not, we’ll have to reconsider some things. But I don’t see a problem with these two guys. They’re really good players. They’re top level players.
You seemed pretty adamant a few years ago that Lighting Up the Sky would be the final album from Godsmack. What has happened in the last few years that softened up that stance, and now makes you open to recording and releasing more albums from Godsmack in the future?
Well, I think there was a little bit of a misunderstanding there. I was a little more vague than that, I believe, because what I was trying to articulate was… I had a feeling at that time that this was gonna be the last full body of work you ever heard from Godsmack as the [classic] four members. But now that we have a decision made that we’re gonna go and run this thing, there’s for sure gonna be some new music. I don’t know exactly when yet. We’re starting to noodle around with some ideas, but we will definitely put out another album and we’ll test the waters again. We’ll see how the fans react. We’ll see how people like the new band, the new music, and what that sounds like, ’cause I don’t know that either, but I was true in knowing that for sure Lighting Up the Sky was gonna be the last full body of work with the [classic] members.
Speaking of new music, you recently mentioned a new song called “Set Me Free” that Godsmack recorded with Dorothy. What can you reveal about that track?
Well, for one, I’ll tell you that this girl is a force, man. She can belt, she is an incredible singer, has a killer band. They’re so rootsy and soulful, and bluesy and hard rock and swampy, and they’re that raw, organic heavy toned, guitar driven band and vocal driven band that that really translates live. And again, another band that plays their instruments, sings their parts.
And you have Dorothy as support, along with Stone Temple Pilots, on Godsmack’s headlining spring 2026 tour. What are your thoughts on that bill?
I love that [the band Dorothy] bring this hard rock element to this tour without it sounding like us, without it sounding like Stone Temple Pilots. Godsmack doesn’t sound like Stone Temple Pilots. Dorothy doesn’t sound like Godsmack, but it’s all in the same wheelhouse. I’m not selling you on anything, you can do whatever you want. I don’t give a fuck. But I’ll tell you, if you’re not in that venue early and sitting in that seat by 7 o’clock to see what this girl does, you’re missing something really, really fucking special.
So, I’ve been telling people this is a complete night of music, and you should go and enjoy the whole thing. Enough of this four second, five second stimulation with people doom scrolling and all this stuff. They don’t have the focus to be able to just like sit and enjoy and absorb and immerse themselves in an evening of music, and take that journey like we did back in the day where [like you hear on] Frampton Comes Alive and an Aerosmith bootleg, all these amazing bands put on these incredible performances, and people were just there, they were present.
We didn’t have cell phones and all that stuff. You retained it all. You got the feeling that it lifted you and you took those memories home and stored them forever. That’s the kind of tour we wanted to create. And so I named [this tour] “The Rise of Rock” because I feel like rock is on the rise. I feel like we’re done with this pop stuff. It had a great run.
Yes, it’s still there, but even pop artists are bringing guitar and drums into their songs now because rock ‘n’ roll is cyclical. It’s never gonna die. And we’re having a resurgence and I want to capitalize on that, and I wanna bring these young generations back into what concerts were like.
So, yeah, [Dorothy’s] incredible, the lineup is incredible. It’s gonna be a night of hits and great music. So again, I’m just gonna say to people, “Get in your seat, man, because you’re gonna really miss some special moments if you’re not there.”
