Shinedown’s Zach Myers Goes Off the Record: The Golf Cart Bandit Is Loose
'Off the Record' is a video series where we ask artists questions about anything with one exception: No questions about music. This is your chance to peer behind the music and into the daily lives these artists lead outside of their profession. Topics range from good eats (last meals, ice cream) to mischief (dumbest thing done in the name of fun, getting sent to the principal's office) to getting real (biggest fear, worst injury).
In this edition of Loudwire's Off the Record, we caught up with Shinedown's Zach Myers at the famous Shawshank Redemption prison during the INKCARCERATION festival, which proved to be a fitting setting after some of the things Myers revealed to us.
His choices for fictional hero and villain offer some insight, with Myers stating, "I'm gonna go with Iron Man, because I wish I could have the ego of Tony Stark, but also be able to do the things of Iron Man." Speaking on which villain he'd most like to be, he explained with a laugh, "I'd be Michael Myers for sure because I like that faceless, you don't have to explain anything. Deep down I think I have that dark side inside of me and this my friends is what ends up on Dateline years later. They're gonna find this footage. Here I am."
Though Myers says he's never been arrested, that doesn't mean he might not have run afoul of the law. "I have never had the feel of real handcuffs on me actually. I one time actually set the back of a funeral home on fire and I never got caught. I hope there's a statute of limitations on this. Not the funeral home and there were no bodies or graves or anything. It was just in the back where they would eventually probably put graves, but me and my older brother were lighting fireworks and there was a funeral home behind the apartment we lived in as kids and it was on the news that night, but I am a bandit and you can't find me anyway."
Myers' knack for mischief has carried over to adulthood, with the guitarist sharing, "Oh, I steal golf carts every night. I have a huge set of master keys, so unless you have a custom built golf cart, I can steal your shit and there's really nothing you can do about it. I've broken into about nine waterparks on this album cycle alone."
The Shinedown musician was particularly thrilled to visit the Ohio State Reformatory, which was the primary set for one of his favorite movies, Shawshank Redemption, and also shared with us his desires for a "final meal." He explains, "I would do something super southern, like catfish, black eyed peas, okra and cornbread. Then on the other side, there's a restaurant in my town called Nagasaki, like a Japanese hibachi style restaurant, and it is probably my favorite restaurant of all time and I would have Harold, our main chef there, come in and cook me my last meal."
It's not all mayhem for Myers though. Watch the video above as the guitarist reveals his biggest fear, what got him sent to the principal's office, the worst injury he's ever suffered and what would be his choice if he could only have one type of ice cream. Dig in with Shinedown's Zach Myers on this edition of Off the Record and catch up with Shinedown on tour at these stops.
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